Great Expectations: Doing Right in a World of Wrongs

Micah 6:8

In the classic book Great Expectations, Charles Dickens highlights a very interesting quality that all children seem to possess. He writes, “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”

Dickens is recognizing the unique ability even a child has to know the difference between right and wrong and to possess a sharp sense of justice and fairness. As a father, I have witnessed this truth firsthand and have heard my children say, “that’s not fair” more times than I can count.

We all have experienced moments in life that compelled us to say, “That’s not fair.” And the truth is, even when we grow up, we still experience moments that lead us to question the fairness of life. When a classmate gets the highest grade in the class even though she cheated, we say, “That’s not fair.” When a co-worker gets a promotion, a raise, and public recognition—and we don’t, despite the fact that we worked just as hard or harder than that person did—we say, “That’s not fair.” When a convicted murderer dies peacefully in his prison cell from natural causes while a young innocent child dies from a rare form of cancer, we shake our heads and say, “That’s not fair.” Hardly a week goes by when we don’t look at the pain, hurt, and injustice in this world and say, “That’s not fair!”

Throughout our lives, from our childhood days to today, we have been making moral judgments about life and the events within it. And we have been able to make these moral judgments and say things like, “That’s not fair,” because, as human beings, we have a deep sense of justice and fairness woven within the fabric of our DNA.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes, “Christianity is not a religion of flitting angels and blind faith, but of free will, an innate sense of justice, and the grace of God.” According to Lewis, we all have the gift of free will; we all were born with a God-given sense of justice and fairness; and, on top of this, we all have the grace of God surrounding us, which some theologians would call prevenient grace.

In other words, we have freedom that allows us to make uncoerced choices; we were created with an internal moral compass to help us know the difference between right and wrong; and we have the grace of God empowering us to choose right over wrong.

Additionally, as people who have the Holy Spirit within us, this sense of justice is even more attuned within us.

These truths are the foundation of Micah’s message. Within this short, concise passage the right choice is offered to the obedient. Micah knows it is time for his people to make the right choice and choose God’s ways. He knows it is time for them to choose to do what the Lord requires of them. It is time for them to choose to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God!

Did you notice that Micah doesn’t tell the people to be just? He wants them to go beyond that. God, through His prophet, tells them to do justice. Doing justice means doing the right thing, and doing justice (doing the right thing) is an activity, not a state of being. Doing justice is character in action.

People who are doing justice are people of integrity who do not just wait for opportunities to come their way so they can be just in the moment and choose the right over the wrong. People who are doing justice are people who are actively looking for the wrongs in this world so they can, by the power of God, make them right.

Micah is calling his people to do justice, and he doesn’t have to explain what that looks like because he knows they know what doing justice looks like. Throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, doing justice means taking care of the poor, fighting for the oppressed, defending the helpless, and helping the needy; and it always involves embracing widows, orphans, and outcasts. Micah knows these are ways justice is done.

But he also knows that doing justice without kindness can be rigid, cold, and even harsh, so he tells his people to love kindness. Doing justice while loving kindness is doing justice in love and with a bent toward mercy.

In Micah’s world, people who do justice and love kindness do not just hand—or even toss—a loaf of bread to the hungry blind beggar on the side of the road. People who do justice and love kindness invite the hungry blind beggar in for dinner. In Micah’s world, people who do justice and love kindness do not just send money to the priests out of obligation, expecting someone else to take care of the orphans. People who do justice and love kindness adopt an orphan as one of their own and call that orphan son or daughter.

Doing justice and loving kindness go hand in hand for Micah, and doing justice and loving kindness are balanced when people “walk humbly” with God. Humility, especially humility before God, allows people to look beyond themselves and see the needs of others so they can meet the needs of others in a way that is just and kind.

This is Micah’s message to his people: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God! These are God’s expectations. These are great expectations. And these great expectations are not great just because they are high and from God, but also because great things will come to the world whenever God’s people—which includes us—live out these expectations.

Even though these requirements are thousands of years old, we are still required to follow them because we have committed our lives to Christ, who is the epitome of what it means to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk with humility.

God calls us to do justice just as Jesus did justice. We are called to take care of the people Jesus talks about in Gospel of Matthew chapter 25—the people who lack food, water, clothes, shelter, good health, and freedom. God calls us to love kindness like Jesus loved kindness. We are called to be merciful because we have been shown mercy. And God calls us to walk humbly as Jesus walked humbly. We are called, as Paul the Apostle says in Epistle to the Philippians chapter 2, to imitate the humility of Christ.

God calls us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

At this moment, millions of people in this world are in places in their lives where they can justifiably say, “That’s not fair.”

There are people desperately in need all around us, and they are waiting for people who do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with their God to come to their rescue. They are waiting for us to be the Church God has called us—no, that God has required us—to be.

This world needs us to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit and do what God requires us to do! And when we do justice, when we love kindness, and when we walk humbly with God, God’s glory and brilliance will light up this world of darkness.

When we do justice, when we love kindness, and when we walk humbly with our God, great things will happen in this world! When we do justice, when we love kindness, and when we walk humbly with our God, we will be used by God to turn this world right-side up!

What does the Lord require of you? That is Micah’s question to each one of us today!