What Is Good?

‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
He 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 6:6-8

The passage above is one of my favorites in all the Bible. Walter Bruggemann talked about it in the DVD which we saw in our adult class last week, along with this passage from Psalm 50:

‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt-offerings are continually before me.
I will not accept a bull from your house,
or goats from your folds.
For every wild animal of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the air,*
and all that moves in the field is mine.


‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all that is in it is mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,*
and pay your vows to the Most High.
Call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.’

Bruggemann said (paraphrase), "God says to us, 'You may serve me, but you may not use me. You have nothing to give me that I need.'"

Amen.