The Minor Writing Prophets IV: Micah – a court recorder
February 5, 2012
BMC- Micah
Introduction: Court Cases
I want to begin this morning by inviting you to recall some famous or unusual court cases that you have heard about. When you think of court cases what do you think of? Perhaps it is something historical or something from a famous movie or book. What comes to mind for you when you think “court cases”? {Take some answers}
We began our Bible Study on Thursday night with this question as well. That list included cases against famous people like OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson, historical cases like the Scopes Monkey Trial and Salem Witch Trials, as well as Biblical cases like Solomon deciding the real mother of the baby and Jesus before Pilate. Court cases are a prominent fixture in our American culture. They are a reality that many people personally experience in one way or another and they are a regular part of prime time TV on a number of networks.
I’m no where near a legal scholar. In fact legalese could probably be considered a foreign language to me. But in high school, I was a part of our school’s Mock Trial team. Each year, a mock case would be developed around a key legal issue and sent out to each of the teams. It included testimonies of the mock incident that was being tried.
Each team then took the case and prepared to go to trial against another school’s team. The cases were tried by a panel of real judges. The lawyers of each team would try to argue their case and other members of the teams would play the parts of the witnesses. This was where I contributed. I played a witness.
One year, I served as a police officer who was testifying to what I had witnessed. Based on the deposition that I was given to study, I was to reply to my lawyer’s line of questioning that the man who knocked over the young woman was bigger than I am. The man was not present so given that we had a very petite young woman playing that part, my size alone supported our argument. Each year, it was a live action game of strategy that also served to teach us a little bit about the courtroom world.
That was a made up courtroom exercise, but there is also the world of real live court drama. Did you hear the one about the 48 year old man who has adopted his 42 year old girl friend as his daughter? At first hearing, this sounds like the opening line to a joke but it’s no joke. It is a real case in Florida that I just heard about this week. I don’t believe it has actually gone to trial, so of course he is innocent until proven guilty; but as I understand it, it involves a very wealthy man in a wrongful death lawsuit.
It seems that this 48 year old man was involved in a drunk driving car accident in which a 23 year old man was killed. It was 1:00 am when the 48 year old was driving a convertible Bentley which t-boned the 23 year old’s Hyundai. The 48 year old walked away from the scene of the accident and waited some 54 minutes to call it in.
This is especially significant given the fact that the coroner’s report states that the young man did not die from the crash. Rather, he drowned in the upside down car. Additionally, it turns out that the wealthy man’s blood alcohol level was 0.177, more than twice the legal limit. Because of all this, the 48 year old is being taken to court. And it is because of the upcoming court case that he legally adopted his 42 year old girl friend. He’s trying to shelter his fortune.
By making his girl friend his daughter, she is immediately entitled to 1/3 of his money with the other 2/3 going to his two biological children. As odd and disturbing as this all seems, so far it appears that this move is perfectly legal. What’s more is that it seems that he can’t be charged with incest of his adopted daughter who is also his girlfriend either because under Florida law that charge requires being close blood relatives, which they are not. [1]
Who was Micah?
Well as disturbing or intriguing as all this may be, you may be wondering what this all has to do with Micah. After all, Micah was a prophet in Judah in the late 700’s BC. He wasn’t a lawyer. He came from the town of Moresheth which was overrun by the Assyrians in response to Hezekiah’s revolt in 701 BC.[2] Micah spoke in Judah about coming destruction to Israel and Judah. He was a contemporary of Isaiah and quoted in Jeremiah 26:18.
I mention this case, because I believe from Micah’s words it is a pretty safe bet that if Micah were alive today, this is the type of thing that he would prophesy against. If the 48 year old man is indeed guilty of this crime, most of you would probably agree that his actions are disturbing, selfish and unrepentant; but I believe that they are also the type of thing that Micah spoke against.
In Micah 6:10-12, we read, “Will there be no end of your getting rich by cheating? The homes of the wicked are filled with treasures gained by dishonestly measuring out grain in short measures. And how can I tolerate all your merchants who use dishonest scales and weights? The rich among you have become wealthy through extortion and violence. Your citizens are so used to lying that their tongues can no longer tell the truth.”
Now I’m not implying that this man made his wealth through shady business practices, but it seems to me that he is trying to maintain it with shady legal maneuvers. And as I consider this, I can’t help but think of Micah’s words in 3:9, “Listen to me, you leaders of Israel! You hate justice and twist all that is right.”
And I think of 2:1-2 “How terrible it will be for you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry out any of the wicked schemes you have power to accomplish. When you want a certain piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence. No one’s family or inheritance is safe with you around.” This move to shield his fortune from the family whom he has injured, sounds like something that one comes up with while lying awake at night, doesn’t it?
