The parents said to her, "You are a Bemba and you are our daughter. You will always be a Bemba and you will always be our daughter. But a Bemba does not cheat. We can get you help. You can take an extra year in this grade. There are many things we can do. But whatever we do, we want you to remember that you are a Bemba."

Who are you? Who am I? Beloved of God, we are people whom God loves without condition, without reserve, without fail. Earlier in chapter 6, Micah reminds the people that God did not free them from slavery because they had passed the Introduction to Freedom course. God freed them because God loved them and wanted them to be free. As a biblical scholar says, "What God requires of human beings is nothing other than what (God) has done for them."1

To do justice. That's right relationship in community. Dealing with a question similar to Micah's, Moses says that the test case of whether a person or a community is just is how we treat the orphan, the widow, the stranger, those who are legally helpless (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). You can tell a community is just when it embraces those who are most helpless.

To love kindness. The Hebrew word we translate kindness is hesed, a word which refers to closeness within community, to empathy and identification with others, to intimate and heartfelt affection. In the Bible this word sometimes describes how God relates to us: with loving kindness. Feeling our suffering. Rejoicing in our rejoicing. Someone describes it as "devotion grounded in love which goes beyond legal obligation and can be depended on to the utmost."2

To walk humbly with God. To be humble is not to abase yourself as if you should get up in the morning and look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and spend fifteen minutes telling yourself how insignificant and worthless you are. No. There are already too many people in the world whose self-esteem is crippled. To be humble is simply to acknowledge that you are a creature and not the Creator, that you are finite and not infinite, that you are human and not God.

I am humble when I recognize and accept my own limitations. Much as I want, I cannot do everything. I cannot think every great thought or preach every great sermon. I am humble when I recognize that I am not the source of all the wisdom that I need, and I turn attentively to God for guidance and direction in life.

What does God require? Justice. Kindness. Humility. I know these things do not answer every question about every situation you meet. They do not tell you simply and directly whether you should continue to invite that worrisome kid into your circle of relationships. They do not automatically tell the boss what to do about the employee who has been caught with a hand in the till. Micah does not write the sermon for the pastor who must speak to the bankrupt and the banker. But if we want to do what God requires, then in each instance we must ask, "Where does justice seem to lie here? What best expresses loving kindness? Where is the path of humility?" How do we seem best able to express who we are?