Spiritual Hiccups - Focusing on What Matters

It is a deservedly famous line from the prophet Micah.  "And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"  What God requires is a basic religious question.  In the case of Micah, the answer rejects much of the traditional religious ritual of that day, burnt offerings and sacrifices.  That's not what God wants," says Micah.  You know what God wants, justice, kindness, a humble faith life.

The gospel reading for today also touches on this issue of what really matters.  This passage is often noted for the way it explodes conventional gender roles.  But beyond that, it raises more general questions about priorities.  Someone had to get dinner ready if Jesus and the other house guests were to eat.  I don't think Jesus or Luke is saying that domestic tasks are bad things.  This issue is one of priorities.

All our lives are filled with choices.  We have finite energy and resources.  If we work 65 hour weeks, something else suffers.  Living in Columbus, OH, I've learned of people who live 500 miles away and yet spend every weekend of a home Buckeye football game here in Columbus.  Clearly those weekends are not available for other things.

It strikes me that when the passages from Micah and Luke are considered together, they ask people of faith to consider two different sorts of priorities.  Luke addresses a more general issue of priority.  Where does our faith fit into the other priorities of our lives?  Micah, however, asks about the priorities of our faith lives.  Where does our religious energy go?  It isn't that worship is a bad thing, far from it.  But if religious rituals encompass the majority of of faith lives, what happens to those things God requires of you, "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

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