What do you crave? (Mic 7:1-6)

At a conference I attended last year, a speaker reflected on Paul’s distress over the idols in Athens (Acts 17:16) and asked what troubles or provokes us when we encounter the world or the church. He used this as an entry point into discovering our ministry and how we can serve God. His question stayed with me because what stirs us emotionally is an indication of where our heart is. Paul was grieved by the misplaced worship of the Athenians and was spurred on to share the gospel about the one true God. For Micah, his longing was to see godliness in his contemporaries (Mic 7:2), which animated his ministry to warn, admonish and remind his people of God’s character and what He required of them in their covenant relationship.

In fact, the emotions that moved him were powerful; they had to be to withstand the indifference or opposition he must have faced. The prophet describes it as a craving for the first-ripe figs or grapes at the beginning of the season (Mic 7:1), an image that Jesus may have enacted prophetically as he searched the fig tree in vain for fruit thereby implying the lack of godliness in His time and the coming judgment (Matt 21:18-19). Micah laments the absence of the faithful (NASB ‘godly person’, v.2), the ḥasid, derived from the Hebrew ḥesed (covenant loyalty/love). His description repeats accusations he has made earlier: the perversion of justice through violence and murder, corruption, as well as bribes (Mic 7:2-3). To this he adds the colourful imagery of these people being like briars and thorn hedges, impossible for others to attack without being pricked and hurt (Mic 7:4). Further, the social expectations within society have been so undermined that no one can be trusted to act in accordance with them (Mic 7:5-6). Loyalties and commitments to family and friends are being subverted, driven perhaps by greed and the desire for more.

Micah’s description is sweeping and uses stock concepts known from other prophetic speeches, so it is difficult to envisage the particulars that characterised society at the time. It is similar to how we may lament the present state of the Church with ‘nobody reads their Bible anymore’, or ‘the gospel is not preached’, or ‘everybody is church-hopping and too busy looking for what satisfies them’. Such statements may sound all-encompassing, but like Micah’s they do express something of a general mentality. What stands out in the prophet’s description is the contrast between his desire for seeing the fruit of godly lives and the self-serving desires of Israelites who weave their plans together to achieve what they want (Mic 7:3).

Micah’s lament for his people challenges us to ask: what stirs us? Are we primarily concerned about the ways a church let us down, for instance, or also about the wider issues that Christianity faces today? Do we feel that the Church should be doing more to be salt and light in society in action and words? Do we lament our churches’ inability to reach out and speak God’s truth so that the gospel might transform lives? Are we saddened by the lack of faithfulness and commitment to God in our midst? Do we grieve over the scarcity of good biblical teaching in our congregations? Is there hunger in our own hearts for God’s presence and for His Word? Do we mourn over the loss of young people in our churches who fall away from the faith? Are we troubled by the lack of hospitality and coldness of some fellowships where nobody notices newcomers? Bemoaning the various deficiencies of the church, however, should be the beginning, not the end. Such emotions are signals and motivators for us to act and make a difference even if in a small way.

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