Faith Formation: Micah - Justice, Kindness, humility

Woe is me! For I have become like one who, after the summer fruit has been gathered, after the vintage has been gleaned, finds no cluster to eat; there is no first ripe fig for which I hunger. The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Micah 7:1-4

"Woe is me!" "What misery is mine!" (NIV) "How I sorrow!" (James May) "What a sorry plight I'm in." (Leslie Allen) The voice of the prophet returned. This was not so much what God said, "A word of the LORD," but Micah's last breath of exasperation about the depths to which society had fallen. "Woe is me!" was often a funeral or death lament. It was the deepest expression of loss, despair, helplessness, hopelessness, and confusion. Micah may have expressed all this from disappointment that the warnings he gave, the judgment of God, and the instruction of "do justice ... love kindness ... walk humbly with your God" was ignored and changed nothing.

Micah continued with a metaphor of the poor who looked to glean the fields after the harvest. At harvest the land owner was obliged to not to maximize the yield for the owners benefit and profit. "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:9-10. Micah's despair was like that of a hungry person or family coming to a field in hope of sustenance only to find that the owner had forgotten them in his lust for profit. Leviticus went on to connect this to theft, fraud, render injustice and indifference to "the blood of your neighbor." The problem did not originate with the reality of poverty or immigrants (the alien) in need. The problem originated with a breakdown from the top. Micah's lament was about a breakdown of society in the public sphere and he laid the blame on those who were most able and expected to act in a favorable manner towards their neighbor in need.

"The faithful have disappeared from the land." Micah's wordplay implied that "the faithful" ("the hasid" in Hebrew) had forgotten loving kindness (hesed, in Hebrew.) No one was left who was "upright," who remembered their responsibilities to the way of God and the plight of the poor. "I've got mine, so long suckers." "What's in it for me, who cares what's in it for you." To Micah it amounted to "fiddling while Rome burned," taking care of one's own desires while society crumbled.

"... they lie in wait for blood and they hunt each other with nets." It's graphic language so typical of Micah. Isaiah came to the same conclusion. In the Song of the Vineyard God did everything to guide Israel in the way that served people and provided a pleasant and peaceful world, but got little or no response in relation to those most capable of serving. "For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, ... he expected justice but saw bloodshed; righteousness but heard a cry." Isaiah 5:1-7 Nets were used to snare unsuspecting birds. The poor did not expect the faithful and upright to be treated as such. Psalm 141, a prayer for preservation from evil ends with the same imagery. "Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I alone escape."

Or recalling the sin of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the lament is that rather than learn good, "Their hands are skilled to do evil." In a world that God created good and very good the only thing one can learn from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, "What is evil?" Micah lamented that those who are responsible for the good; the faithful and upright, the officials and judges, the powerful and the best of them, have applied themselves to themselves alone and this is evil. They have taken bribes, perhaps not openly, but as gifts or favors done between friends. They have proclaimed edicts in their favor to which no one could object because they could dictate their desires. Leslie translates "the powerful" as , "As for the bigwig, he has only to say what he wants and they wangle it." They perverted justice rather than seek impartiality. Even "the best of them" is a thorn in the flesh of the people. The prophets were suspicious of the powerful. They did not trust them to have the best interests of the people in mind. They saw that the ones who presented themselves as faithful, upright and the best of the people, were simply in it for themselves.

The last line was a warning that the chaos they worked against the poor would result in a confusion that would swallow them up. The powerful often protest most vehemently, "What did we do? We did nothing wrong?" Such is the confusion, the dishonesty the unwillingness to repent or confess. When the Babylonian siege ended and the exile began, it was the elite of society who were carried away. Conquerors knew that those who had power were the ones most likely to cause trouble again. The remnant, the poor, were often left because they were already powerless and defeated.

It was not just society, the public sphere that had failed, fallen apart. The private sphere of the family also became untrustworthy.

Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk humbly with God.

Pastor Tim Bauer