June 27, 2021 Prophets – Micah Micah 3

             A lot gets lost every time you translate something.  In the case of Micah we lose his playfulness.  Even as Micah is delivering deadly serious warnings of about the very existence of the nation he uses creative word plays.  We didn’t include Chapter 1 as one of our lessons but that’s where many of them are.  There he lists a number of cities: Gath, Bethleaphrah, Shaphir, Zaana, Bethezel and more.  Each city name has a meaning.  For example Gath means “Tell-town”.  Bethleaphrah means “dust town.”  Our NRSV translations give the town names but ignore their meaning.  If we also translate the town names in Chapter 1 we find this message:

In Tell-town, tell it not.

In Weep-town, weep not.

In Dust-town, roll in dust.

Pass by thou inhabitants of Fair-town in nakedness and shame.

The citizen of March-town marched not forth.

The mourning of Neighbor-town removes its support from you.

The inhabitant of Bitter-town is in travail about good.

            I could go on but you get the point.  Micah is a creative writer.  All of these towns are near where he lived.

            We don’t know much about Micah.  He is certainly a creative writer but we don’t know the extent of his education.  He was a member of the laboring class from a small rural area south Jerusalem.  Micah was not a professional prophet, like Isaiah, an aristocrat, who was also active at that time. And, as a non-aristocratic prophet we find he has a different message.  I wonder a bit if some of Micah’s creativity was to add weight to his words.  He wasn’t, after all, from an educated classy area.  Perhaps it would be like someone from Lyons coming to Victor and listing what’s wrong with the school district.  He or she would be received with something like, “Who do you think you are coming from Lyons thinking you have anything of value to say to Victor?”  My apologies to all from the Victor or Lyons schools, but you get the point!  If someone from a “lower” ranked school district came with a critique, you’d be willing to listen, but he or she would have to do something to show some credibility.

            Aristocratic prophets like Isaiah give the message to the nation’s religious and political leaders that what they have to do is stay true to what is called the Davidic Covenant.  That is that God will take care of the nation forever because God has promised that a king in the bloodline of David will always exist.  Words from these prophets were that they should not make political or military alliances with neighboring nations that had different gods.  Instead, since God promised eternal protection they should rely solely on that, and that was a sign of true faithfulness.

            Prophets like Micah however say this is false security.  They say that righteousness must lie at a deeper level; at the level of the heart, especially the heart of the leaders.  Hear again the words from Micah 3 that we had as our first reading.

            “Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong!  Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, ‘Surely the Lord is with us!  No harm shall come upon us.’ Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.”

You can clearly hear Micah’s disdain for the attitudes of the leaders.  He may even have the prophet Isaiah in mind as he said these words!

Throughout Micah we find the message that technical faithfulness won’t cut it.  Making use of the letter of the law but ignoring the spirit behind the law isn’t what God intended.  Being faithful to God is not about living a set of procedures of righteousness; as if God made humans automatons.  God made us real flesh and blood creatures that are immensely sophisticated.  And immensely capable of both good and bad. 

We’re going to come back to that in a minute, but I want to make an aside about something we see all the way into the New Testament.  Many of the Old Testament prophets fit into one of two schools of thought.  One school of thought is what is called the Davidic covenant.  Those prophets say that is God’s key promise and the everlasting covenant with people.  The other school of thought is what is called the Mosaic covenant.  These prophets say it is authentic adherence to the laws from Moses that is the key.  We’re going to explore that in a lot more depth when we get to Isaiah and Jeremiah, but here’s something important to note.

In the New Testament the gospel writers make it a big point to show that Jesus fulfills both of these covenants.  Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s gospel both show how Jesus is a legitimate descendant of David.  He is born in Bethlehem, the same as David.  And even though he never becomes a literal king, the whole king of the Jews theme shows up everywhere in the gospels.

The gospels also show Jesus follows the Mosaic covenant.  Over and over again Jesus is depicted as being an obedient and observant Jew.  Where he is caught in exceptions he always has a good and loving reason why.  Like Micah, Jesus proclaims that technical following of the law, without having your heart in it, isn’t what God intended.  And so, Jesus fills the requirements of both schools of thought among the prophets.

But back to Micah.  We find that Micah’s message is very similar to that of Amos.  You’ll remember that Amos said that just because it’s technically legal doesn’t make it right.  Amos taught that fairness, decency, and equality needed to come before technical adherence of the law.  In other words, even if it was acceptable according to the letter of the law, you had to look at whether it really was appropriate.  Was it really right and just?

When we looked at Amos I reminded us of the way we tend to remove ourselves from the ugliness of the world.  “Out of sight, out of mind.”  But that just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean we don’t contribute to it.

And there is more.  I hardly consider myself a wealthy man.  You just don’t pay me enough!  Even so, I know I am among the richest two percent of people in this world.  That has huge advantages.  For many people the pandemic has been economically devastating.  Not for me, and I don’t just mean that you’ve continued my salary.  I don’t check my retirement savings often, but when I have my eyes have popped.  I checked my retirement account in preparation for this sermon.  It shows that since the pandemic began I’ve enjoyed a 32.62% rate of return on my investments.  32.62%!!!  I have not lifted a finger for that growth.  Not one finger, not one bit of effort.  Yet I have a third more money in the account that a year ago.  My investments are neither risky nor conservative.  They’re pretty middle of the road.  And I know there is likely to be some significant corrections.  I will probably see some huge losses down the road.  Still though, it is entirely legal; and by all our standards, entirely ethical.  Yet at the end of the day lots of people in this world have gotten a lot poorer while I’ve done nothing and gotten richer.  This is the kind of stuff prophets like Micah and Amos call out as unfair.  This is the kind of the leaders in Jerusalem were enjoying; and even worse, saying it is God’s blessings to them… saying they truly deserved it!  Micah says to think again.

Just because everything looks and feels good in life doesn’t make it right or fair.  Just because you see legitimate growth in your business or investments doesn’t mean they’re actually good or blessed by God.

Right now I’m not legally allowed to touch or make any redistributions of my retirement investments.  They are locked in.  When I reach the age that I can I’ll see what I do.  I really don’t like effortlessly profiting so much while so many others in the world have lost.  I can imagine God asking me on Judgment Day, “So, Jonathan, how did you fare during that pandemic?  Did you really deserve and earn all that came to you?”  Right now I’d have to answer no.

Micah calls for honesty of heart.  True faith.  True work.  True fairness.  True justice.  It is to come from the heart; come from deep deep inside ourselves.  True integrity and love is what God wishes to see.  May God bring it about in all of us so that we may live it.