Plotting Wickedness In Bed
Ordinary Time
Today's reading · Micah 2:1-5
Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance. Therefore thus says the Lord: Now, I am devising against this family an evil from which you cannot remove your necks.
Micah catches something uncomfortably specific. These people are not stumbling into evil. They lie awake at night devising it, working out the details on their beds, and the moment morning comes they get up and do it. Why? Because it is in their power. That is the whole reason given. Not need, not desperation. Capacity. They can, so they do. Watch what the wanting becomes. They covet fields, and then they seize them. They covet houses, and then they take them away. The line between the appetite and the act is almost nothing. Coveting slides straight into grabbing. And what they grab is not luxury, it is other people's footing in the world: householder and house, people and their inheritance. They are not just taking property. They are taking the ground someone stands on. Then God answers, and he uses their own logic against them. They devised evil deeds. Now, he says, I am devising against this family an evil from which you cannot remove your necks. The schemers get out-schemed. The ones who calculated what they could get away with discover there is a calculation running above theirs. Notice the image of the neck. They put yokes on others, oppressing house and inheritance, and now a yoke comes for them that will not lift. Power felt like freedom. It was only a longer rope. The text leaves you with one quiet question about your own morning: what do you do simply because you can.
Today's intention
Today I'll notice one thing I'm tempted to do only because I can, and leave it undone.