March 22, 2020, Micah 3:1-3, 9-12; 6:6-8 – ISSL Reflection

I.
Let’s start our week’s reflections as usual but with one exception.

Read Micah 6:6-8 first, then read the selection form Micah 3.

II.

Micah 6:6-8 (New Revised Standard Version)

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 3:1-3 (New Revised Standard Version)

And I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!

Should you not know justice?—
you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people,[a]
and the flesh off their bones;

who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat[b] in a kettle,
like flesh in a caldron.

Micah 3:9-12 (New Revised Standard Version)

Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
and pervert all equity,

who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with wrong!

Its 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.”

Therefore 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.

III.
Micah 6:8 gives us three measures for “what … the Lord require[s] of you … do justice … love kindness … walk humbly with your God”

Can you take those three measures, standards, and examine this week’s passage noticing what the people are doing that the Prophet Micah takes to be a contradiction of these measures/standards?

What did you notice in your past week that you consider a violation of these measures/standards?

I hate to ask this next question, but here goes – What have I done today, yesterday, this past week that violates these measures/standards?

All this may be too much for a Monday morning, but all I can say, is “Micah made me ask?”

Charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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