There are two or three very well-known passages in the minor prophet Micah: swords into plowshares in 4:3; the promise of the Shepherd from Bethlehem in 5:2, and the simple statement of what God requires, justice, mercy and love of God in 6:8. But the rest of the book is pretty foggy in most Christian minds, including this pastor’s. So I’m going to preach through Micah as summer ends and on into the fall.
Our text this week 1:1-7 opens with Micah’s very simple statement of his reception of the “word of the Lord” and then God’s judgment, mostly on Samaria but also on Judah and Jerusalem.
The first vision of God coming “smoking hot” into the world, with mountains melting and valleys splitting is a healthy reminder of God’s transcendence. That He is not just our buddy or a cosy piece of our own interior life. He is the Creator of the world and stands outside it in righteousness as both its Savior and Judge.
Samaria and Jerusalem are judged as “high places,” sites where the worship of false gods, of idols, takes place. That’s metaphor for Jerusalem but points to a real failure of the people to worship the true God even while doing the formal acts of proper sacrifice and liturgy in the temple. The problem is a trust in money and power vested in those capital cities, rather than in God. That’s idolatry.
We can take from this dire text a call to examine our lives for own idols and misplaced trust. Publicly and corporately, money and power are still tempting idols, something that will be more and more visible as an election year gears up. Individually it is always good spiritual discipline to clean out the closets of our souls and be rid of anything that demands our devotion above our commitment to Christ our Lord.