The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A, January 30, 2011, Holy Trinity Church Nashville

“What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

Gary Haugen is an attorney who founded the “International Justice Mission,” a group that works outside the U.S. with poor people who cannot afford legal representation, especially in parts of the world where the rule of law is not well established and where people’s rights are often ignored by the powerful. Haugen and the lawyers who work with him do so out of Christian conviction. They’re seeking justice for folks who are often forgotten. They’re involved in the public arena, putting their faith into action; but I was mostly interested in Haugen’s comment in an interview a couple of years ago. As he puts it, he’s not just seeking justice for others, but in the process attempting to “reenergize the social conscience of Christians in the U.S.” (The New Yorker, Jan. 19, 2009).

The prophet Micah was engaged in similar work in his own context some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ. It was a time of chaos and disruption in foreign affairs for the Kingdom of Judah; it was also a time of social division between the powerful and poor, the wealthy and the weak. God’s chosen People were threatened by the desecration of foreign invasion but also by the desecration of social division. The traditional property rights of the People were trampled upon, and judges no longer gave justice in the courts when the property of the poor was seized. Government as the instrument of justice had become corrupt, and the leaders of the People no longer enforced the Law. As Micah says at one point, they bend the unchanging rules (Mic. 3:9). Another way of putting it is that by ignoring justice they were tearing apart the social fabric of God’s People.

So in Micah’s view God convened his own court in order to make sure that justice was done. If you can’t get justice in a human court then rely upon God to hold his own! God didn’t single out some of the people for justice, but held the whole People accountable. The People of God had fallen short, and God now called the mountains and hills to testify against them. He indicted the People of Israel for all the injustice that had been done; arguments that could not be answered by the counsel for the defense. But in the end, God holds out hope for the People. Instead of a guilty verdict the court ends with this question: “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Justice is the one virtue whose practice involves benefiting others. In other words, we can’t really be just or justified on our own without considering the needs and claims of others. The ancient Greeks defined injustice as grasping more than one’s share. Again, this suggests that justice requires that we consider others and their claims. Finally, being a just person requires acting justly and establishing justice. Lip service is not enough.

For Christians, justice requires community for its fulfillment. It requires that we be community-minded. It requires our fellow human being and our regard for his or her benefit in order for justice to be done. It also requires that God’s will be done. It’s a tall order. This is why Jesus taught us to love God and to love our neighbor, for in doing so we fulfill the Law and the Prophets.

The Church is supposed to be the advance guard of this community where justice is done. As our friend Haugen at the beginning of this sermon points out, our sense of social connection to each other needs to be reinvigorated in order for justice to be done. It’s the community of faith that calls our attention to the social reality that we cannot be saved on our own without practicing the virtue of justice toward each other. Jesus himself is the living source of this community, its head and cornerstone. Those being confirmed and received today are renewing their faith within a community with a high calling.

But remember, we are not able to be just or to do justice through our own efforts. The Christian community is sustained by grace. That’s why we have faith in Christ. By Jesus’ death and resurrection he has become our justice, our “righteousness” as Paul says in our second reading (1 Cor. 1:30), and we are justified in him. What we can never do perfectly ourselves is done in us through him on the Cross. That’s good news. We are made righteous in him and are given grace so that we can do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

- The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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