Faith Formation: Micah - Justice, Kindness, humility

Hear what the LORD says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the case of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the LORD has a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel. "Oh my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Oh my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD." Micah 6:1-5

The poem leads to Micah's signature saying, "...what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" To arrive at that conclusion Micah imagined a trial scene before a jury of the mountains and hills. Israel could state its case, though Micah did not elucidate their complaint. Micah, representing God. would state "the case of the LORD" rehearsing the ancient stories and asking a painful question. Convicted, Israel would plead for mercy and God would remind of what really matters.

The scene and setting were that of a court room and a lawsuit. Israel had a complaint against God and God made a case against Israel. Each was called to make a defense of their claim before the mountains and the hills. Significantly God was not present as judge but as defendant accused of unfaithfulness. God wrestled with the people he called, created and with whom God covenanted. God invited them to make their case, argue and even accuse. Finally, surely, God's ways are not our ways and God's, nor God's thoughts our thoughts, but God does not deny or silence the human struggle to make sense of this world and faithfulness to God and each other.

The mountains and hills made up the jury summoned to hear the case, the accusations and the defense. Creation acted as the an observant witnesses as to the affairs of the world and the relationship between God and God's people. "When you have had children and children's children and become complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; ..." Deuteronomy 4:25-26 "Hear, O heavens, and listen O earth, for the LORD has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me." Isaiah 1:2 Creation, heaven and earth, mountains and hills, could act as jury and witness to the trial because it was impartial and faithful to its place in the created order. Creation did not violate the covenant God made with it to be a place where life could thrive.

Micah did not make clear what gripe Israel had against God or what reason they had for turning to other ways than the way of God. The prophets distilled the matters to idolatry and injustice. The prophets of 1 Samuel-2 Chronicles, especially Elijah and Elisha, confronted the kings of Israel and Judah with unfaithfulness to the First Commandment. Israel was continually tempted to worship the gods of their neighbors who were worshipped in hopes of fertility, prosperity, and power. Baal the god of the storm and Ashera his consort, goddess of fertility and happiness, were the LORD's main rivals. Baal was feared, but Baal brought rain from the seas to water the land. Ashera was in the seeds and the soil which received the rains and produced prosperity and wealth. The writing prophets, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah confronted the kings and elite about matters of injustice. "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove evil deeds from before your eyes; cease to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow." Isaiah 1:16-17 Israel's complaint, based on these critiques, was perhaps that other nations prospered and were more powerful. Perhaps Israel complained that while they tried to be faithful they felt punished and oppressed by other nations who were far more wicked. God was not holding up God's end of the bargain. Rather God seemed more concerned about caring for the vulnerable and strangers who were costly, unproductive and therefore in the religious worldview of the times less blessed by the gods. Micah's critiques in the opening poems of this book were consistently about how the elite of Jerusalem were attracted to acquiring the land of the poor, seeking pleasure, and ignoring the vulnerable. Gods like Baal and Ashera appealed to them even though they professed faith in the LORD. The poor and the vulnerable were a burden they felt no responsibility to bear.

God sought to counter their claim that God had been unfaithful to them by stating the case of Israel's ongoing story.

Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk humbly with God.

Pastor Tim Bauer