What is Right?
Micah 6:6-8[1]
There was a time when, if asked the question, “What is right?”
most people would give a similar answer. Love God and others. Go to church.
Take care of your family. Work hard at your job. Pay your bills. Help out those
who are in need. Live by the “golden rule.” There might be variations in the
details, but the main outlines would have been the same. I don’t believe
everyone actually did those things, they just all pretty much agreed on the
“correct answer.” In part because of that contradiction between what we said
and what we did, there came a time when it seemed at all notions of “right” and
“wrong” were simply tossed out the window. There were no clear answers.
I think we have returned to a time when people will give you a definite
answer to the question, “What is right?” Unfortunately, that answer might
flagrantly contradict the answer of the person sitting right next to you. We’re
convinced that we know what’s right, but we certainly do not all agree on what
that looks like. I think part of the problem is that in the time when there
were no clear answers, “truth” was replaced with “spin.” Everybody has their
own perspective on what constitutes right and wrong. And we tend to listen to
those voices in our culture that agree with our already-made-up minds. I would
say we still have a great deal of confusion about what’s right.
Our lesson from the book of the prophet Micah for today contains
a bold assertion: God has already made clear what is right and what is wrong. I
like the way the CEV translates it: “The Lord God has told us what is right and
what he demands: ‘See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern,
and humbly obey your God’” (Mic. 6:8). “Right” is defined by justice, or seeing
that all people have an equal chance to live life the way God intends. “Right”
is defined by mercy, which is genuine compassion for others put into practice.
And “Right” is defined by obeying God. On the surface, it might seem clear.
Unfortunately, we don’t all agree on what this means when you put it in action.
It’s unfortunate, because when we debate about what practicing
justice, mercy, and obedience look like in real life, we are missing the clear
witness of Scripture. From Moses to Micah to Matthew, the witness of the Bible makes
clear that God wants our undivided loyalty, and wants us to treat one another
with kindness. When we recognize that foundational teaching of Scripture, we
discover the “truth that sets us free.” These “demands” of the Lord (as Micah
calls them) aren’t meant to restrict us, but rather to enable us to find
fulfillment in life. And we find that fulfillment when we support what is just
for all people, when we treat others with love and kindness, and when we
recognize that we are not the masters of our own fate, but rather we belong to
God.
Essentially, this verse from the book of the prophet Micah is an
eloquent summary of the truth that saturates the Bible. There are other
summaries: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5); and “you shall love your
neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). The prophet Isaiah said this: “cease to do
evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan,
plead for the widow” (Isa. 1:16-17). The Psalmist says this way of life is
demonstrated in “Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak
the truth from their heart” (Ps. 15:2). And, of course Jesus said it in the
“golden rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:12).
In all of these summaries, the same message comes through
clearly. It’s the message that we find true freedom when we surrender our will
to the will of God. It’s the message that we find what we’re looking for in
life when we give ourselves away in kindness and compassion for others, rather
than trying to take as much as we can get for ourselves. It’s the message that
the only way we can guarantee our ability to thrive in this world is if we
ensure that all people are treated justly and fairly.
Sadly, many of us would rather debate what all of this “really
means” than act upon it with the choices we make in life. This is just my
opinion, but I find the more elaborate the effort to justify one’s actions, the
farther one strays from these fundamental truths handed down to us for
generations. It’s not hard to see that many in our day prefer to take a
different path than the one laid out in Scripture: living for themselves and
their own selfish desires, treating others as a means to attain what they want
from them, placing themselves firmly on the throne of their lives. It doesn’t
seem that they care much about what the Bible clearly defines as “Right.” Many
of us much prefer to follow our own desires.
Of course, life choices are rarely clear-cut. We often struggle
to know what is right. We may work hard to justify following our own desires.
And unfortunately, many of us really don’t seem to have time to be too
concerned about others. But as I have shared before, there are some clear
benchmarks that can guide us. “What would Jesus do?” is not just a sentimental
cliché, it’s a very practical question. Another guide is that if what we are
contemplating is inconsistent with love for God and love for others, then we’re
probably headed in the wrong direction. Life’s choices are often difficult, but
we can at least make a good faith effort to follow the clear teaching of the
Bible about what is right: to treat others fairly, to practice kindness, and to
walk humbly with God.
[1]
©2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/2/2020 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
No comments:
Post a Comment