Daily Thoughts from Micah: Civil Religion (6:9-16)

Daily Thoughts from Micah: Civil Religion

9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city— and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:  “Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!  10 Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed?  11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights?  12 Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.  13 Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins.  14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword.  15 You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.  16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”  (Micah 6:9-16)

You can think of Micah’s prophecy as a warning of judgment with a promise of redemption.  The first part of his prophecy (chapters 1-3) focuses on the warning and explanation of why Yahweh’s judgment is coming and so does the last part (chapters 6-7), but in the middle (chapters 4-5) there is the promise of redemption through Messiah.

Here in chapter 6 Micah has returned at God’s direction to pointing out the sins of Israel as an explanation for coming judgment.  In the first part of this chapter the focus is on how Israel has departed from Yahweh and His worship, and in this part of the chapter he focuses on the inevitable consequence abandoning Yahweh has on the way we mistreat each other.

We should list our own sins before God’s prophet needs to list them for us.  We should acknowledge our injustices toward others for personal gain, our hatred of some people, our untruthfulness and violence.  And we should acknowledge how our religion has contributed.  Omri and Ahab were kings in Israel, the northern kingdom, who were very much for the people following religion but it was not the religion of Yahweh, not what He proscribed for His people.  The people followed it because it gave them a sense of a god they could control and Omri and Ahab endorsed it because it helped them control the people.

There is a civil religion in America that acknowledges God when we are in trouble or even when we are feeling good about things.  Our politicians appeal to it as a way of seeming pious.  But it does not require of us anything outside of our thirst for prosperity and self-directedness.  It doesn’t call us on our real sins.  A school shooting occurs and we look for someone to blame instead of ourselves.  The stock market rebounds and we pat ourselves and God on the back.

Micah’s warning is for us.