True Power
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Power is one of those words in our Christian parlance that is often assumed and taken for granted. We know how to formulate phrases and praises that recognize God’s power, or the power of Jesus Christ, or the power of the Gospel, or the power to go into all the nations to proclaim that Gospel. But we can pretty easily take this word out of our faith context as well. In a wider sense, power can be at the disposal of humans. In economics discussions, we talk about the “buying power” of a particular group of people. Revolutionaries among us are constantly talking about both “fighting the power” and “giving the power to the people.” My personal favorite is the concept of the “power nap,” the effectiveness of which I am not fully convinced yet. You can think of many more phrases that speak to our cultural obsession with power.
The popular prophets of Israel know power in this sense. They know an earthly, human form of power, one that has nothing to do with the working of God in the world. They are drawn to the power of human relationship because it is the only kind of power that seems real. This is not an altogether illogical conclusion. Micah tells us straightforwardly that the prophets are literally fed by their willingness to cater to the needs of the powerful. False prophets have to eat too, after all. Despite claiming the power of God in their prophecy, these prophets, like us, know their livelihoods depend on making sure they have a place to sleep and food to eat, and that such security comes much more easily and comfortably in the form of paychecks and feasts than it does in trusting in a God beyond our understanding.
The world’s wisdom has completely reshaped how we imagine power. Many of us have been formed in church or homes that reinforce the Golden Rule, found in Matthew 7:12, an ethic so fundamental that I don’t even need to remind you of what it says. In reality, as soon as you walk into any shareholder meeting or sales conference in our system of the almighty so-called “free market,” you will surely encounter the “real” Golden Rule: Whoever has the Gold makes the Rules. And the rules they make allow them to get away with unspeakable injustices and mistreatment of those without access to that gold. Micah knows this is the case in his day as well. In the second half of our text, he calls out not just the prophets, but the judges, the priests, all of the religious leaders. They are taking bribes, welcoming fees for their devious work. They are interpreting their law, their Torah, while being in direct conflict with some of its fundamental teachings.
Unfortunately, the contemporary situation is not much better. Beyond the dramatizations of TV and the occasional news story of ministers financing their private jets with church donations, we know church leaders that are drunk on human power. Sure, these injustices may not be as drastic as outright payments or under the table bribes for favors, but this might just make them all the more sinister. These small, seemingly harmless decisions to look out for the privileged while ignoring those on the underside of society will almost certainly go unchecked, even unnoticed. Unnoticed, that is, by everyone except the poor. The ones being trampled on surely know the difference. And just as God is calling out the prophets who violate the Torah law, God is also calling out those in our day who preach the Gospel, the Good News to the Poor (according to the prophecy found in Isaiah and spoken by and fulfilled in the Incarnate One), while acting and working in direct opposition to that end. Because the Truth of the matter is not the same as the reality.
In fact, the Truth, in this case, as in most cases, is in direct opposition to the reality we experience. Reality tells us and our ministers that it is most worth their time to cater to the needs of the powerful, because that is the only way to experience any real outcomes. That is reality, or, as I often find myself saying, the wisdom of the world. But the Truth, the Word of God, claims that real power on earth is an illusion. It is, by nature, powerless. While it may be flashy and alluring, according to the prophet it is actually devoid of the light of God’s own revelation. After recounting all of the injustices of these leaders, Micah reminds them that, though they still call on God, God is not interested in their schemes. “Is not the Lord among us?” they ask. These false prophets take for granted that they can wield both the power of humans and the power of the divine. Hubris, thy name is human.
Almost to be overlooked in this evisceration by God through Micah of Israel’s prophets is a claim made by Micah in verse 8. “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might.” True power does exist, and Micah has aligned himself with it. This power is everything that human power is not. It does effect change. A glance through Israel’s own history makes that much clear. It makes no preference, only to what is just and right. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, alive and at work among God’s people, not just a social arrangement to secure bread and shelter. This power fills up those who appeal to it. It fundamentally changes both the situation and the agent themself. This power is mighty, able to stand against the established cult of personality around the bribe-takers and back-scratchers. Friends, it has never been easy to stand up against such people. This is why their schemes have perpetuated for as long as humans have lived. True prophecy is dangerous work; upsetting the constructed order of things never goes smoothly, and rarely does no one get hurt. There is too much at stake. Indeed, the power of God, through the Spirit of the Lord, is the only hope we have to be able to carry out the role of the true prophet, the true priest, the true teacher, the true minister.
God is faithful to make that true power available to us. Rather than building on our own, through bloodshed and preference, God’s power allows us to bear witness to that which is already being built, the Kingdom of Heaven. God’s way is to announce peace in the community, regardless of whether or not our close circles stand to benefit from it. God’s way is to let the justice of God direct all our ways, both within and without the confines of community. Finally, God’s way is to proclaim the power of God, through whom any of this is possible.