1. Just do it!
Restoring justice to a damaged world
7 February 2010
Micah 6:6-8 
Following the January summer break, this Sunday marks the beginning of a new year of work and witness. I want to begin a series theme which resonates in the deepest sense with our Wesley Mission ‘Word and Deed’ mission.
I am bound to say that for many within the Christian community the theme of justice is either ignored or, alternatively, used as a kind of political rhetoric which is unrelated to the good news proclaimed in 'word and sacrament'. Making the link between the two is so important.
I address this theme at a time when to fail to be concerned about justice will be costly for the future of the world. Justice takes us much further than compassion alone - but justice without compassion is to miss the vital Christian contribution. There is much talk about love and justice. People need to be loved and to have relationships that last. Taking this further, people wish to be treated fairly and engage in transactions which reflect this fairness.
The cultures in which Christians have traditionally flourished were deeply influenced by Christian notions. You certainly cannot make that assumption today. People in the public context in which we do our theology … and in the social context in which we carry out our mission of care and compassion are unconvinced about the underlying values which give shape to our work.
We must not give up the challenge of apologetics and maintaining our Christian perspective. The boundary between the religious and the secular is far from easy to discern and complicates the interaction between Christian thought and social justice.
I turn to the Old Testament and to the Book of Micah, a neglected gem amongst the Minor Prophets. It is a biblical book that is brutally frank in its denunciation of evil and injustice. Its uncompromising and hard-hitting language also speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem. The words are not just a peep into the future of Israel, but help each succeeding community to apply the prophet's words into our own wider contexts.
Our text contains what could be regarded as one of the noblest definitions of religion:
"And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
And to walk humbly with your God."
(Micah 6:8)
As with the highest Old Testament thought, we must place alongside it the picture of God's grace which we have received in Jesus Christ. In lectionaries, this passage is invariably read with the Beatitudes of Jesus and the encouragement is to recount the righteous living expected of people who trust and obey God.
The overall theme of the coming eight addresses has one basic truth underpinning it - that our world is damaged and in need of restoration. I am sure many of us have listened to the late great Satchmo singing 'What a wonderful world' and felt moved as he mopped his brow and stirred our hearts to think better of the world. However, it is not as straightforward as that … if we take seriously the events which occur in the world:
- The traumatic scenes that are before us in Haiti ...
- The constant reminders of the horror of terrorism ...
- The reality of poverty which demonstrates our inequalities ... this is not fixed with simple platitudes.
The world is fractured, imbalanced and fallen from its best possibilities. We know all too clearly that one of our toughest issues is reacting to and finding solutions to the problems of intergenerational poverty and resisting the attitude to social needs which ‘lumps together’ all those in difficulties and does nothing … save to restrict and stigmatise people. If we start from the assumption that the world is broken and does need restoring, then we are more likely to find the ‘Jesus way’ makes sense.
The passage grows out of a reaction by the prophet to the formal religious practices of his day and how they are much less important than proper living. This is not to suggest that Micah is a social reformer who is merely critical of religious practice. He is a person of deep religious faith who ‘walked humbly before God’. So as I begin this modest contribution towards understanding how we can live our lives in faith - and also in relationship with a damaged world - I want to use three aspects of what such faith will look like ... And call for us to 'Just do it!'
This faith will be ...
PERSONAL in the form of our relationship with God
The people to whom Micah prophesied were deeply religious. In a magnificent Temple, there were colourful and well-attended services. Special days were set apart and there was a sense of call to be faithful to God. Micah was, however, very concerned that in this time of high religious sensitivity many saw merely taking part as sufficient in itself ... And he was disturbed by the fact that many appeared religious but were ungodly outside their religious practice.
This is not new ... It has been reflected in the history of humanity:
- Slavery was endorsed by religious people.
- Wars are supported by folks on both sides saying prayers.
- The development of religious thought forms which justify non-engagement lest ‘we be tainted’ by the social slurry of human need.
Micah, in this positive and comprehensive definition of true religion, picks up three great aspects of prophetic thought ... Amos' emphasis on Justice (Amos 5:24), Hosea's concern for mercy (Hosea 6:6) and Isaiah's plea for humility (Isaiah 2:11 and 6:1-8).
