Our focus this week in Crisis Counsels will be two passages that are closely connected in theme – words of the prophet Micah, and the words of Jesus:

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings… ? He has told you, O mortal, what is good. What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:6,8

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
words of Jesus in Matthew 23:23

Exactly one week ago, President Trump stood in front of a church and held up a Bible. On the face of it, this would seem to be a praiseworthy act. Preachers stand in their churches and hold Bibles all the time! Yet the president’s action met with a torrent of critique. The reason is because of what these two Scripture passages say.

Jesus, echoing Micah, delivered a sharp critique against religious show. Throughout Matthew 23, Jesus speaks of how the scribes and Pharisees loved to perform actions that brought them attention and acclaim, but neglected to actually live out God’s values. This was exactly the kind of critique that many church leaders expressed about what they called the “photo-op” in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in D.C.

But of course we cannot simply stop with a critique of the actions of others. Micah’s question comes to each one of us: “What does the Lord require of you?” As we have been brought face-to-face with the longstanding reality of racial injustice, we are each called to “do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.” As we continue this week in Crisis Counsels, we will consider in more depth what it means to live out these words in our time.

Lead us, O Lord, in these critical times, to authentically live as Your people. Click To Tweet

If you missed Sunday worship, you can join with the recorded service of either the 9:30 or 10:30 worship hours at live.kentmethodist.org

About the Author

Dr. David A. Palmer has been the senior pastor at the United Methodist Church of Kent since 1995. He has a B.A. from Wittenberg University, a Master of Divinity from Duke University, and a Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary. A native of Wooster, Ohio, he has served three other churches in east Ohio before coming to Kent. He and his wife, Mavis, have three children.