I was watching a short video the other day in which a Christian was publicly debating an atheist in about objective morality.  What is objective morality?  Objective morality is the idea that right and wrong exist; that right and wrong are not a matter of opinion.  To contend that objective morality exists means that we, as a human society, can agree that some actions are good, and some are inherently bad. The atheist, a well-mannered college student contended that objective morality does not exist.  We cannot say that any behavior is right or wrong.  He even contended that the holocaust, the killing of millions of people by the Nazis in World War 2, could not be said to be either wrong, bad, good, or right.  The rightness or wrongness of the holocaust was a matter of opinion.  This student did not believe that objective morality, the idea that some human behaviors are necessarily wrong, and other behaviors necessarily right, even existed.  Every behavior is just a matter of personal preference.  I would like to believe this student was alone in his beliefs, but I do not think that is the case.

In many ways, humanity has never been able to decide for itself what is objectively, meaning obviously wrong and obviously right.  Take for example what may have been the simplest of all times with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Here, the couple was made in the image of God, having God as part of their nature and that God told the couple that to eat of the fruit from the tree of good and evil was bad and wrong.  This means that human morality, knowing what is right and wrong, came from God.  We would then call this transcendent morality, meaning morality, the idea of what is right or wrong, was given to us by God, through being made in His image and being instructed by His Word.

But we know the story.  The first couple would come to want more than was necessary for humanity. They had the choice to choose between right and wrong and they chose wrong, by eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  One 17th Christian theologian (Balthasar Hübmaier) said that rather than acquiring the knowledge of good and evil by eating the forbidden fruit, the couple became like a horse or a mule in which there is no understanding of good and evil.  This lack of understanding allowed a plethora of sins to become possible.  The first couple, and we, no longer had the simple choice between right and wrong. Their choices, our choices, suddenly became choosing between wrong, and wrong, and wrong, and right.  With sin, humanity’s opportunities to make poor choices multiplied and with each set of wrong choices, our sense of inner peace, harmony, and tranquility diminished.  Anxiousness and strife entered God’s creation and humanity recalled less and less the transcendent morality of goodness and peace of God’s original creation and the image of God within us became more deformed.

Yet despite all of that, God’s plan was and is still the same.  God would provide us, re-equip us, with transcendent morality through His Word. God shared with a chosen group of people, the Hebrew people, the Ten Commandments and lead their judges, priests, and kings to understand and teach the Hebrew people what was right and what was wrong.  The Hebrews, God desired, would set the tone for all the other nations.  Yet, over and again, the Hebrew people slowly walked away from God’s transcendent morality and did whatever they wanted to do. 

Our Scripture reading today is from one of God’s prophets, a man named Micah.  Micah lived from about 750 to 698 BC.  He came from the city of Gath, located to the east of Jerusalem. The Old Testament book bearing Micah’s name is a powerful indictment of Israel and the Samaritans for having left the transcendent morality of God.

Micah prophesied, “2 Hear, you peoples, all of you, listen, earth and all who live in it, that the Sovereign Lord may bear witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple” (Micah 1:2).  “1 Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds!  At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.  2 They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them.  They defraud people of their homes, they rob them of their inheritance” (Micah 2:2). “11 Israel’s leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money” (Micah 3:11).  Israel had become corrupt.  The leaders were taking advantage of their positions of power, judges ruled by who brought the bigger bribe, priests taught but only if they were paid the right price, and prophets of God had become fortune tellers.  Israel no longer believed in transcendent morality, that is morality from God.  Instead, Israel had become a nation in which everyone determined for themselves what was right, what was wrong, what was fair, and what was moral.  God said that Israel would be refined by fire.  Samaria would be destroyed and never established again as its own nation.  Israel would be laid waste until such time as God would allow the Israelites to return and start again.

God’s contempt for Israel reached a high point in Chapter 6 wherein Micah described God calling Israel into a courtroom to charge Israel.  The jurors in the courtroom are the mountains and hills of God’s creation with God serving as the complainant.  We read earlier, “1 Listen to what the Lord says: “Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. [Micah the prosecutor now speaks] 2 “Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth.  For the Lord has a case against his people; he [God] is lodging a charge against Israel.  [God’s charge is now read].  3 “My people, what have I done to you?  How have I burdened you? Answer me.  4 I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery.  I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.  5 My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered.  Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”  God in his charge against Israel was recounting his faithfulness and his provision of the Hebrew people.  God wanted to know when did He fail the people of Israel that they in turn would fail to keep God’s way?  God wanted to know when did God so burden them that they would leave the company of God and go on their own?  Did the people feel burden when God rescued them from Egypt?  Did God overstep and become offensive when He appointed gifted leaders to guide the people?  When exactly was God so offensive and so burdensome that the people felt the only recourse they had was to walk away from God and His ways?