John Newton wrote the great hymn ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’. At the time, he was sitting in the sunshine on a ship’s deck … while in the hatches below slaves were groaning in anguish, shackled and being taken to be sold in something akin to a ‘hellhole’ in London or America. We might call Newton a hypocrite, but he wasn’t … he was wrong, but morally asleep. Our call in Christ is to rouse a generation to life. Hypocrisy is when you are awake – and you do nothing!
- Micah was a down-to-earth prophet
Some of the prophets were what you might call the aristocracy. Certainly Isaiah was polished, moved in royal circles and was familiar with the requirements of living in such a place ... Micah was much more of a commoner.
His relationship with God was not superficial and touched every part of his being. His living faith and walk with God flows from an intimate fellowship with God. Micah must never become merely an icon for social condemnation. The love of God burned in his heart and his concern for people was paramount. This is part of our tradition and Wesley Mission is always an agency and a church which has its roots in the down-to-earth.
- Micah was a sensitive prophet
Micah has been described as 'a rough man of the countryside, a prophet of the humble'. His own background would make him sensitive to the poor and the oppressed. God has used endless numbers of men and women who have come from ordinary contexts, with unspectacular pedigrees …. and, because of this, often lacking much of that 'it's who you know' attitude. But that has not stopped huge strides being achieved.
Even a cursory glance at the gospels shows that it could be this aspect which made ordinary people listen to Jesus:
- A gospel that begins within an unknown young couple.
- A gospel that is crystalised in stories of everyday life.
- A gospel that is brought to a climax in the rejection and suffering depicted in the cross.
- A gospel that continues as he moves amongst us again.
This sensitive prophet was alert to the corruption which existed in the capital in which he speaks. His sensitivity meant he compared the luxury and the hidden vices of some people to the burdens that others had to carry.
He got down to people’s level. I love the little account of Tommy who was fearful of big dogs. One day when he started to move away from an Alsatian, his mother told him not to be so timid. ‘You’d be afraid too if you were as low down as I am.’ Micah understood people’s fears!
INTERPERSONAL in the outworking of our relationships
The justice and mercy Micah spoke about had its context in human relationships. Just as John Wesley rejected the concept of 'solitary religion', Micah, together with many of the other prophets, called people to recognise that God calls us into 'community'.
There are many expressions of religion today that are essentially personal. Even in large churches and religious gatherings it is possible to see faith as the nurturing of ‘my God space' … and not to discover the deep reality of a walk together. This privatisation of religion has left us struggling to be a prophetic community:
- We buy into religion if we like it.
- We duck out of church if it doesn’t suit.
- We disengage with human need as a matter choice.
Consider Micah … he was a native of a small community, Moresheth, about thirty-two kilometres west of Jerusalem. It was on the edge of a maritime plain between the Judean hills and the sea. It was well-watered and fertile and had grain fields and olive groves, but the reality was that many grew up in economic distress. He would never forget this and his social understanding informed his view of the world. Love for God is inseparable from love for those in need amongst our neighbours.
- We are in this life together
Success in life must never leave us without the need of others. Micah could have viewed his prophetic life as a way of subtly cutting ties with the past. There are countless examples of how folks do well in life and forget their roots. This attitude can create a kind of personal and isolationist perception of life. Such a view can make us feel immune from the need to engage with justice and mercy.
The latest available figures tell us that pet ownership in Australia is per capita the highest in the world - fine, but we spend on pets more than we do on foreign aid. We recognise that average total donations to charitable causes are close to $500 per person … but let’s not get smug, because we also spend per person double that amount on gambling! Together we must encourage a more joined up way of caring for our community and using our resources to improve the common good.
- God's supreme appeal is always to 'us'
Whilst it is true that our text is personal, its consequences are altogether about others ... two aspects talk about relationship with the wider community and a third refers to our walk with God. It is one of the reasons why we embrace our 'Word and Deed' mission at Wesley Mission in relationship to the wider community. We don’t need persuading that the issues of our city, state and commonwealth are ours to wrestle with.
