I’ll admit right off that a great deal of what is found on Facebook is utter drivel, but when a large number of your contacts are pastor-types and other serious justice-minded people, there is also a lot of really good stuff that gets posted. It keeps me busy trying to keep up with it all.
What I’m sharing here with you today was posted last month by Teresa Hord Owens, who is our current General Minister and President of the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ. What she posted was a repeat of an original post, from 2020. The original text was by Lisa Davison, who is the Hebrew Bible Professor at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.
It’s very short. What Professor Davison said was: What does the Holy One require of us? To make justice happen; to love passionately as the Holy loves; and to be the Divine's image in the world! That’s from the Old Testament prophet Micah, chapter six, verse eight – Prof. Davison’s translation.
Most of us are probably more familiar with this verse in its sung version, written by Jim Strathdee: What does the Lord require of you? To seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. You’ve probably sung it this way for years. Certainly, anyone who is part of my church is familiar with this verse because it’s one of my favorites and one I quote and post often.
The differences in Davison’s translation are not just word changes, but substantive changes in just what it is we are being told to do. And remember, she is a Hebrew scholar – she knows what she’s talking about here when it comes to translation. She’s not just rewriting this verse for the fun of it. This is what she believes the original text says when properly translated.
The first change may be the most momentous to my thinking. Instead of seek justice, we are told to make justice happen. Big difference. We’re not to just look for justice with an unspoken sub-text that suggests if we don’t find it we can at least say we tried. No – in Davison’s translation we are told that if we can’t find it we are then to make it happen. Get out there and make it happen.
The second change instructs us to do more than to love kindness. It’s a nice short phrase, but somewhat abstract – not very concrete. We are instead instructed here in Davison’s translation, to love passionately as the Holy loves. Again we aren’t just to love in the abstract but love as passionately as God loves – and how is that? That is all-in, whole-heartedly, unconditionally, with every fiber of our being.
I’ve spoken before on the fact that “love” is a very squishy word. It can mean just about anything, depending on context – anything from I love Cheerios to I love partying with my friends to I love the smell of freshly mown grass to that feeling we get the first time we hold our newborn child.
To be told to love kindness still leaves a lot of wiggle room – but Davison removes that wiggle room and makes it clear that she, and Micah, are both talking about that all in, wholehearted, unconditional, with every fiber of your being kind of love.
And thirdly, it is not enough for us to walk humbly with God. -- we are to be the very image of the Divine in this world. I’m not sure I even know where to begin to do that. I am to be someone who, when others? see me, they are seeing God? ..... that’s a very daunting task. Apparently, however, it is a task I can do – whether it seems likely to me, or not. If I weren’t able to do it, then God would never have called me to to it. SO I have to work out just what it means to be the image of God.
Davison’s translation appears to require a whole lot more out of me than the traditional form. And then, at the very end of the original quote Davison adds: Notice that there is no "try" in there. The Holy One expects that we do these things.
I’m grateful to Rev.Terri for posting this, and then reposting it, because it is unlikely I would ever have seen it any other way. And I’m doubly grateful to Prof. Davison for writing it in the first place. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be thinking of my life in terms of this new translation for quite a while.
Sometimes we just have to look at scripture with new eyes – hear it in a new voice that spurs us the learn new things about it and about ourselves.
This is how we learn and grow. One person speaks or writes – perhaps not really expecting anyone to notice – but we do. We notice and we ponder and we pass it on and we stretch ourselves and we grow in God’s love – and then, maybe, we go out and we make justice happen in our world.
Thanks be to God.
What I’m sharing here with you today was posted last month by Teresa Hord Owens, who is our current General Minister and President of the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ. What she posted was a repeat of an original post, from 2020. The original text was by Lisa Davison, who is the Hebrew Bible Professor at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.
It’s very short. What Professor Davison said was: What does the Holy One require of us? To make justice happen; to love passionately as the Holy loves; and to be the Divine's image in the world! That’s from the Old Testament prophet Micah, chapter six, verse eight – Prof. Davison’s translation.
Most of us are probably more familiar with this verse in its sung version, written by Jim Strathdee: What does the Lord require of you? To seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. You’ve probably sung it this way for years. Certainly, anyone who is part of my church is familiar with this verse because it’s one of my favorites and one I quote and post often.
The differences in Davison’s translation are not just word changes, but substantive changes in just what it is we are being told to do. And remember, she is a Hebrew scholar – she knows what she’s talking about here when it comes to translation. She’s not just rewriting this verse for the fun of it. This is what she believes the original text says when properly translated.
The first change may be the most momentous to my thinking. Instead of seek justice, we are told to make justice happen. Big difference. We’re not to just look for justice with an unspoken sub-text that suggests if we don’t find it we can at least say we tried. No – in Davison’s translation we are told that if we can’t find it we are then to make it happen. Get out there and make it happen.
The second change instructs us to do more than to love kindness. It’s a nice short phrase, but somewhat abstract – not very concrete. We are instead instructed here in Davison’s translation, to love passionately as the Holy loves. Again we aren’t just to love in the abstract but love as passionately as God loves – and how is that? That is all-in, whole-heartedly, unconditionally, with every fiber of our being.
I’ve spoken before on the fact that “love” is a very squishy word. It can mean just about anything, depending on context – anything from I love Cheerios to I love partying with my friends to I love the smell of freshly mown grass to that feeling we get the first time we hold our newborn child.
To be told to love kindness still leaves a lot of wiggle room – but Davison removes that wiggle room and makes it clear that she, and Micah, are both talking about that all in, wholehearted, unconditional, with every fiber of your being kind of love.
And thirdly, it is not enough for us to walk humbly with God. -- we are to be the very image of the Divine in this world. I’m not sure I even know where to begin to do that. I am to be someone who, when others? see me, they are seeing God? ..... that’s a very daunting task. Apparently, however, it is a task I can do – whether it seems likely to me, or not. If I weren’t able to do it, then God would never have called me to to it. SO I have to work out just what it means to be the image of God.
Davison’s translation appears to require a whole lot more out of me than the traditional form. And then, at the very end of the original quote Davison adds: Notice that there is no "try" in there. The Holy One expects that we do these things.
I’m grateful to Rev.Terri for posting this, and then reposting it, because it is unlikely I would ever have seen it any other way. And I’m doubly grateful to Prof. Davison for writing it in the first place. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be thinking of my life in terms of this new translation for quite a while.
Sometimes we just have to look at scripture with new eyes – hear it in a new voice that spurs us the learn new things about it and about ourselves.
This is how we learn and grow. One person speaks or writes – perhaps not really expecting anyone to notice – but we do. We notice and we ponder and we pass it on and we stretch ourselves and we grow in God’s love – and then, maybe, we go out and we make justice happen in our world.
Thanks be to God.
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