My insightful cousin-in-law and poet Mary Boren shared a quote on Facebook from the late, great Ann Richards (former governor of Texas before Republican lunacy possessed the state). In her down-to-earth way, Richards voiced an unfortunate truth which has plagued humans for thousands of years: “If you are not at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” The prophet Micah recognized the truth of this statement over 2700 years ago.
Micah was an 8th century BCE prophet who prophesied to Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom Judah, and Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom Israel. Before looking at our passage for today (please take the time to read it so what follows makes sense), we need to clear the air regarding the nature of prophecy in the Bible. Prophecy was not about predicting the future. Prophets did warn their people of the dangers they would face if they did not abandon their unjust, violent, and idolatrous ways. The consequences of continuing such evil included being conquered by foreign powers. One did not need a crystal ball to foresee these tragic eventualities brought about by the ongoing practices of injustice, idolatry, and reckless international politics by the Israelites. Many Hebrew prophets did believe that God would have the last word regarding nations as Yahweh brought history to a consummation where the lion and the lamb can rest together without fear or violence. Passages like Isaiah 9 and 11 reflect this hope through beautiful poetry. However, the vocation of the authentic prophets of Israel was to deliver God’s message to God’s people in their own time and place.
Micah 3 begins and ends with a condemnation of the rulers of Israel. The sin being denounced is injustice. Prophets who divine for money and priests who teach for hire are also condemned. The first three verses of Micah 3 expose the brutality and oppression by the rulers and their aristocratic cronies in vivid terms:
Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice? You who hate the good and love the evil, you who tear the skin from off my people, and their flesh from off their bones; who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a caldron.
The last part of the chapter reads as follows:
Hear this you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with wrong. Its heads give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for hire, its prophets divine for money; yet they lean upon the LORD and say, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No evil 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 (the temple) a wooded height.
Micah was the first prophet to predict the fall of Jerusalem because of its injustice, idolatry, and lack of trust in Yahweh. The prophet in stark poetry reveals the crooked, violent, and greedy practices of those “who are at the table.” We must always remember that Israel and Judah, like all nations at that time, were agrarian societies. All wealth came from the land and its produce. Peasants farmed that land, but the rulers and aristocrats had the power to tax, expropriate, and cheat peasants of the fruits of their labor. The result was subsistence living for the vast majority of the people of Israel. The wealth and power structure of these countries reflected a pyramid pattern with the wealthiest 2% controlling between 50 and 67% of the annual wealth of their societies. The king received at least 25% of the annual income off his domains while the other elites in these societies received at least that much and perhaps as much as 40% of the wealth generated each year. Two percent of the population simply could not control the other 98%. So, to allow for this skewed distribution of wealth, the king and elites required retainers to administrate the unjust policies which allowed for this pyramid pattern as well as soldiers to police the peasants to prevent any rebellion. This retainer class comprised about 5-7% of the population. The retainers imitated their superiors and tried to accumulate as much as they could through what was called “honest graft.” The chief responsibility of retainers was to identify the surplus produced by the peasants and to transfer it to the upper 2%. Sociologists call these retainers “agents of redistribution.”
The obscene wealth of the rulers and the elites led to a demand for items of luxury which had to be imported and transported. Merchants were needed for such an exchange. Such merchants comprised 5% of the population, but few of them ever became wealthy. They too were often exploited by the ruling class. Artisans comprised 3-7% of the population and were often as poor as peasants who comprised 70-80% of the population. Between 10-20% of the population were regarded as unclean, degraded, and expendable. Those who had lost their land because of unfair debt practices, who were infirm or suffered from isolating diseases like leprosy and other skin conditions, poor widows and orphans, and the mentally and emotionally challenged were part of expendables of these societies.
Through his poetic prophecy, Micah revealed and denounced the unjust and evil structures which allowed for this abysmal and insidious economic arrangement. He accused the kings and elites of cannibalism. One might argue that such an accusation was simply metaphorical. However, the results of this system were malnourishment and starvation. During times of famine, the expendables and the poor were the first ones to waste away as their bodies were gnawed into oblivion by a lack of resources. The kings and the elites rarely suffered during times of want. Sometimes they even profited from such tragic events as they were able to take advantage of the vulnerable economic conditions of the peasants as they foreclosed on debts. Injustice is always a very real form of cannibalism as the wealthy and powerful live off of the labor and bodies of those they regard as utilitarian objects who exist solely to serve and provide for their “betters.”
It’s important to realize that this pyramid pattern of injustice and inequity has existed for 5000 years (since the beginning of kingdoms and empires) in much of the world.
It’s important to realize that this pyramid pattern of injustice and inequity has existed for 5000 years (since the beginning of kingdoms and empires) in much of the world. This was the nature of the society in which Jesus lived. The import of many of his teachings becomes clear once we realize the character of his times. And even today in many ways, we still live in a pyramid society where 1% of the populations owns between 32-42% of the nation’s wealth (the top 10% own 70% of all the wealth in the USA). Economic cannibalism continues in our country. One in five children in the USA goes to bed hungry every single night. Health care is reserved for those who have the means to pay for it. The lifespan of the poorest in our country is lower than that of wealthier individuals. Poverty continues to be the worst kind of violence in our society. Such poverty is a necessity when 10% of the populations controls over 70% of the nation’s wealth. Poverty, which in actuality is the result of a form of cannibalism, is not a problem in our society for those who hoard the wealth and power—it is a necessary means for the pursuit of more and the continuation of greed. Somebody must be devoured for such unconscionable inequity to exist.
I am not suggesting that we all go on guilt trips. But I do wonder how much our lack of outrage over the economic injustice in our country (much of which has racial undertones) is because we, like those ancient citizens in Rome, enjoy our “bread and circuses” while the emperors and their cronies feast on the bodies of the poor.
Most of us are not numbered among the top 1% or 10% of the nation’s population. However, we might ask how many of us, especially those in the middle and upper-middle class, serve in some form as retainers to allow this system to continue. Almost all of us get more than our fair share of the nation’s wealth if that wealth were divided equally. The rulers and elites in history have always been willing to allow some of the wealth to flow to those immediately beneath them in order to maintain the viability of a system which benefits them in unbelievably disproportionate ways. Any serious calculation regarding the 30% of the wealth left to 90% of the population (after the top 10% grab their 70% portion of the pie) will reveal that that remaining 30% of wealth is not in any way divided equally. I am in that 90% of the population, but I own my home, have no debt, never think twice about the possibility of experiencing hunger or not being able to avail myself of healthcare, etc. Much of the remaining 90% have never known that kind of security or wealth. I am not suggesting that we all go on guilt trips. But I do wonder how much our lack of outrage over the economic injustice in our country (much of which has racial undertones) is because we, like those ancient citizens in Rome, enjoy our “bread and circuses” while the emperors and their cronies feast on the bodies of the poor. In our society, if you are not at the table enjoying wealth and power, you are probably on the menu—if not now, then later, especially in a nation where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is increasingly being squeezed out of existence.
