The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—the vision he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Hear, you peoples, all of you,
    listen, earth and all who live in it,
that the Sovereign Lord may bear witness against you,
    the Lord from his holy temple.

Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place;
    he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth.
The mountains melt beneath him
    and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire,
    like water rushing down a slope.
All this is because of Jacob’s transgression,
    because of the sins of the people of Israel.
What is Jacob’s transgression?
    Is it not Samaria?
What is Judah’s high place?
    Is it not Jerusalem? (New International Version)

What is true religion?

Divine union with God is the whole point of religion.

In saying that, you may have reacted reflexively or viscerally. That’s because it’s likely that your experience of religion has been anything but a mystical and wondrous connection with the Lord. The religious trappings, that you perhaps grew up with, were anything but helpful in knowing God.

That is both unfortunate and sad. In the absence of genuine unity with God, moralism diabolically worms its way into religion to replace spiritual practices of helpful connection, with legalistic rules of unhelpful separation.

Religion gets a bad rap. That’s likely because how we may typically think about it is really no religion, at all. True religion has a singular aim: how to connect us with the divine, that is, how to make one out of two. If we have to keep overcoming man-made obstacles in order to connect with God, this is irreligious, not religious.

How ought we to understand sin?

As a little test to this, as you read today’s Old Testament lesson from the prophet Micah, did you assume that the sins of Israel had to do with disobeying the rules, of breaking the law, of immoral worship? Or did you wonder if the sins of the people had to do with all the ways they created distance and separation between themselves and God?

The word of the Lord to the prophet Micah was not speech directed against the usual supposed devils of secularism or scientism. Instead, God was deeply concerned about the things that widened the gap between God and the people.

A divine/human union, a loving relationship between the Lord and people, an intimate knowing of one another, has always been at the heart of God’s understanding of religion. Anything less is demonic. God desires a mutual knowing and seeing, and not setting up altars which block the connection.

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

Meister Eckhart

Have we become separated?

Israel had lost their connection with God, and so, were no longer participating with the Lord in the divine/human cooperative of love. And God was not letting this happen without a clarion call to come back to the relationship.

The language of coming down from heaven and melting things is a reference to eliminating all the obstacles that stand in the way to true religion. The Lord will cataclysmically level everything in order to smooth the way between God and God’s people.

The capital cities, Samaria of Israel and Jerusalem in Judah, were the offenders in creating the blockage. Their high places of worship will be leveled to pave the road for unhindered fellowship; and a renewed and restored religion, based upon social justice for all, economic equity, and inclusive practices.

The severed connection with God became the fodder for all sorts of unjust thoughts and actions.

Woe to those who plan iniquity,
    to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
    because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
    and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
    they rob them of their inheritance.

Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales,
    with a bag of false weights?
Your rich people are violent;
    your inhabitants are liars
    and their tongues speak deceitfully. (Micah 2:1-2; 6:11-12, NIV)

Idolatry, in the guise of alternative forms of worship, is sinful in the sense that it’s humanity’s attempt at having their ultimate needs met outside of the religion given to them. Religion must be a conduit for enabling us to spiritually connect with the Lord. Establishing practices which marginalize God put people at risk of becoming feral worshipers who run about doing everything but discovering their true selves and the one true God.

It is time for us to recognize and celebrate that we are connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to God and each other is grounded in love and compassion.

How do I make a spiritual connection?

There are three dimensions to the spirit: the head (thoughts), the heart (emotions), and the gut (actions).  Each dimension is meant to work together in alignment so that we can move forward toward healing, health, wholeness, integrity, peace, and relationship.

• The Head deals with questions such as, “Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Who is God?”
• The Heart considers our emotional selves by asking,“What am I feeling? What is my view of God? How do I give and receive love?”
• The Gut taps into the embedded image of God within us by contemplating, “What is the good life? To whom will I show compassion? Will I listen to myself and others?”

My friends, we have 15 prophetic books in the Bible because this problem of messed up religion has become an awful impediment to genuine spirituality. It was not only a problem all those millennia ago; it’s still an issue today.

So, let’s take a serious reading of the prophet Micah, and his prophetic biblical companions; and let us restore and renew true religion among ourselves, so that humanity can become the just and good people we were always destined to be by our Creator.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them peace, which is the fruit of righteousness, so that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.