Listen, all you peoples!
Pay attention, earth, and all that fills it!
May the Lord God be a witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple.
Look! The Lord is coming out from his place;
he will go down and tread on the shrines of the earth.
Then the mountains will melt under him;
the valleys will split apart,
like wax yielding to the fire,
like waters poured down a slope.
All this is for the crime of Jacob
and the sins of the house of Israel.
Who is responsible for the crime of Jacob?
Isn’t it Samaria?
Who is responsible for the shrines of Judah?
Isn’t it Jerusalem?
As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces,
one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you.
His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.
Therefore, he will give them up
until the time when she who is in labor gives birth.
The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel.
He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
They will dwell secure,
because he will surely become great throughout the earth;
he will become one of peace.
When Assyria invades our land and treads down our fortresses,
then we will raise up against him seven shepherds and eight human princes.
With what should I approach the Lord
and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
with year-old calves?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
He has told you, human one, what is good and
what the Lord requires from you:
to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.
--Micah 1:3-5, 5:2-5a, 6:6-8 (CEB)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from the holy Trinity - Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. Amen.
Elections. How are you doing in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election? Perhaps all you want is to not hear about elections for a long, long time. Perhaps you want to say to me, “Are you serious? Haven’t we had enough election stuff to last us for a good, long while? Just be done with it."
And I get that. But, with my son, both of us being political nerds, we've have spent the last several days reading and sharing back and forth nearly everything we can get about why people voted the way they did.
The exit polls are interesting. As accurate as polls can be. They give us some sense of where voters are. For example, 38% of voters thought the Democratic party was too extreme. And, lest you become arrogant, 39% of voters thought the Republic party was also too extreme.
Then there are voter’s priorities and attitudes. According to a recent poll, about 45% of voters who supported a top GOP House candidate called inflation their number 1 issue from a list of 5. Fifteen percent chose immigration and fewer than that picked any other issue as their top priority. But among voters who backed the Democratic candidate, about 43% called abortion their top issue, with 18% picking inflation and fewer than 15% picking any other issue.
Overall, roughly a third of voters cited inflation as their reason for voting. A third of voters cited the stripping away of a key right for women. And a third of voters cited fear for the future of our democracy as their key issues. As reasons for voting.
Yet, regardless of the issues, or the partisanship, or the way people voted, elections are always a referendum on leadership. On how well leaders are or aren’t doing what they were elected to do. You could say that elections are an indictment of our leadership.
So, too, with the book of Micah, which is at the center of our worship today. It is a referendum on leadership. An indictment by God spoken through the prophet Micah directed toward the leaders of Israel.
So, who is Micah? Well, to begin with, we call him one of the minor prophets. Do you know who some of the other minor prophets are? Well, to make it easier, let’s think of who the major prophets would be. Prophets like Isaiah. Or Jeremiah. Or Ezekiel.
Then, who might be a minor prophet? Think Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. Micah! And there are a few more, a dozen to be exact. We categorize the prophetic books in scripture as either major or minor, not because of how good or skilled the prophet was. But, simply, by the volume of writings we have by them. Isaiah, for example, consists of 66 chapters. By contrast, Obadiah has one chapter, divided into 21 verses.
Micah was a prophet from the southern kingdom of Judah. If you recall, under King Solomon, the nation of Israel had split in two. The northern kingdom, which had retained the name Israel, built its capital in the city of Samaria. The southern kingdom, now known as Judah, kept its capital city, Jerusalem. Each of the two nations were ruled by a series of kings until, in 720 BCE, Israel, the northern kingdom, was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire. It now had Jerusalem in its sights. Micah, over his lifetime, was a witness to all of this. And, seeing the handwriting on the wall, directed his messages primarily toward Jerusalem. A wake-up call for her leaders.
That’s what we hear in the first three chapters of this prophetic book. A critique of those leaders who, in reality, do not know justice, who hate the good and love the evil. It's a troubling indictment from Micah who uses very visual imagery to enhance his critique about how they have been preying upon the powerless: torn flesh, protruding bone, broken bone, and human flesh cut and boiling in a cauldron.
But, are all the leaders corrupt? That’s the nagging question in this first part of Micah, which looks carefully at everyone--rulers, priests, and prophets alike. In so many other prophetic writings, we hear about the external forces that are bearing down on the two kingdoms. But, here we are warned about the internal forces that destroy a nation: the internal longing for power that comes from within those who have authority and positions of leadership in the community. Over and over the critique is that they - all of the leaders - can be bought for a price. And that when their priorities are about gaining power and riches for themselves and not justice for the community they serve, they destroy the people who depend upon them. As if they are ripping off the skin of their people, breaking their bones, and chopping them up like meat for soup.
Don’t they see this, these leaders? According to the prophet that’s what’s most terrifying - that the lure of power and the abuse of that power is so seductive and so deceptive that they are not even aware that they have become entrapped by it. These prophetic words of Micah in these first three chapters have us fully convinced that there is no hope for this corrupt community. That its destruction is inevitable.
But, "as for you," the fifth chapter begins. But, "as for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah." This is the hope we find in these words of the Prophet Micah. In these words about tiny Bethlehem. This small village from which will come great things. This town of David. From which will come the fulfillment of God's covenant with David, the promise that his kingly reign, his line, will never end. “From you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, will come a ruler whose origin is from old, from ancient days.”
Into the midst of political turmoil and upheaval of Micah’s time we hear words that speak to the longing we all have, a longing for ourselves and for the communities in which we live. A longing for security and for peace. Peace and security that often comes from the most insignificant, small and surprising places. 
But, then, what do you want from us, God? That’s the question Micah sets out to answer in these closing words of his book - those words we know so well that we might even have them hanging on our walls at home. He begins chapter 6 by asking this question in two parts.
First, how should we then approach and bow down before God? How should we make sacrifice - or in our language, how should we worship God? Should we bring a year-old calf? Or perhaps greater sacrifice - an extraordinarily generous one - thousands of rams, torrents of oil? Perhaps that is not enough, what about our firstborn children? Is that enough to please God? What, God? What do you want from us?
It's here that Micah reminds the people - and us - of all that God has done. The wondrous act of deliverance as Israel was led out of bondage. The wondrous victory given to us through that king out of Bethlehem - our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “Don’t you know the story?” God asks them. And us. “Haven’t you heard about my saving acts? Don't you yet know how to be my people?”
Your extravagant gifts. Your gilded and excessive worship. Not what God wants. And not that worship is a bad thing. Empty worship is a bad thing. Worship that does not lead to the transformation of our hearts - that doesn’t lead us to act. What God wants is deceptively simple. One. Two. Three.
Do justice. Preserve the rights of everyone in the community.
Embrace faithful love. Love in God’s timeless and unconditional way.
Walk humbly with God. Be aware of your need for God, who journeys with us as a partner throughout each of our lives.
Three simple things.
Is this possible, we might wonder? Is it possible to be that committed, that inclusive, that loving? It becomes clear to us that God doesn’t want what we own. God wants who we are. Or, at the very least, God wants the world to see whose we are.
Simple. But, oh, so difficult. Only possible with the help of God.
May it be so, God. May it be so. Amen.
Preached November 13, 2022, at Grace & Glory, Prospect, with Third, Louisville.
23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Micah 1:3-5; 5:2-5a; 6:6-8
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