What does God actually want from us?
That is one of the oldest questions in the world.
People have always imagined that if they could just do enough—offer enough, give enough, achieve enough—God would finally be pleased.
That is exactly the question Micah asks today.
“With what shall I come before the Lord?”
Should I bring burnt offerings?
Thousands of rams?
Rivers of oil?
Should I give something more?
Something bigger?
Something costly?
Surely then God will be satisfied.
But God’s answer is wonderfully simple.
“He has told you, O man, what is good.”
God is not asking for spectacular displays.
He is asking for faithful lives.
“To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
That is true religion.
The people of Israel had begun to think that religion was about ceremonies while forgetting conversion.
They still offered sacrifices.
They still observed feasts.
But their hearts were far from God.
They wanted worship without obedience.
Religion without holiness.
Micah reminds them that God cannot be bribed.
He desires hearts that belong to Him.
Jesus faces exactly the same problem in today’s Gospel.
The scribes and Pharisees say:
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
At first that sounds reasonable.
Who would not want proof?
But Jesus knows their hearts.
This is not an honest search for truth.
It is another excuse not to believe.
He has already healed the sick.
Given sight to the blind.
Driven out demons.
Fed the hungry.
Yet they still ask for another sign.
The problem is not a lack of evidence.
The problem is a lack of willingness.
Someone who refuses today’s light will not believe tomorrow’s miracle.
That can happen today as well.
People sometimes say:
“If God would just prove Himself, then I would believe.”
Yet often it is not evidence they lack.
It is openness.
Because believing in Christ means more than accepting a fact.
It means changing your life.
And that is much harder.
Jesus says:
“No sign will be given… except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Jonah spent three days in the belly of the great fish before being restored to life.
It points directly to Christ.
Three days in the tomb.
Then the Resurrection.
That is the greatest sign God has ever given.
The empty tomb.
If someone will not believe that, no other sign will ever be enough.
Jesus then makes two remarkable comparisons.
The people of Nineveh repented when Jonah preached to them.
The Queen of the South travelled a great distance simply to hear Solomon’s wisdom.
Yet, Jesus says:
“Something greater than Jonah is here.”
“Something greater than Solomon is here.”
Not just a prophet.
Not just a wise king.
God Himself has come among His people.
Yet many refuse to listen.
That should make us examine ourselves.
We have far more than the people of Nineveh ever had.
We have the whole Gospel.
We have the teaching of the Church.
We have the sacraments.
We have the Eucharist.
Every Sunday, Christ Himself comes to us.
The question is not whether God is speaking.
The question is whether we are listening.
St Apollinaris understood that.
As the first Bishop of Ravenna, he preached Christ in a hostile world.
He suffered persecution, exile, and violence because he refused to stop proclaiming the Gospel.
He did not ask for signs.
He became a sign.
His courage pointed others to Christ.
His faithfulness proclaimed that Jesus is worth suffering for.
Perhaps that is what the world needs most today.
Not Christians demanding signs.
But Christians becoming signs.
Signs of hope.
Signs of charity.
Signs of forgiveness.
Signs of truth.
Lives so transformed by Christ that people cannot help but ask what has changed.
Micah tells us what God asks.
Jesus tells us where to find the answer.
Not in spectacular miracles.
Not in endless demands for proof.
But in Him.
The One greater than Jonah.
The One greater than Solomon.
The One who died.
The One who rose again.
The One who gives Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist.
So today let us stop asking God to prove His love.
He already has.
On the Cross.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 