Thoughts from your Regional Minister article
Kansas Messenger April 2023
Written by: Tom Stanley, Co-Regional Minister & President
I want to ask you a question, one I have been wrestling with, “what does God require of you?” The Prophet Micah writes these words to the people of Israel in Micah chapter 6. God is laying out God’s case against the people of Israel.
The people have sinned, they have strayed from God’s path for them, and God is calling them to account. This whole narrative speaks to me about the current situation in the life of the Church, in the life of our country and world. What does God require of us as followers of God’s Son Jesus? How are we to respond to the issues of today?
I will be speaking at the Disciples Men’s Retreat this year in September and this will be our topic. I am planning several sermons on this topic, it is more than a research topic, it is a question I feel like we MUST be asking ourselves every single day.
Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, the Johnnie Eargle Cadieux Professor of Hebrew Bible at Phillips Theological Seminary translated the words of the Prophet Micah this way:
“The LORD has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to make justice happen, and to love passionately as God does, and to remember that you are God’s image in the world.”
These words continue to speak to me, and they challenge my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in this world today. How will you live out these words? How will you make justice happen, love passionately as God does, and be God’s image in the world?
Each of these is more than a catch phrase, or bumper stickers, they are calls to action, calls to service, and calls to testify to who Jesus is to you.
Shalom,
Tom