At least, this is where my wondering and my imagination go when I consider Micah’s words. But I also bring up court cases in talking about Micah because of chapter 6. Here we see God making His accusations against Israel in a court like forum. God makes His case against His people before an audience of the mountains. He presents His evidence and the people are found lacking. Micah thus serves as a kind of court reporter of the case that he is witnessing played out before him. Within the broader scope of this court record, we find a number of lessons that I believe Micah has to offer us.
Lesson 1: A Desire to Learn
The first lesson that I believe that we can take from Micah comes from chapter 4 verse 2. Here we read, “Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.’
Now it seems to me that there are a couple of levels going on here. The first level is that of Micah’s own time. Micah saw the destruction that was to come, but he also saw a time in the not too distant future that the temple would be rebuilt. He saw a time in which people from all over the world would come to the temple to learn the ways of the God of Jacob.
We see hints of the partial fulfillment of this coming in the New Testament with the Ethiopian Eunuch who was traveling back from the temple and reading from Isaiah. He was unable to understand what it meant, but then Philip came along side him and helped him to understand.
Which brings us to our other level, because it seems to me that this is a vision that is not yet completely fulfilled and that we are charged with carrying out even today. Now this might seem like a big leap, and yet Philip serves as a model for us.
Chapter 4 verse 2 tells us that people are going to come looking to learn God’s ways so that they might live as God desires. What’s more is that the word of the LORD is to go out from Jerusalem.
As I read Micah’s words and consider Philip’s story with the Eunuch, it strikes me that the Temple in Jerusalem no longer stands. All that is left is the western wall. And yet we read in scripture that God still has temples here are earth. Where are they? Well we know from I Corinthians 6:19 that we are God’s temple of His Holy Spirit.
We are to be the carriers of God’s word to the world. If we extrapolate from Micah then, we should not be surprised if people come to us seeking to learn the ways of God. What’s more, I believe, is that we then need to be prepared to share of our faith.
Now you may be thinking that we live in a world that wants nothing to do with God or faith. And in many instances this is true. Yet how many times do people come to us with problems or needing advice, perhaps not evening thinking about faith in God; but in the process of asking opening doors for us to speak the truth of God into their lives? And when those opportunities come, we need to be ready to give an account for the hope that we have.
Now when I was in high school, I was by no means a model example of living out may faith; and yet I found myself at times being asked to share of my faith. When I was on the JV soccer team, we would travel to away games and play first. Then we would sit in the stands, watch the varsity play and do our homework. But as often happens, we would also end up talking about a variety of things as well.
A number of times, this turned into an “ask Dave about his faith” session. It was often very challenging because it was pretty much the rest of the team asking me about my beliefs. I often felt like I was on trial. And many times, my beliefs didn’t make sense to them and even seemed crazy for them to choose for themselves.
Yet in our modern world, our bodies are the living temples of God. We should not be surprised then if people come to us seeking to know more about God. Moreover, we should be preparing ourselves for that reality by continuing to grow deeper in our own faith and understanding of who God is. We never know what longer term impact that may have on someone’s life.
A couple of years ago out of the blue, I received a note on Facebook from a high school team mate. He shared that my witness had had an impact on his life. I never would have guessed it from my interactions with him in school, but somehow what I said or did, the way that I lived, made a lasting impact on him.
Lesson 2: God desires peace
The second lesson that I believe we can learn from Micah is that ultimately God desires peace. Now you may be thinking, Dave I read through Micah this week like you suggested; and if God really desires peace, He has a pretty strange way of showing it. And it is true that Micah is full of very violent language. Certainly there wasn’t peace in Micah’s day and we still don’t fully have peace even today.
And yet in Micah 4:3-4 we get a glimpse into God’s desire for the future, a window into God’s larger plan. He declares, “The LORD will settle international disputes. All the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. All wars will stop, and military training will come to an end. Everyone will live quietly in their own homes in peace and prosperity, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord Almighty has promised this.”
Through Micah’s prophetic imagination, we are able to see a day when God will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. We see a day in which swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. It is a day in which implements of destruction will be reformed into implements of agriculture, re-purposed from destruction to provision. Ultimately the ways that we see in this world are not the ways that God desires for us.
Receiving this glimpse now is significant because it gives us an opportunity to begin living into it in our own time and place. Certainly, unless God intervenes as this passage suggests He will, we will not see world peace in our life time. But just because we may not see it through to its fulfillment does not mean that we should not be working for it in our own ways. As Walter Bruggemann has said, there are many things in the Bible that have not been practiced, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t.
Now most of us aren’t in a position to make significant changes to the global political landscape or to make sweeping changes toward peace. But each of us lives our daily lives with a variety of interpersonal relationships. This means that each of us has the opportunity to live out God’s peace with the people that we encounter everyday.
