Village Shepherd

In 1999, a young couple lost their baby son to cot death at the age of eighteen weeks. Their devastation and heartbreak was particularly compounded because they had lost another son to the same condition in 1991, when he was only seven weeks old.

It's difficult to imagine the pain and trauma of losing not one but two beloved children, but for this young couple the nightmare took on gigantic proportions when the young mother was arrested and sent to prison, awaiting trial. She went to court accused of the murder of both her sons and pleaded Not Guilty, but she was convicted on the evidence of an "expert" witness. Other women in similar situations had also been convicted of similar crimes on the evidence of this particular expert witness.

In 2002 the young woman received a prison sentence and the couple nearly lost custody of their last remaining child, a daughter. The young woman spent a further eighteen months in prison, totalling altogether three years in custody, until she was freed on appeal. In the meantime, the expert witness had been utterly discredited and his testimony proved to be invalid.

In prison the young woman had to cope with both verbal and physical abuse from other prisoners and the family life of the couple was inevitably completely eroded. We have no record yet of the harm done to the couple's daughter through this traumatic three years of her mother's absence, but it is likely to be considerable.

But perhaps what is even more shocking to a public who believe in the fairness and integrity of the British justice system, is that the young woman is to be denied any compensation for her wrongful arrest and imprisonment. Apparently she would have to show "serious default by a public authority" to be eligible for compensation and the state is arguing that since the expert witness was not an employee of the state, that "serious default" cannot be laid at the door of the justice system.

Life is unfair and the only way we human beings have of redressing the balance and maintaining justice is through the legal system. Legal systems of some sort have been in place with the same object of dispensing justice, in all societies since time immemorial.

In the Bible we're told how God himself has dispensed justice through his courts. In today's reading from the book of Micah, God is conducting a lawsuit against the people. God calls the natural elements of the mountains and hills as witnesses, testifying to his deeds on behalf of the people. After God recalls some of his mighty acts by which he has saved his people, he calls upon the ungrateful people to offer their defence.

Inevitably, they respond by proposing various systems of sacrifice. But God goes on to say that he isn't looking for elaborate sacrifices in order to atone for the people's sins. God wants them to act in accordance with his laws. God wants the people to turn away from their social and economic injustices, to act with justice, to be kind towards each other and to the poor and to behave with humility. It doesn't seem too much to ask.

Micah was writing at about the same time as the first Isaiah, around eight centuries before the birth of Jesus when the Southern kingdom of Judah, where Micah lived, had been overrun by the Assyrians. In true prophetic fashion, Micah brings both threats and promises to the people, concentrating mainly on threats against the upper classes, whom he saw as exploiting the poor and the weak.

To Christians, Micah is famous for his specific references to a Messiah who would be born in Bethlehem, references which Matthew highlighted. But Micah is also concerned to display a God who rules the universe, who is a God of justice and therefore of judgement, but who is also a God of supreme grace.

The Ancient Israelites to whom Micah spoke, worshipped God. They used an elaborate sacrificial system to repent of their sins and get right again with God. And they thought that was enough. Priests and prophets, judges, rulers and wealthy merchants all abused their position within society, exploiting the poor and the weak for their own ends and for their own profit, which was why Micah singled them out for his oracles of judgement. To Micah, who came from a small, obscure town fairly near Jerusalem, the big cities of Jerusalem in the South and Samaria in the North were hotbeds of iniquity and vice which needed to be radically cleansed.

Life for us today is perhaps not so dissimilar. It is only too easy for those in power to become corrupted and every year we see examples of politicians or others in high office who have fallen from grace in some way. And perhaps we too tend to see our cities as centres of depravity, while our country villages are seen as idylls of peace and tranquillity.

But this view is something of a travesty, for in the West many more of us are now in positions of some power. The majority are comparatively wealthy and compared with the countries of the South, all of us are wealthy. Therefore we are all in danger of corruption and of abusing the poor and the weak.

If we look at the world as a whole, all of us in the West could be said to live off the backs of those in poorer countries. We buy clothes that are cheap because those who produce them work in sweat shops or are not paid a living wage. We buy food from far off countries and don't concern ourselves with the rewards received by those producing the food. We rise to the challenge of a major tragedy in such countries, but after a while forget their existence.

What should we do to put this right? Sacrifice something of our own way of life? Not so, said God to the people of Micah's day. That's OK, but not enough. You must constantly work for justice for those who are poor, perhaps by raising the consciousness of your country and by electing a government which pledges to reduce international poverty.

And if we spend our lives with this programme at the forefront, we shall indeed do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.