From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2013
Prophet Micah was hated and rejected by corrupt leaders, both political and religious. They hated and rejected him because he preached against their hypocrisy, for disconnecting justice and peace and serving their own needs.
They cried “peace,” but declared war on the poor by supporting and legitimizing the injustices of the land, which rob them of their food and well-being. Their power was self-serving.
His sermons can be divided into three roughly equal parts: Judgment against the nations and their leaders (chapters 1-3). His visionary mission was to restore Zion (chapters 4-5) – God’s lawsuit against Israel and expression of hope (chapters 6-7).
Micah also anticipated the destruction of the Judean state and promised its restoration more glorious than before. He prophesied an era of universal peace over which the Governor will rule from Jerusalem.
Being contemporary of Isaiah, Amos and Hosea, Micah never got discouraged despite rejection. There are several similarities in their two prophetic books (Isaiah 2:2-4 and Micah 4:1-3 are almost identical).
Answering the question as to what does the Lord require of you?! Micah 6:8 answers the question — “To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” “How will the world know that I am walking humbly with my God? They will know by the way I treat people.
Those who walk humbly with their God have a passionate concern for justice being done in society, and a deep concern to treat people lovingly and mercifully. This was precisely what he learnt from Isaiah, Amos and Hosea.
Amos lived in a time of considerable material prosperity for a few and poverty for most. His message of social justice and the downfall of the royal dynasty did not go down well at the royal sanctuary just over the border in Bethel.
The people were divided into two kingdoms, a more powerful northern kingdom of Israel and a weaker kingdom of Judah, centred on Jerusalem and ruled by kings of David’s line.
Amos was not only rejected by greedy and corrupt leaders, he was an unwelcome, claiming that he was uneducated foreigner from a poor neighbouring state who declaimed words of judgement from God for the evildoers of Israel.
Amos denounced in his poetry many injustices. The weights and measures in the marketplaces were false. The poor were treated with contempt by the law-courts. Foreign women were treated as prostitutes.
The corrupt upper-class women are compared to the fat cows of Bashan. Their husbands’ drunken songs are compared to David’s psalms. Amos’s constant theme is that the powerful people are corrupt and care for nothing but their own pleasure and increased wealth.
Their poorer compatriots, equally heirs of God’s promise, are fit only for oppression and exploitation. Since that is how they treat God’s covenant, God will destroy them and their whole society.
His desire for justice and peace was for a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources; a longing for a more compassionate society. He hated leaders whose services were designed to please themselves, not God (Amos 4:5).
Their worships were not thanks giving to God, and there was no content of repentance in it. It was not leading to holy living. (Amos 4:6-13). God he asserted will not accept worship without the practice of social justice. (Amos 5:24; 8:4-6; Amos 3:10; 5:6-17)
Prophet Micah is the author of the Holy Book of Micah. His name means “one who is like God”. Living between approximately 737 BC and 690 BC, he grew up to have prophetic visions. He used to prophesy not by word alone, but in visions also.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.