God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you,but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?~Micah 6:8
Today’s word for reflection in Lent is ‘injustice’. Where to begin? There is so much injustice around us and throughout our world that some days are just plain overwhelming. As a person of privilege, which I am and you may be as well if you are honest, we rarely feel the bone deep experience of the devastating acts of injustice. We need only read or listen to the news of any given day and our mind is filled with the pain, suffering, and inequity of injustice. For so many around our world injustice is their daily food.
Prophets of old, and prophets of this day, have never been the most popular kids in class. They are usually loud and say things we don’t want to hear, things that make us uncomfortable and shine a light on our own privilege, our own neat and tidy little lives. The prophet Micah, writing sometime in the 8th century before Christ, was no exception. And yet these three simple rules for living a good life prevail and we often repeat them today in both the Hebrew and the Christian households. “What is good and pleasing to the Holy One? Do justice…love kindness…walk humbly knowing God is by our side.”
These are three short phrases that can be not only a Lenten companion but even a practice for these 40 days in which we seek to deepen our faith life. While none of us may be able to effect the large injustices in the world, there are countless, tiny injustices that happen in the course of our every day. Can you name them? Do we have the eyes to see them?
Love kindness? I know I love it when kindness brushes my shoulder and I feel heard, valued, and of importance, when the words and actions of another seem the sweetness of life itself. And will I, will you, love kindness so much that we are willing to serve it up on a platter to each and very person and being we meet?
And then there is walking humbly. Humility, being humble, is not a value in our culture. We more easily puff our chests up and allow our fists to rise to the ready in a stature of power and self-righteousness. To walk humbly with God, I believe, allows us to see the injustice directed at others and to feel it as not only theirs but ours as well. Perhaps that is the beginning of turning injustice toward justice.
It is something to contemplate and even take steps toward in these early days of Lent. It is a long season…and we do not walk it alone.
***People have posted photos of their own reflections of ‘injustice’ on #rethinkphoto and #rethinkchurch.org.