Faith Formation: Justice, Kindness, humility

Woe to those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance. Therefore thus says the LORD: Now, I am devising against this family an evil from which you cannot remove necks, and you shall not walk arrogantly, for it will be an evil time. On that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and wail with bitter lamentation and say, "We are utterly ruined; the LORD alters the inheritance of my people; how he removes it from me! Among my captors he parcels out our fields." Therefore you will have no one in the LORD's assembly to allot you a piece of land. Micah 2:1-5

The Bible story that aligns with Micah's pronouncement of woe comes from 1 Kings 21, the story of Ahab and Naboth's vineyard. Naboth had a vineyard that Ahab coveted. Ahab asked for the vineyard because he wanted to turn it into a vegetable garden. Israel was identified with vineyard imagery, hence the exchange of vineyard to vegetable garden amounted to a degradation of Israel. Naboth refused because the vineyard was ancestral land which could never be permanently lost to the family, lest the family lose its place in the land. "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land." Leviticus 25:23-24 In the year of Jubilee all land and property reverted to the family to which is was allotted. The right of land inheritance figured prominently in the story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz too. Naboth told King Ahab, "I will not give you my ancestral inheritance." Ahab's response was to go and pout at home, in bed. "He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat." Ahab's wife Jezebel joined him and devised a plan to get the vineyard by deceit. At a dinner Naboth, seated at the head table, was accused of cursing God and the king. Subsequently, he was taken outside the city and stoned to death. "As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it." 1 Kings 21

The problem of the rich and powerful conniving to possess the land or goods of others was not isolated or uncommon. Micah spoke to the elite of Jerusalem or possibly to their representatives sent out to govern and control the villages of the land to the benefit of the elite, rather than in defense of those Micah called "my people." "Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one, and you are left alone in the midst of the land! The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing: Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful homes, without inhabitant." Isaiah 5:8-9 "Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes. For they flatter themselves in their own eyes that their iniquity cannot be found out and hated. ... They plot mischief on their beds; they are set on the way that is not good; they do not reject evil." Psalm 36 "Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and lounge on their couches and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp ... but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!" Amos 6 How to gain possession of land, commerce, and people for their own pleasure keeps the powerful and wealthy up at night. What ought to keep them up at night is concern for the vulnerable and the people of the land whose lives are tenuous and day to day.

Micah said, "They won't get away with it." God has also devised a plan against their wicked deeds. The issue of exploitation and greed has never gone away. Powerful people, powerful nations, have always looked to the resources and land of the vulnerable and poor in order to acquire or profit from it, regardless of the people to whom it belongs. Seldom, it seems, do they suffer the consequences of their wickedness until the people revolt and rebel or show up on the doorsteps of wealthy nations seeking the better life that has been extracted from them.

Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk humbly with God.

Pastor Tim Bauer