Bigger than the Super Bowl
Like millions of other Americans, I watched the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. It was a grand spectacle, to be sure, and football was only part of the almost four hour show. Far more time was spent watching commercials than football. Live football action comprised only about 13 minutes of the television extravaganza! Advertisers paid over 8 million dollars for a thirty-second commercial. Not only did advertisers have money to burn, but the fans were also flush with dough. Prices for tickets to the game started at around $5,000 and went up from there. And, of course, it was a sell-out.
As I sat in my den watching the commercials/ game, I couldn’t help but think of the contrast between the party-like atmosphere of the Super Bowl and the dour messages of the 8th century prophets. In a head-to-head ratings competition, the prophets would lose hands down.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. Festival and celebratory events are valued and needed for a culture to be healthy. From time to time, we need to let off steam, relax, and enjoy ourselves, but I fear that our culture spends far more energy and money on amusements than we do looking out for our neighbor. Is it possible that we have become addicted to entertainment and have lost our spiritual vision about what concerns God?
I get that the prophetic messages are rather pessimistic and gloomy. Perhaps that is why so few people read the prophets. Their words of judgement and condemnation can wear pretty thin after a while. Who wants to hear the same old sermon about how everything is going to hell in a handbasket over and over again? Wouldn’t just one of these doomsday prophets have been enough to get their point across?
Many years ago, our church staff invited a consultant to talk with our leadership about how to better communicate with our congregation. We had discovered that our membership felt uninformed about much of what was happening in the church, so the staff asked a well-known communication expert to help us get up to speed. The consultant told us that not only do churches have communication problems but businesses do as well. He opened our eyes by telling us that professional promoters have learned that information must be shared with consumers a dozen or more times before it sinks in.
No wonder we weren’t communicating! We had naively thought that by just making an announcement on Sunday morning and again in our weekly newsletter our congregation would be sufficiently informed. Our consultant explained that we must remind our people over and over again about events that were taking place within the church body.
Maybe that’s why God dispatched so many prophets with similar messages of warning! He knew that his people wouldn’t get it the first time, or even the second, so he sent prophet after prophet to remind the people of their responsibilities as God’s elect people.
Micah is another such prophet who sees dark times ahead for his people because they have put their selfish wants over their neighbor’s needs. The rulers, priests, and the wealthy have become so fixated on their own personal pleasures, they have ignored the struggles of the less fortunate. Micah sees their criminal indifference to the most vulnerable among them and sounds an alarm that unless that changes, Jerusalem will be destroyed and the beautiful temple of Solomon will be reduced to rubble (Micah 3:9-12).
Micah the prophet preaching to the Israelites
“Wait,” you say, “Jerusalem will be destroyed because some needy people can’t make ends meet? You can’t be serious!” But Micah is serious, deadly serious. Micah has read God’s heart and knows that to God there are no expendable human beings. All are precious in his sight.
It should surprise no one that Micah’s prediction of ruin was either ignored or considered nonsense by the few who took time to listen to him. How could God possibly allow Jerusalem to fall and the temple to be desecrated over a few homeless people? After all, the Hebrew people firmly believed that they were God’s people, and God would never allow harm to come their way (Micah 3:11). How wrong they were! Micah would live to see the day when his people would be vassals of the pagan ruler Sennacherib, and the great city of Jerusalem would pay heavy tribute to the Assyrian empire. A century later, both Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed, just as Micah foresaw.
What happened? How did God’s people bungle their privileged position with God? The short answer is that people in Micah’s day had become so cozy in their perceived relationship with God that they had taken God’s grace for granted. Yes, God had chosen Israel out of all the families of the earth, but that election bore with it responsibility, a responsibility that had been overlooked.
Israel had somehow gotten into her head, or maybe her heart, that God’s favor excused them from being accountable, from living moral and ethical lives. They had become consumed with their own interests at the expense of the less fortunate. The rich exploited and abused the poor and thought nothing of it. Micah sees the injustices and reproaches the well-to-do because they hated the good and loved the evil (Micah 3:2).
Micah takes no joy in calling out his countrymen. Because of his understanding of what lies down the road for his people, he “will weep and wail” and “go about barefoot and naked” (Micah 1:8). The prophet was devastated that his people had turned away from God and were headed straight into catastrophe. Still, Micah would never turn away from his people. His love for his fellow citizens meant that he would stand by and suffer with them when the night of calamity fell.
Micah, however, does not end his prophecy with doom and gloom. Like all the great prophets Micah ends his message with hope. There are few more beautiful and hopeful passages in all of Scripture than Micah 4: 2-4. Micah sees a day when all the world will live in peace and harmony. The instruments of war will be converted into tools of agriculture. All the nations of the world will learn and follow the ways of God. People everywhere will know only peace, work their own lands, and live without fear. Micah teaches that God never gives up on his people.
What a day of rejoicing that will be. That’s one super celebration (without commercials) that will never end!
