My seminary classes class verse was from Micah 6:8 “But what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.” Some translations even translate kindness as mercy. These words have become even more embodied for me in the last months as we look at all that is happening in our broken world.

One only need open up social media, turn on the radio or television or open a newspaper to see the darkness that is happening in our world. So much death and destruction. I fear for my black/brown friends who fear for their lives as they step out into this world. I worry about the safety of the good cops and their families. I worry for all of this world in all of its brokenness. I find myself uttering the words “How long, O Lord, How long?”

Last week, I got to preach on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It is a doozy of a text, but it says so much in our broken world. Who do we see and who do we not see? God calls us to see them and invite them. But too often, we seem to be blind to the marginalized.

As a daughter of a woman who lives daily with a mental illness, I have seen the ways she has been marginalized in this world…the ways people have treated her because of the stigma associated with the illness. It took me 18 years to tell our story because I saw how people treated her. It breaks my heart when I look at our world and wonder who is being left behind; who we aren’t seeing.

In the last several weeks, these words from Micah 6:8 have taken on flesh for me in new ways. When it seems that there is nothing else I can do, God calls me….calls all of us to “do justice, love kindness/mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

So as the Words become flesh,

Do justice!

Love Kindness/Mercy!

Walk Humbly!