Pastor Tom Johnson, January 29, 2023
The prophet Micah experiences a transformation of his religion. He asks himself what religious duty he shall perform: “Does God want me to sacrifice a 1000 rams and pour out ten thousands of rivers of oil before his holy altar?” Will it make God happy if we empty our life savings and cash out our retirement and put it all in the offering plate? God has made it clear what he wants. He wants us to “do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.” That is what is wrong with the world: there is a scarcity of justice. There is a deficit of kindness. There is an extreme shortage of humility.
Every day we are called to take sides. Political parties will tell you to send them your money and your votes for their just causes. 24 hour news networks take that call for justice, amplify it, and strike our hearts with fear if we do not get onboard. Religious leaders will tell you also what is most at stake today. From both the left and the right they say, “If you do not march with us for this just cause, you are against us.” As individuals we can become obsessed with any number of just causes. But what does God require of us? Protests for justice? Votes for justice? Arguments for justice? Taking up arms for justice? No, to do justice. To be agents of justice. To perform acts of justice—to “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
In the 1880s, a young New Yorker named Emma Lazarus read in horror about Jewish refugees fleeing Russia. She did not politicize her thirst for justice and righteousness. She went to the refugee camps to be a friend and advocate to these shivering souls—the forsaken, the poor, the hungry. She wrote essays, articles, and poems to try to calm Americans’ fear of the many refugees coming at that time. So impactful were her words they are now attributed to the Stature of Lady Liberty and the hospitality of a nation:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Do justice. Love kindness. It’s bad out there in the world: the lack of kindness on social media, the lack of kindness on our expressways, the lack of kindness toward those who think, look, or speak differently. We want congress to legislate kindness. We want our leaders to preach kindness. Kindness is a rich Hebrew word sometimes translated as “steadfast love” or hyphenated as “loving-kindness.” Kindness is not something we only give to those we think deserve it. God requires of us to love kindness—to cherish, nurture, and cultivate kindness—to make a pact with kindness—to be merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers.
After the last battle of the Civil War in the United States, Confederate General Robert E. Lee went to meet Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee and Grant remembered each other when they were both students at West Point. When Lee said he and his Confederate troops were surrendering, he said that they had run out of food long before and were starving. Grant and his Union soldiers each split their rations with these once enemy Confederate soldiers. Did those who wanted to kill them just hours before deserve such kindness? Historians credit the kindness of Grant and the Union soldiers with beginning the process of healing, forgiveness, and a much less likely second Civil War. Their kindness toward their once enemies likely changed the course of history.
Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. We take popularity polls. We think the number of likes prove how right we are. We measure our worth by how much applause, how much credit we receive, and how right we are. We call each other names. We feel better about ourselves when we put others down. We fail to see ourselves the way we truly are—the way God sees us. We are both broken and beautiful in his eyes. We are both flawed and wonderfully made. Each of us is God’s work in progress—ever being molded by the Potter’s hands.
In 1910 an Albanian girl was born named Teresa Bojaxhiu [bɔjaˈdʒiu]. Though Albania is a mostly Muslim country, she was from a Christian family. She became a nun at an early age and heard about the “untouchables” in India. She saw firsthand how the sick from the lowest caste were abandoned to die alone. She felt God’s call to serve these discarded souls in Calcutta, India. She cared for the sick and dying—most of whom were not Christian. She believed they bore the image of God, deserved human dignity, and had Christ’s unconditional love. When she converted a closed Hindu temple into a home for the dying she got the attention of Indian officials. This is likely the only reason many of us know who Mother Teresa of Calcutta is. Because of her love of Christ and other people, she was perfectly content to spend the rest of her life humbly, in meekness, and anonymously changing bandages, cleaning out bedpans, praying, and loving—doing so in the mighty name of Jesus—the One who first does justice when he conquered our sin, the world’s evil, and death itself. —the One who loves kindness when he forgives us for we do not know what we are doing. —the One who walks humbly to the Cross for the life of the World.
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