Micah: Metaphors for Justice
June 9, 2013 | Anita Retzlaff
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Let us pray. Open our ears and eyes Lord so that we may see and hear, know and understand the promises that you leave to us. Strengthen us so that we may attend to the realities of this world and be agents of peace and hospitality in Your name. AMEN
The selections of Scripture from the Book of Micah that we have read so far this morning are the easy ones. Besides being the most well-known excerpts from Micah they are also the positive ones: scripture as comfort and hope. These are promising words and encouraging words with the goal of achieving the best of a relationship with God and with the world around us. So we will return to these texts of peace and promise but only after we take a careful look at the harsh words that make up the rest of these seven chapters of the book of Micah.
“The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, you peoples, all of you: listen O earth, and all that is in it; and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.” (Micah 1:1-2) These are the opening verses of the book of the prophet Micah. God is furious! Set up as if in a courtroom Micah warns that God is about to make a case against his people: prove that they have overstepped their bounds and sinned thoughtlessly and carelessly. How mad is God? Listen! “…lo, the LORD is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. Then the mountains will melt under him and the valleys will burst open like wax near the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.” (1:3-4) Last Sunday Patrick introduced the book of Jonah highlighting the irony and the humour of that prophet’s story. Today we hear the metaphor and similes of the prophet Micah. He uses word pictures and comparisons to help us see what has gone wrong among God’s people. Listen carefully for there is nothing new under the sun. God’s indictment of Israel over 2000 years ago sounds an alarm for us as well. It is as if God is saying, “Is there anything I can do or say that will make you change your mind?”
God is roused to anger by the sloppiness and laziness of his chosen ones, the people whom God rescued, harboured, nurtured and instructed for generations. They have forgotten their role in society. Their religious observances have become ossified, corrupt and scandalous. Micah demands the peoples’ attention: “Hear!” he commands! Two more times in this prophetic book Micah instructs his people to listen, to hear. They are not paying attention. They have forgotten how to behave: they have forgotten God’s ways. Just as the prophet Hosea (some weeks back) referred to Israel as a prostitute, Micah uses the same metaphor. The quotes that I am going to use throughout are from Eugene Peterson’s translation of the bible, The Message:
“I’m turning Samaria into a heap of rubble, [this is God speaking through Micah]
a vacant lot littered with garbage.
I’ll dump the stones from her buildings in the valley
and leave her abandoned foundations exposed.
All her carved and cast gods and goddesses
will be sold for stove wood and scrap metal,
All her sacred fertility groves
burned to the ground,
All the sticks and stones she worshiped as gods,
destroyed.
These were her earnings from her life as a whore,
This is what happens to the fees of a whore.”
[Now the voice of Micah] This is why I lament and mourn.
This is why I go around in rags and barefoot.
This is why I howl like a pack of coyotes,
and moan like a mournful owl in the night.
God has inflicted punishing wounds;
Judah has been wounded with no healing in sight.
Judgment has marched through the city gates.
Jerusalem must face the charge.
Micah 1: 6-9
Israel has been worshipping idols and the time has come where God has lost patience. The might of the Assyrian army is about to be unleashed upon Israel and the prophets of the Old Testament all agree that Israel will be packed off to Babylon because they have sinned.
And the charges against God’s people get pretty gruesome: this time against community leaders in particular.
Micah says: “Listen, leaders of Jacob, leaders of Israel:
Don’t you know anything of justice?
Haters of good, lovers of evil:
Isn’t justice in your job description?
But you skin my people alive,
You rip the meat off their bones,
You break up the bones, chop the meat,
and throw it in a pot for cannibal stew.”
The time’s coming, though, when these same leaders
will cry out for help to God, but he won’t listen.
He’ll turn his face the other way
because of their history of evil.
Micah 3: 1-4
It is clear that the task of leadership is the work of justice yet according to Micah’s analysis and God’s charges Israel’s leaders are cannibalizing the very people whom they are supposed to help. They are making themselves rich through the exploitation and manipulation of people who have little power.
And the preachers and the prophets get it too – the leaders of religion have become corrupt and greedy too. As Israelite society is falling apart and the day of captivity is coming closer the preachers and prophets pretend that nothing is wrong, that warnings are to be ignored.
“Don’t preach,” say the preachers.
“Don’t preach such stuff.
Nothing bad will happen to us.
Talk like this to the family of Jacob?
Does God lose his temper?
Is this the way he acts?
Isn’t he on the side of good people?
Doesn’t he help those who help themselves?”
[Micah] What do you mean, ‘good people’!
You’re the enemy of my people!
You rob unsuspecting people
out for an evening stroll.
You take their coats off their backs
like soldiers who plunder the defenseless.
You drive the women of my people
out of their ample homes.
You make victims of the children
and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice.
Get out of here, the lot of you.
You can’t take it easy here!
You’ve polluted this place,
and now you’re polluted—ruined!
If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue
and told lies from morning to night—
“I’ll preach sermons that will tell you
how you can get anything you want from God:
More money, the best wines…you name it’—
you’d hire him on the spot as your preacher!
