Daily Reflection
of Creighton University's Online Ministries
-----
July 19th, 2010
by

Chas Kestermeier, S.J.

English Department
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Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
[395] Micah 6:1-4, 6-8
Psalm 50:5-6, 8-9, 16bc-17, 21+23
Matthew 12:38-42

We might break the passage from the prophet Micah down into three parts: God questions His people, asking what good He might have done for them that He hasn't done, and then the people answers with the question "How can we respond to the Lord appropriately?"  In a third movement God answers with the simple "you have been told what the Lord requires of you, only to do the right and to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God." 

Two things strike me about this.  I think that most of us would answer God's question with quite a list of the areas where we think that God has not loved us enough: the loss of a loved one, our current health, not getting a job --- all sorts of things.  While there is certainly some reason to feel that way, it should not be an incitement for us to doubt God as much as it is for us to consider what true love is and whether we are mistaking the idea of a pain-free life for what we think that an all-powerful God "owes" us.  His idea of love, I suspect, has little to do with that....

The other aspect of this passage that stands out to me is that Micah turns away from the sacrifices suggested in the second part, the general sort of thing prescribed by the Law, to a relationship with God which is spiritual and very personal, which demands the sacrifice of self ("walk humbly with God").  This is in itself a very solid solution to this problem of how God loves us....

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