WEEK OF PRAYER Pray with Mennonite Brethren across Canada
2016 uring the mid-1980s, I spent two summers doing camp work. One of my highlights was chapel. Camper participation would move from half-hearted, tentative singing to full-on, lung-busting expression. Week after week, campers’ favourite song was from Micah 6:8:
He has showed you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. At the time, I can’t say we thought about what we were belting out. Years later, I live much more aware of God’s call on his people to give voice to Micah 6:8 in thought, word and deed. In a world filled with injustice, where the rights of one trump what is best for all, Micah 6:8 is a call to rise above the human condition because of who God our Father is. The 2016 week of prayer is focused on crying out for Micah 6:8 to become
our reality personally and corporately, locally and globally.
the people of God, to bring the reality of God’s kingdom in this world.
Micah calls for justice. Not systemic justice but personal justice: willingness to “do the next right thing” day in and day out; choosing right over comfort or political correctness. It is the counteraction to allowing evil to prosper in our silence when we allow fear to consume our thinking and define our actions.
This begins with our own walk with Christ. Have you dealt with your personal sin? Have you given your life to Jesus as your Saviour, healer, redeemer? We cannot fully engage in the ethics of Jesus until we come to the cross of Christ. It is as we deal with our sin and brokenness through Christ’s atoning work and the power of the resurrection that we become agents of the kingdom life to which Jesus calls us. It is out of personal awareness of God initiating justice and mercy on our behalf that we can become his “Micah” agents.
He calls us to “love mercy.” A simple definition of mercy is “not getting what we deserve” – and not handing out what, in our minds, others deserve. Finally, Micah reminds his audience to walk with God in humility. Scholar W.J. Dumbrell says “walk humbly” is more accurately rendered “be careful to live the way your God wants you to.” Today, the world is crying out for the justice of God even though we struggle to understand what that is. We need to repent of silence in the face of injustice, of judgment where mercy was called for and of pride where humility was hoped for. God tasks us,
1310 TAYLOR AVENUE, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA R3M 3Z6
At the beginning of a new year, join Mennonite Brethren across Canada on a week of prayer, guided by daily reflections on Micah 6:1–8 from members of the board of faith and life.
P: (888) 669-6575 | (204) 669-6575
Willy Reimer, executive director
mennonitebrethren.ca