We have as a Mission restated our commitment to a broad-based agency of care, preventing us from becoming narrowly focused. In fact we have witnessed new areas of concern and in future years, with an ageing community our young lucky country had not planned for, we shall need to grasp new ways of dealing with emerging issues which require compassion and understanding.
Our Prime Minister has recently talked about the future of an older community. In all honesty, these issues are not new and the writing has been on the proverbial wall for many years … and we will be in the vanguard of responding to some of these emerging community needs.
POLITICAL in a dynamic concern for those who hurt because of injustice
Micah's world was in turmoil. He lived in a region of small villages, which were remote from the capitals of regions who dominated the scene ... His villages also had to bear the brunt of the attacks of potential invaders. In the prophecy, we read about the way he denounced those who exploited the poor.
Let me explain my use of the word 'political' which I want to liberate from the party tussles of left and right:
Our Christian grasp on politics is not merely locked into a party system, though some choose that option. I reckon politics is far too important to be left to politicians! Our concern flows from our willingness to speak up for the poorest, the most damaged and those marginalised in our community. We remember Karl Barth's call for Christians to take the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. A look at the biblical teaching on poverty, possessions and justice combined with an analysis of contemporary poverty and its systematic causes must be part of what it means to be faithful today.
- Micah condemned exploitation
As we have noted, the economic conditions in the small communities was a cause of distress. Debt-ridden farmers were forced to re-mortgage their farms to the rich of Samaria and Jerusalem and, not surprisingly, many were finally dispossessed of their land. This led to a culture of tenant farming with oppression by absentee landlords (Micah 2:2). This story has a strong affinity with the economic environment that has brought its own downfall for many in the world today.
Who would speak up for the poor? There are times when we have to be prepared to respond to the question, 'Who will speak?'
Every week our free newspapers across a city like ours contain details of houses for sale that only a tiny minority could ever contemplate owning. Our media bombard us with the latest ‘must have’ kitchens and bathrooms and so on … To restore justice, we must continue to speak for those who have little and whose issue is not what kind of home, but do I have a home!
- Micah was not ultimately despairing
The prevailing ungodliness disturbed his spiritual sensitivities and the tragic deterioration in community meant cruel moneylenders kept folks in bondage. But this was not the final story. Micah dreamt of the day when a Messiah would bring hope and joy out of despair and from the same Judean hills a Saviour would be raised up ... out of the most unlikely of places - the village of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
Christian concern for justice is based upon a profound respect for human life and relationships created in the image of God. To understand this justice means living the kingdom as Jesus taught it. That is far more than paternalistic charity ... It is the new way Jesus came to bring.
This is why, as we begin a new year at Wesley Mission, we continue to look to the future and our on-going responsibility for the homeless, for young people without families and for older people who are facing the future in fear and with a lack of support. We are there not as a sentimental response to need, but because God calls us to:
- act justly
- love mercy
- and to walk humbly before God.
Justice in the Bible comes primarily as a way in which we live. It is not a philosophy or a battle cry … and cannot be separated from the faith of a people.
Mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation are at the heart of the divine justice which Christians believe they experience as a model for human justice. The theme is superbly articulated in Portia’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Portia, a woman disguised as a man, brings the generous, merciful, healing and Christian understanding of justice characteristic of Belmont into the mechanical and impersonal justice of Venice. She argues that God’s justice is enriched with mercy and forgiveness and that in this way true justice can be established:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
So we begin a new year and we do so with confidence. This is not confidence in our own ability – or in the power of what we do – but confidence that what we offer and what we are about has never been more needed.
Daniel Erlander is an American Lutheran and he has published a number of small books – and, in one delightful offering called Manna and Mercy, he lists the kinds of people who encounter Jesus, and the way he related to them. Let me conclude with his words:
“Lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners, poor people, discarded ones, blind people, debtors, outcasts, children, women, men, elderly people, sick people, Gentiles, Samaritans, Jews, demon-possessed people, outsiders, heretics, pharisees, lawyers, and even rich people and big deals were … invited, included, affirmed, loved, touched, liberated, held, embraced, healed, cleansed, given dignity, fed, forgiven, made whole, called, reborn, given hope, received, honoured … and freed.”
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