We’re Going on a Quest
Micah 6:6-8
November 8, 2026
Matt Goodale
I love a good quest story. Who here loves stories about quests?
You all know by now that I’m a bit of a nerd and only a little bit obsessed with the Lord of the Rings. I love it because it’s the ultimate quest story. A group of unlikely companions band together and set out to accomplish something bigger than themselves. They’re on their way to Mt. Doom in the land of shadow to destroy the one ring of power.
They know where they’re going and why they’re going there. But they have no idea what they’ll encounter along the way, or whether they’ll actually be able to accomplish what they’ve set out to do. And that’s part of what makes the story so compelling. They need each other. They need companions who will encourage them, challenge them, and help them keep going when things get difficult.
What are some other people’s favorite quest stories?
And I was thinking this week as I was putting together this service for covenant Sunday, that our church is on a quest too. Now stick with me here—indulge my metaphor if you will.
Every quest begins with something wrong in the world. There’s some shadow or threat that needs to be dealt with to restore things back to wholeness.
As a church—as a community we believe the world can be different. We look around and we see the shadows threatening our world: corruption and brokenness, injustice and exploitation. We believe there’s a better way to live, a better way to treat each other and take care of this earth we’ve been given.
We pray for it every Sunday when we say, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Christians all across history have decided this vision is worth pursuing—that the kingdoms of this world aren’t cutting it. We need a new kind of kingdom vision.
But that raises an important question. What exactly are we supposed to be doing on this quest? How do we help this vision come true of heaven coming to earth? It’s not as cut and dry as take a ring of power to be destroyed in a volcano.
We have our unlikely band of heroes—look around the room—ready to set off on this quest together to accomplish something bigger than what we could do on our own. We have our goal in mind, our destination: make earth look more like heaven. But the problem is we might not be sure how to get there. We need a map and a compass.
The people living during the time of the prophet Micah were also looking for some directions.
The prophet Micah was writing to the southern kingdom of Judah during the 8th century BCE and he sees loads of things wrong with the kingdom. He sees wealthy people seizing the land and homes of others; he sees political and religious leaders exploiting the people they’re supposed to serve; he sees economic dishonesty, violence and people using their power to take advantage of the vulnerable.
None of that sounds familiar at all, does it?
Micah looks around a sees that they have built a society that looks very different from the society God intended.
And so he gives the people of Judah a quest: partner with God to create a society that matches God’s dream for humanity.
And Micah hands them a map—it’s a map of where they’ve been traveling…a reminder of where they’ve come from.
Micah reminds them that they were slaves in Egypt and God brought them out. They wandered through the wilderness; God provided leaders and protected them. They crossed the Jordan and entered a promised land.
What Micah is doing is reminding them that they’re not just a random collection of individuals trying to figure out how to live religious lives. They’re a people with a shared story and a special calling from God.
They’re a people who have been led out of slavery and toward freedom. They’re a people called to embody the freedom, justice and compassion that God has shown them.
Having a map reminding us of where we’ve come from helps us understand the kind of world we’re traveling to.
And this is a map we have as well. We didn’t invent the quest that we’re on. We’re all part of a much bigger story. We’re following a God who has been working throughout history to bring about a world characterized by freedom, justice, compassion and love. And we’re trying to participate in that story right here, in our own time and place.
But the questions still remains…how do we get there?…we have this vision of what our city, our nation and our world could look like…but how do we get there. It seems so out of reach.
The people in Micah’s time wondered this too. They wanted to know exactly what to do. They wondered what kind of religious offering God wanted from them? Thousands of rams? Rivers of oil? Their firstborn children? They want to make sure they’re doing enough.
But Micah says no, no, no…God doesn’t want any of that religious stuff… you already know what matters. He says God has already shown you what is good…God has already given you the coordinates to follow on your compass: Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God.
These three things are our compass. And I love the simplicity of them. Sometimes—especially if you’ve spent most of your life in church—it can be easy to get bogged down in all the “shoulds” of following God. You should go to church. You should read your Bible. You should pray. You should be certain about your faith. You should be baptized in exactly this way or you should take communion in that way.
And don’t get me wrong. Some of those things are important. But sometimes we get so caught up in all the things we’re supposed to do that we lose sight of what it’s actually all about.
That’s what Micah is getting at. You can bring all the religious offerings in the world and go through all the right motions, but if your life isn’t characterized by justice, kindness, and a humble walk with God, you’ve missed the point entirely.
Micah cuts through all the “shoulds.” He says, our quest is simple: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.
Now simple doesn’t mean easy though. There’s a reason why we’re on this quest…a quest that is thousands of years in the making: because our world still needs so much healing.
But Micah gives us the coordinates on our compass to keep us heading in the right direction.
Do justice: this is our direction. We’re moving toward a world where people are treated fairly, where the vulnerable are cared for, where everyone has the opportunity to flourish regardless of their socioeconomic status, their skin color, their sexual orientation or gender identity…a world where creation itself is valued and protected.
We won’t get there overnight. We might not even always agree on the best way to get there—but this is the direction we’re heading.
Love kindness. This is how we travel. We’re heading towards justice and kindness is how we travel there. We don’t pursue justice by treating people cruelly. We don’t sacrifice compassion in the name of accomplishing something important.
We practice mercy, generosity and steadfast love with the people we encounter along the way—even when we disagree with them, even when they frustrate us, even when we’re tempted to see them as obstacles rather than fellow travelers.
So we’re on our way towards justice, we travel with kindness, and finally, we walk humbly with God: this is how we stay oriented.
This is a posture as much as anything. As a group of travelers together on this quest, we don’t pretend that we have all the answers—as individuals or as a church. We don’t assume we’ve got the whole map figured out. But we remain attentive to God. We gather together like this to pray, to learn, to ask questions, listen and allow ourselves to be changed. We recognize that we are still growing and sometimes we need to adjust our course.
On every quest, the band of heroes is always changed along the way by what they encounter.
Our church is on a quest together—we’re not on this quest alone—we’re on it with other communities all over the city, the nation and the world.
And our church covenant is an expression of our shared commitment to this journey. It’s not a detailed map that tells us exactly what to do at every turn. We won’t always know exactly what the next step looks like and we won’t always agree about which direction to take on a particular issue. But we have a compass. We know the type of community we’re trying to become:
A community that seeks justice.
A community that loves and cares for one another and the world around us.
A community that makes space for spiritual growth and keeps walking with God, even if we aren’t sure of the answers.
Our covenant is a reminder of our quest.
And I want to make something clear: you don’t have to sign this covenant to be part of our journey. This isn’t a membership test or a requirement for belonging here. But the covenant is still important. Because when we sign it, we’re making a public commitment to one another. We’re saying that this is the kind of community we want to be. This is the direction we want to travel. And we’re going to try to hold one another accountable to that vision.
I don’t know exactly what lies ahead for us as a church. I don’t know all the twists and turns and we’ll encounter, or all the challenges we’ll face along the way.
But I do know the direction we’re heading. We’ve got a pretty good compass.
Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God.
Amen and may it be so.