Micah 3:5-12 (NRSV)
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Verse 5Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry "Peace" when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths. Verse 6Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without revelation. The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; Verse 7the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.
Verse 8But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Verse 9Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, Verse 10who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong! Verse 11Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, "Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us." Verse 12Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
Devotion
A servant of God either serves God or they do not. The words of the prophet reverberate in my heart and soul. My fear, of course, is that the longer I have served in the church, the longer the list of my moral evasions in the name of "peace" has grown. As servants of God all of the baptized are called to seek justice for those who have none and to be a voice for those whose voice has been taken away, or chased from the public square. Micah was not the first, nor will he be the last lay person to be disappointed and angered by the partiality for the status quo that reigns among those who call themselves "church leaders." But God's spokespeople, which is you and me friends, must humbly speak for God and no-one or nothing else. Today we rededicate our lives and our callings by planting ourselves firmly in God's hands as we seek the common welfare of all of God's children.
Prayer
God in heaven make me, this day and all days, an instrument of your will and your peace. Help your church be a voice for equity and a place where divisions might find wholeness and a just peace. Amen.