The people had nothing to say in their defense.  Instead, Micah gave a series of possible Israelite responses to God’s charges and questions, with each response being more ridiculous than the prior one.  Micah wrote, “6 With what shall I [Israel] come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:6-7).  The response was not to acknowledge wrongdoing but an offer of progressively greater ritual sacrifices to include the deeply disturbing suggestion of child sacrifice.  The responses are rejected because Micah says to these foolish people that God had already furnished the answer of what He desired.

Somewhat famously, Micah wrote, “8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 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).  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God form the heart of transcendent morality.  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God are not universal behaviors that everyone would agree are universally good.  But these are behaviors that are to mark the people of God as good.

Today, I would like to look at that first mark of the people of God and that is to act justly. We will talk about the other two marks, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God, over the next two weeks.

What did Micah mean when he said God had already shown humanity that God’s desire is that His people would act justly?  The Hebrew word used for justly is mispat, which has a variety of meanings but here means God or man acting with justice and rightness or righteousness.  It should be no surprise to us then that mispat, the capacity to act with justice and righteousness comes from God and is to reflected in the image of God through His people.  In today’s culture, there is a great temptation by many to hear the word “justice” and automatically assume that Micah is speaking as the original social justice warrior, or social justice organization, or political party championing any cause that it claims to be making right a wrong.  There is also a great temptation to equate justice to caring for the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned, and the ill.  To act justly certainly includes those things.  But exactly does Micah mean to act justly or act with justice or rightness?

Micah used that term mispat, three other times.  First, in Micah 3:1, “3 Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel. Should you not embrace justice?”  Justice means those in authority are to act with neutral judgment, offering no favoritism to the wealthy over the poor, men over women, or one tribe over another.  Second, in Micah 3:8, “8 But as for me [Micah], I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin.”  Justice means that those who align themselves with God, who are filled with the Spirit of the Lord, can clearly discern, can rightly decide, matters because their motives are pure.  Finally, in Micah 3:9, “9 Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right.”  Justice again means an uncorrupted application of the laws and standards of human behavior. 

What then is the justice that Micah is speaking of when he wrote, “Act justly or do justice.”  The justice that Micah refers to cannot be a mindset or behavior that is practiced as a human ideal so how separate from God, the giver of transcendent morality.  To act justly is to reappropriate an unmarred image of God and act with discernment and right motives not for any cause or political issue or segment of society no matter how noble the effort may be.  To act well on behalf of a cause, say homelessness, does not mean that person is acting justly.  It means that a person has acted with kindness toward another but still may well be in other circumstances and with other people quite miserable and self-centered. To act justly or do justice then involves the transformation of a person giving them a desire to imitate God in all human dealings, at the dinner table with family, dealing with a neighbor, and addressing a serious human condition.  The purpose of transformed life expressing just behavior is not to correct a wrong or even prevent a wrong from occurring.  The purpose of just behavior is to let God shine.  It is to express outwardly the behavior of God, and it must begin with those who are called God’s children and then extend from that community to the broader world.  Whenever God shines wrong and corrupt behavior withers and disappears.

Jesus spoke about acting justly or doing justice frequently with perhaps no greater record than is found in the Gospel of Matthew.  In the sermon on the mount, an address to his disciples and followers, Jesus said, “14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).  Jesus was saying that those who act justly are light, a bright light, that shines where there is no light.  But the light does not shine for its own sake.  It shines and gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, Jesus said shine for others through your good deeds for the benefit of everyone in the house, not for your own sake but so that everyone will praise God.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explained justice must be founded in submission to God.  Jesus said, blessed are those poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are pure in heart, who are peacemakers for they will be called children of God, inheritors of the earth, and the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3-9).  This is the beginning point of justice.  Justice starts with an uncorrupted life.  It is a justice that is uncorrupted by the status of others or the desire to obtain favor for the way we behave.  It is a justice that reflects the outward working of the Holy Spirit that is within.  It is not loud.  It is not proud.  It does, however, let God shine in all things.  I believe that is the simple message of Micah’s first point of acting justly.  We are to imitate God, imitate Christ, Follow the Holy Spirit, not just for needs that are obvious but by being uncorrupted and continuously acting justly with everyone in the house in everything we do, no matter the urgency or need for justice. This week, let’s take in the Holy Spirit of God and act justly in all that we say and do.  Amen and Amen.