“To Do, To Love, To Walk” based on The United Methodist Social Principle on Civil Disobedience Micah 6:1-8

For many of us, the requirements of Micah 6:8 are profoundly familiar. What God requires of us is that we to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. Justice, kindness, walking with God. To do, to love, to walk.

Micah is one of the prophets, and the prophets are the ones who call out injustice. That is, that most often they speak to the fact that God wants society to take care of everyone, and make sure the hungry have food and the unhoused are housed and the widows and orphans can access life giving resources. Debts should be forgiven, judges should be impartial, there should be no systems of oppression nor domination.

To do justice includes calling out injustice, and acting justly. Paying agreed upon amounts, finding ways to re-balance imbalance, sharing, taking responsibilities seriously. God’s dreams can’t be fulfilled unless individuals and societies DO justice.

I am so grateful that the second one is kindness and not niceness! We are to love kindness. Isn’t that a delight? Not just do kindness but also love it, notice it and be excited by it and celebrate it and embrace it. LOVE kindness. Love how it feels to be kind, love how it feels to receive kindness, love how it feels even to see kindness.

And, finally, “walk humbly with God.” Sometimes I hear this one and the energy is on the “humbly” but I think it should be on the “with God.” Remember we are not alone. Remember that God is with us, and God is powerful, and God is loving, and God is at work doing good in the world, and that we GET TO work with this God of love and also just savor God’s love in our lives.

This week I came across a piece entitled “How to Take Care of Your Mental Health Under Fascism” by Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy who I know NOTHING about other than she works in Minneapolis as a licensed therapist, but I appreciated her point that we are supposed to oscillate “between coping skills that confront what is happening and coping skills that take breaks for respite.” Every one I know is DOING this, but I – for one – did not have clarity on it is as a model for health. We do the things, whether it is ingesting the news or reading history, calling our representatives, showing up for protests, posting our views, making donations, checking on people… we do the things. Some of the are HARD, they take a lot. (And, for me, I mostly mean ingesting the news is hard.) But then we do the other things… we craft or create, we get together with friends, we play and eat, we do yoga or mediation or puzzles, or watch or read something escapist, or sing, or get exercise or simply pray.

And we go back and forth.

We confront what is happening and we feed our souls. That is, we do the important things, and we do the other important things. And within this we do all the things: we do justice and we love kindness AND we walk humbly with God and it is all in there.

The work of coping skills that confront includes so many of the things we’ve been doing. For me, it helps to connect this with the work of doing justice. And, as we know, sometimes the justice loving requires Civil Disobedience. Jesus did it, and sometimes his followers need to as well, because God’s commandment to love our neighbors take precedence over obedience to immoral authorities. And thanks be to God that our denomination names this important truth.

There are astounding stories these days of the many ways that doing justice is happening. Have you heard the stories of people in Minnesota protecting their neighbors by standing watch over schools and then the stories they tell of other people bringing them coffee, or handing them 3-d printed whistles, or just showing up to keep them company for a bit? People who are doing front line work are doing their work supported by others doing different work and together whole communities are holding strong in the face of unrelenting pressure from the domination system.

The people who do the best organizing are the ones who know the power of art and music and culture to strengthen community and commitment. Singing together matters, beauty matters, COFFEE matters. (Huh, it is almost like churches do know a thing or two about bringing people together!)

The work of coping skills that offer respite connects really well to loving kindness as far as I can tell. Loving kindness for others AND for ourselves. The inspiring stories, noticing the wonder, and of course the imperative escapism of zoning out.

I’ve been loving kindness by noticing good things. When the news troubles our souls, it can be far too easy to focus on the horrible and horrifying things around us. But when we are looking for them, we are able to see that there is an abundance of good too.

This week I’ve been noticing snow removal. This is might sound trivial, but let me explain. I now walk a 5 year old to and from school every day and it makes me very attentive to conditions of the sidewalks. In my neighborhood most people put forth a decent effort and that’s great, but usually a few houses along our route… well.. don’t and it turns out that the ease of the route is really impacted by whether or not EVERYONE has cleared the sidewalks.

This week is the first big snowstorm since we started walking and the sidewalks were in much better condition than usual. This surprised me, and I paid even better attention and found signs that neighbors were taking care of each other. Snowblower tracks flowed continually from one property to another. Rock salt color also crossed property lines. And, my personal favorite right now is the house on the corner across from the elementary school where a 5 foot high pile of plowed snow creates a barrier from exiting the sidewalk… and the people from that house broke through the mess on one side (outstanding work that) and then used their snowblower on their LAWN to create a path around the insanity snow pile to let kids get to school safely. (Please note my child climbs over this pile, but I appreciate the path nonetheless.) Collaboration, creativity, and care are visible on our city sidewalks!

The third piece of what is required of us is to walk humbly with God. That one doesn’t show up in the therapists model, probably because she wasn’t aiming her words at a spiritual community. For me though, the capacity to do justice and the attention to love kindness come out of my walking with God. God holds me and upholds me, makes space for my anger and fears and joys and delights, offers me patience and hope when I run out, and more than anything just is WITH me reminding me that I’m not alone and we’re not alone in the work we do. We’re not alone in doing justice, God is with us sanctifying and strengthening the justice we do. We’re not alone in loving kindness, God is with us sanctifying and strengthening the kindness we love.

God wants full and abundant lives for all people. That’s why we work for justice AND why we love kindness. And that’s why we stay connected to God in prayer and worship, ministry and study, in savoring quiet moments and the wonder of music and art.

We are asked to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. That is, we are called to confrontation and respite. So, in case I haven’t been clear enough yet, truly dear ones, oscillating between confrontation and respite is IMPORTANT, do both and don’t judge your needs for balance. I’m pretty confident God doesn’t judge us for needing respite. Thanks be to God. Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

 603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

 Pronouns: she/her/hers

 http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

February 1, 2026