Micah 3
The Leaders Who Should Know Better
"Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done." (Micah 3:4)
Micah turns to the leaders specifically in chapter 3 and he describes what they’ve done with the people in their care: they tear the skin from them, break their bones, chop them up like meat for the pot.
That’s intentionally graphic, it’s the language of cannibalism for the way the powerful consume the vulnerable.
Then the prophets. They cry peace when they have something to eat but declare war against anyone who doesn’t feed them. Their visions are darkness. They have no answer from God because they sold the answer for whatever the audience would pay.
Then the rulers. They build Zion with bloodshed, Jerusalem with wickedness. And they say: is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us.
That last sentence is the one that lands hardest. The confidence and the assumption that God’s name attached to a city or an institution is the same thing as God’s presence in it. The building is real, the name is real and the corruption underneath is also real.
We’ve been in organizations that had God’s name and no longer had much of God’s presence. The gap between the sign and the reality is such a painful things to witness.