When I was in college, I played on the soccer team with a guy named Nate. He was quite a bit shorter than I, but also much more muscular than I. Now Nate was a lot of fun to be around and was a pretty easy going guy most of the time. But I also observed that Nate had quite the temper and seemed to be carrying a bit of a chip on his shoulder, as if he had something to prove.
One day at practice, we were paired up to do a drill together. We each stood across from each other on a line with the ball in the middle. When the whistle blew, we were both to run in to get the ball and I was to try to get it back to our own side first. The one who did that won the round.
Well, Nate and I were having a pretty good time with this until my finger somehow slipped into a small hole in the back of his shirt and I accidentally ripped the hole wider. I apologized but Nate was obviously enraged by this. You could see it in his face as we reset to go again. As the whistle blew, I had to make a quick decision. Do I go in as I am supposed to and risk Nate starting a fight with me. Or do I remove myself from the situation by remaining on the line and letting him get the ball uncontested.
I chose to hold my ground, which upset him and caused the coach to get on us a bit; but I told Nate that I’d rather stand there and let him have the ball than to get into a fight with him. This seemed to snap him out of his rage and we were able to continue the drill without further incident.
Now this one instance in the midst of a college soccer practice did not ignite world peace. It didn’t even cause the soccer team to gather around and sing Kumbya together, but it did mean that Nate and I did not get into a physical fight. It meant that we maintained a good relationship and remained at peace.
Lesson 3: God’s Mercy
The third lesson that I see for us in Micah is God’s mercy for us. This comes through powerfully in Micah 7:18-20. “Where is another God like you, who pardons the sins of the survivors among his people? You cannot stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing mercy. Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean! You will show us your faithfulness and unfailing love as you promised with an oath to our ancestors Abraham and Jacob long ago.”
There will be destruction in Israel and Judah. There will be punishment against God’s people for what they have done. But there will also be mercy. There will be forgiveness. And what’s more is that Micah is the first of these prophets to point toward the coming of Jesus Christ.
In Micah 5:2 we read “But you, O Bethlehem, Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.” Matthew 2:6 quotes this verse from Micah in his birth narrative for Jesus.
And thus we see in Micah what the people of the day likely did not comprehend. We see the beginnings of the fullness of God’s mercy that comes through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, our Lord. From Micah, we learn of God’s mercy in the midst of our mistakes and the results of our sins.
I haven’t told many this, but I made it all the way through school without ever receiving a detention or suspension. That is until my senior year. Now it wasn’t that I never got into trouble, it was just that I was usually able to correct my course before it led to a more formal punishment. That was until the last semester of my senior year in high school.
We were taking our senior proficiency tests and there was a certain amount of time allotted for doing this. If you finished early, you were allowed to turn in your test and leave the room.
A number of us who finished early were on the yearbook staff. This meant that unlike most students who had homeroom in a classroom, our homeroom was in the yearbook office. Several of us were also in Mr. Kile’s AP English class.
When we finished the test early, we knew that Mr. Kile would be unable to conduct class with us that day because not everyone would finish the test early. This meant that when we finished the test we would have study hall instead. Well 4 or 5 of us decided to go back to the yearbook office to study rather than going to our AP English class to study.
I honestly don’t think that any of us realized that what we were doing was wrong, but with about 10 minutes of the period left, Mr. Kile came down to the yearbook office and pointed at each one of us individually and told us that we had detention in his classroom after school. He was clearly very angry.
We all showed up in his classroom, served our detention and apologized for what we had done. As innocent as our actions may have been, there were consequences for our choice; but there was also mercy. Mr. Kile chose to deal with this on his own by giving us a detention in his room which was typically no longer used as a punishment in high school. He could have sent us to the principle. We could have received an in school suspension. Yet within his anger and punishment, there was also grace and mercy.
In Abraham Heschel’s book, The Prophets: an Introduction, he has this to say about Micah, “Among the great insights Micah has bequeathed to us is how to accept and to bear the anger of God. The strength of acceptance comes from the awareness that we have sinned against Him and from the certainty that anger does not mean God’s abandonment of man forever. His anger passes, His faithfulness goes on forever. There is compassion in His anger; when we fall, we rise. Darkness is not dismal. When we sit in the darkness, God is our light.” (pg. 101)
Conclusion
Micah the prophet declared God’s anger and punishment that was to come to the people of God. He acted as a pseudo court recorder of the case that God had against his people. In the process, he has taught us about being ready to share of our faith, about God’s desire for peace, and about the depth of God’s mercy.
We all screw up and we all depend on God’s mercy. God offers it to everyone. He offers his mercy to me, to you, and I’m sure even to the wealthy 48 year old man who has adopted his girlfriend as his daughter. May we freely receive of God’s mercy; and as God’s modern day temples, may we be conduits of that mercy to others as well.
Amen
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