Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“ 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!”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, November 14, 2018
by Rev. Stefanie Fauth, Clergy Stuff
It’s funny - often the voice of God sounds like exactly what we want it to sound like.
What we find in the Bible echos what we believe - and we think, “God totally agrees with me - it’s all those other people who are wrong!”
We see it in our leaders - Bible texts are quoted to support things that are done - and sometimes they are pulled out of context in order to commit atrocities.
Hitler used the Bible and theologians like Martin Luther to further his cause.
While I know there are some absolute truths - Love God, Love your neighbor, feed the hungry and care for the stranger - there are a lot of things that can be interpreted differently depending on the person who reads it.
All this to say - When God hates all the people you hate, it might be time to reassess whether you are reading God’s message - or putting your own message into the Bible.
God loves all - and justice would be done against those who make wicked choices and SAY it’s for God.
How do we know what is wicked?
Go back to those basic truths - Love God, and love our neighbor. Is what we are doing loving? Are we totally sure?
Find someone who is honest with you even when it’s not easy to help you with discerning some of that, and be willing to listen when you are told what you are doing is wicked - it’s not easy, but it’s important work.
Narrative Lectionary Daily Reading:
Micah 3
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, 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 in a kettle, like flesh in a cauldron. Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have acted wickedly. Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths. Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without revelation. The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them;the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.
But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. 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.
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