In Bible Study recently we were reading Jesus' parable of the fig tree. In that passage Jesus talks about a vineyard owner who instructs his gardener to cut down a tree that, after three years, is not meeting his expectations by bearing fruit. The gardener pleaded with him, saying that they should postpone the decision to abandon the tree for a year while he nurtured and fertilized the tree to see if it was a bad tree or if it was just lack of nourishment that kept the tree from bearing fruit.

This passage, and others like it, makes it clear that God has expectations. But in our conversation it was also evident that many of us were a little unclear just what those expectations were. It became a little hazy. We know we are supposed to love God and Love our neighbor but there was very little that was concrete beyond that.

Just what does God expect of us and how do we know. First of all if we are waiting for a personal message from God directly we will probably be disappointed. The message has already arrived, all we need to do is study it and find our where we fit in. It is not a new message. Our oldest records of God's interaction with the people of Israel state it very clearly. God called Abraham in Genesis by saying "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse' and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (NRS Genesis 12:2-3) This passage makes it clear that God blesses us in order to be a blessing to others. The intent in calling Abraham was that through him all people would come to know God and be blessed.

By Jesus' time the Children of Abraham had withdrawn into protective communities that no longer reached out to others. God had continued to try and reach them through the prophet. The Prophet Micah stated God's desires simply and elegantly. "He has told you, O mortal, what is good' and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
(NRS Micah 6:8). Unfortunately for most people it is not clear enough. Doing justice and loving kindness are simple enough to understand, even if they are really hard to do. But just what does it mean to walk with God. Most of us simply retreat to the justice and kindness that Micah calls us to, but that truly is not enough.

Walking with God means to do what God is doing and going in the direction God is going. So does this take us back to the same old dilemma? Not at all. God has given us a lot of new input since Micah's time. We have been privileged to watch God walk upon the earth and know the task he set out to accomplish. The Bible tells us that Jesus is "The reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (NRS Hebrews 1:3). Like Jesus told Phillip in John 14 "Have I been with you all this time Phillip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?". We do know where God is walking and what God is doing; Following Jesus is what Micah means by "walking humbly with our God." His mission was to reconcile the world with God our creator, to reach out to all people with the Gospel and make us one with the Father. How can we say we don't know what God expects of us when Jesus gave his life to make sure we understood clearly who he was and what he was doing.

We have the power of God with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself has called us when he said, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (NRS John 20:21). The ball is in our court. What do we want to do, with our lives and with our Church? Jesus is leading us and has fertilized our tree with his own blood. Do we want to put ourselves and our immediate desires aside and "walked humbly with our God?" If we do there are difficulties ahead just like there were for Jesus, but there is also the "Joy of the master" that waits us as well. This truly is what it means to live the Resurrection life and be a Resurrection People.

Pastor Jim Bliss