Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“In that day, says the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away, and those whom I have afflicted. The lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion now and forevermore.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, November 17, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Having delivered the diatribe against Jerusalem, Micah now brings the promise. And while everyone knows the “swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks” line, what jumped out at me in this read was the quote above. When Israel is restored and God’s holy mountain established, who will God gather to be God’s people? The disabled. The outcasts. The ones who have been afflicted. (It says the ones whom God has afflicted, but I personally don’t believe God directly afflicts anyone. People afflict people. Random acts of nature afflict people. Maybe God is taking credit for things God didn’t directly do here.)
Just think about that. God’s people are restored, and they are all the people who didn’t fit in, who were oppressed, who suffered. It’s not the wealthy and powerful who get to come back and reclaim their glory days.
This isn’t to say that we are left out now—those of us who have not experienced this sort of suffering, ostracism, or injustice. We, too, are included in the promise, because we are imperfect and in need of grace, which is its own affliction.
For all Micah’s diatribe against the corrupt, I have to believe they are also included in the end, and might come, chagrinned for their actions and flabbergasted by God’s grace, into that blessed place and live in eternal communion—even friendship—with those they had once harmed. If I believe God’s love is unconditionally for everyone, and that God can work miracles, why not this one?
How do I imagine the reign of God to be in its purest form?
![Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10 [4:1-11], Jonah and God’s Mercy](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/6bbb490e-4992-4659-a8be-02d8397d68af/24-11-10.jpg)
