I will destroy your idols and your sacred stones from among you; you will no longer bow down to the work of your hands. – Micah 5:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 4, 2020): Micah 5

Canadian astrophysicist Humbert Reeves argued that “man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.” I don’t totally agree with Reeves's assessment. God is not Nature. Nature is his creation, but God is not found in the wind or the waves; he is not the flower or the tree. But we do seem to be okay with destroying the gifts that he has given to us with his own hands.

Maybe part of the problem is that we struggle to serve an invisible God. And so, we continually remake him into something that agrees with our sense of importance. It is not that we serve an invisible God and then thoughtlessly destroy the gifts that he gives to us. As we destroy creation, we convince ourselves that he gave us nature so that we can destroy it. Nature is like a scrap piece of paper that a parent might give to a young child to destroy, knowing that the document is not all that important.

So, if God stands in the way of what we want, that is not a problem. All we have to do is remake God. It is an ancient practice. White supremacists transform God into someone who agrees with their beliefs, and polygamists remake God into someone who will support their practices. King Ahaz, about three years after this prophecy, would change the Temple in Jerusalem into something that would reflect his beliefs, and what it was that he wanted to do. We create a God that we are comfortable with, and we condemn anything that disagrees with this God of our creation as a heresy that must be put down. I am convinced that we live in a culture that does not want to be challenged, and that just might be our final downfall.

Micah says that there is a God who is beyond the one created by our hands and in our minds. There is a God, and sometimes that God does not agree with everything that we do. And we have a choice. We can bow down to that God, wrestle with that God until we come to the point of understanding. Or we can blindly follow the gods of our own creation until God comes and removes them from our sight.

The problem is that there is a penalty to be paid for serving the gods of our creation. There is an uncomfortable conversation that we are setting ourselves up for at the end of time. A friend of mine recently made the argument that God would not judge us harshly for being legalistic in our interpretation of scripture. I disagree. In fact, Jesus had some harsh things to say to the legalists of his day; the Pharisees. I believe that God wants us to wrestle with him, to struggle with the hard truths that go against what it is that we want and desire. And in the end, we will find God, and a way to love and treasure this world, which he created, as he loves it.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Micah 6