Micah 2: 6 -11
And a word against a particular kind of prophet:
Here is God’s message to the prophets,
the preachers who lie to my people:
“For as long as they’re well paid and well fed,
the prophets preach, ‘Isn’t life wonderful! Peace to all!’
But if you don’t pay up and jump on their bandwagon,
their ‘God bless you’ turns into ‘God damn you.’
Therefore you’re going blind. You’ll see nothing.
You’ll live in deep shadows and know nothing.
Micah 3: 5-6
So much for preaching! And finally to sum up:
The leaders of Jacob and
the leaders of Israel are
Leaders contemptuous of justice,
who twist and distort right living.
Leaders who build Zion by killing people,
who expand Jerusalem by committing crimes.
Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder,
priests mass-market their teaching,
prophets preach for high fees,
All the while posturing and pretending
dependence on God:
“We’ve got God on our side.
He’ll protect us from disaster.”
Because of people like you,
Zion will be turned back into farmland,
Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble,
and instead of the Temple on the mountain,
a few scraggly scrub pines.
Micah 3: 9-12
That is a depressing description of what has become of the once faithful community. And yet, does this not describe some of the hot spots in our world and the more touchy issues of government and leadership today? Over the decades and centuries Christians have bullied other nations and religions, have provoked wars and killed millions in the name of some idol that they call God. Surely that kind of behavior is a far cry from the justice that God expects from the faithful people.
I give to you our current political situation in North America. The impoverishment of our political will has reached a point of no return. There is no way back anymore. What once was democratic statesmanship and a governing of the people has become on both sides of our border a game of nasty name-calling, programmed lack of trust and misuse of public resources. This has nothing to do with party lines; it has become the way of politics today. Major changes are needed to get our houses in order and to continue the work of justice and management and social responsibility. We have lost track of what is important. We can do better. Imagine Micah’s warnings.
Then there is the theme of water this morning, brought to our attention by MCC and Kairos. Water often becomes an issue of justice. Water is a resource that is precious, absolutely necessary for life on this planet and is in some places very scarce. Some parts of the world lack water so that widespread drought and death are all that their people live to inherit. Supplying and procuring water is essential work in all places around the globe and MCC is working on many water projects. Kairos reminds us today that the water which we tend to take for granted in Canada is a shared resource and must be protected immedieately and into the future. We do not live in isolation and must take into account our history and the will to work together in planning a sustainable future. So often in these situations we tend to forget our First Nations claims based in historic treaties and the fact that all Canadians must live as partners in solving problems around access to clean water. Justice is the work of the people of God. It is our responsibility.
Hence the word of encouragement, reminder and hope from Micah: “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8) After all of the stark images that Micah sets in front of us this is the action that will save us from meaninglessness. For this we have been created: to be active in our world, to be people of steadfast love and to live day by day oriented in the ways of God.
As the people of God went into exile, leaving all that was familiar and important to them they had in their writings the hope that Micah preached; that someday swords would be fashioned into “ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (4:3) That was their situation then and it remains the situation for many in our world today. In North America our challenges are different nevertheless we are entering into a time where the future is really hard to imagine. I want to share with you something that I read this week from the Catholic newspaper “Prairie Messenger.” In an article by Tom Ehrich “Christianity is undergoing massive transition” (May 29, 2013) he reports that there is a “relentless decline of institutional Christianity in North America.” In other words, the way forward for us Christians isn’t very clear right now and sometimes the future looks bleak. Our society has changed a lot and very quickly.
Here is Ehrich’s prophecy: “Christianity no longer controls the flow. Its ideas no longer shape cultural dialogue. Its leaders no longer command broad respect. Its buildings no longer draw people in by simply opening their doors. Churches’ stubborn clinging to Sunday worship stopped working decades ago.
I don’t see this as an attack from outside but rather a collapse from the inside. The world changed—as cultures, economies and political systems always do—and the church thought it could stand still and avoid offending pillars and pledge payers.
Meanwhile, people began finding their own pathways to God, their own languages to accessing God, their own ideas about life’s purpose, and their own forms of faith community.
Stuck with inherited facilities that they cannot afford, with traditions that no longer resonate outside the bubble, with ranks greying and pews emptying, established church leaders seem ready to consider change.
Most will change too little, and once the immediate bleeding stops, will circle the wagons once again. But some will look outward and be moved to compassion by a nation lost in dysfunction and by lives being lost to our own mega-rich barbarians.
It’s an exciting and hopeful time. Faith communities brought to their knees by changes beyond their control will land in exactly the right posture: to confess, submit, pray and serve.”
As followers of Jesus we look to the future with hope even though we don’t know exactly what lies ahead. God has proven faithful over generations even in dreadful periods of war and forgetfulness. Restoration comes after turmoil and justice after times of faithlessness. Micah calls us to attention by means of metaphor and indelicate description. His prophecy is relevant for us today and for people of faith in all times. God has created us to live what we believe. That’s a tall order sometimes but one that we are well-positioned to live out. The way of God is the way of justice and the way of peace. This is our work and our calling. Thanks be to God. AMEN
