“You should have known better.”
Have you ever heard that before? Man, I feel like I have heard it a ton. Perhaps it is the result of being the oldest of three brothers. Or maybe it’s because I present myself as someone who knows all the things and is pretty confident. Whatever the reason, “You should have known better.” is a phrase that I have heard often.
@SolusSpider@pixey.org this looks amazing.
@solusspider@polymaths.social my guy @ozzy runs an instance. He can make the sales pitch!
We look around at a world rife with hardship, a world that often feels chaotic and unfair. And then, we look at our own lives. Maybe they're comfortable, maybe even good. A nagging question arises: what do we do with this dissonance? Do we turn a blind eye, dismissing the suffering as "not my problem"? Or does something stir within us, a sense that we should, perhaps even must, do something?
This internal struggle, this tension between comfort and conscience, is not unique to our time. The prophet Micah, speaking during the prosperous reign of King Uzziah in Judah, confronted a similar reality. Judah was booming. Wealth was abundant. But beneath the surface, a rot was festering.
Micah's message, like a jarring alarm, cuts through the complacency. He doesn't sugarcoat. He doesn't offer easy answers. He delivers a stark warning: doom and hope, doom and hope. This is the rhythm of his prophecy, a constant oscillation between judgment and redemption.
The Problem of Prosperity
Micah exposes the dark side of Judah's prosperity. Unprecedented wealth had led to unchecked greed. The powerful exploited the vulnerable, seizing land and disregarding God's laws of justice and compassion. The year of Jubilee, designed to restore equity, was ignored.
Sound familiar?
We too live in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. Where the powerful often prioritize their own interests over the well-being of others.
The Plague of False Worship
But Micah doesn't just address economic injustice. He goes deeper, diagnosing the root cause: idolatry. The people of Judah, despite having the temple in Jerusalem, had turned it into a "high place," a center of false worship. They had replaced the true God with idols of their own making.
This indictment hits hard. What are our idols? What are we worshipping in our daily lives? Is it power, wealth, comfort, entertainment, or even our own opinions? Are we truly worshipping God in spirit and truth, or have we crafted a god in our own image?
Micah doesn't shy away from confronting the religious leaders either. He condemns the false prophets who offered soothing words of prosperity and ignored the cries of the oppressed. They prioritized comfort over truth, echoing a pattern we see in our own time.
The Call to Repentance and Hope
Micah's message is uncomfortable, even painful. He challenges our "sacred cows," forcing us to confront our own complacency and idolatry. But amidst the doom, there is a glimmer of hope.
Micah proclaims that God will gather a remnant, a faithful people who will return to Him. He paints a vivid picture of joy and liberation, like sheep bursting into a wide-open pasture. This hope is not based on human merit but on God's faithfulness to His covenant.
A Challenge for Today
Micah's words resonate with our contemporary issues. We, too, must confront the dissonance between our comfort and the suffering around us. We must ask ourselves:
Micah's message is not meant to make us comfortable. It is meant to heal our souls. It is a call to repentance, a call to return to the true God, and a call to be part of the remnant that will experience the joy of His redemption.
Let us heed Micah's warning and embrace his hope. Let us examine our hearts, confront our idols, and strive to live as a people who truly worship God in spirit and truth.
@ozzy
Cool cool
@solusspider@polymaths.social it appears the follow worked, yes? I requested to follow you as well.
@ozzy it looks like gotosocial accounts can’t follow Sharkey. Which is weird.
Lazy sunny Saturdays are something else.
The String Cheese Incident - Sunny Skies
https://music.apple.com/us/song/790975392
When was the last time you walked into a space and thought, “This is not at all what I was expecting”? I grew up going to a historic Presbyterian church in Pontiac, MI. It is one of the oldest churches in the state. The building is magnificent. It is a gothic style church with a massive pipe organ and gorgeous stained glass at the corner of the two main roads in the downtown of the city. Any time I walk into First Presbyterian Church of Pontiac I am left with a sense of wonder and reverence.
It was a magical place to grow up in my faith.
It would be amazing to be able to mirror an rss feed into Misskey/Sharkey
Checking out this little app for iOS that could be a nice client for fedi.social.
Had to come back and give it a go.
Moms and sons have a special kind of dynamic. I know that my mom and I can communicate with a look. We have inside jokes and so much shared history that sometimes we don’t even need to say anything.
As I watch my own son and my wife, the same dynamic exists. They have an uncanny ability to simply understand one another. It’s almost like they can read one another’s minds at times.
Of course, there’s also the reality that sons are male and we often fail miserably at reading our mom’s minds. But, just like that special #girldad bond there is a #boymom bond that is unique too.
People of a certain age all have some shared television experiences. First, when we were sick and home from school we would watch The Price is Right. Second, when we stayed up late watching something on TV we would inevitably see something called an “infomercial.”
These long form commercials somehow would suck you in and you just couldn’t turn it off. The salesperson would be doing their pitch and then they would say, “But wait! There’s more!” Then they would sweeten the deal.
A whole generation was trained by television to wait for something more. Perhaps this is why my generation is typically unimpressed by many things and always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because, it turns out that, “wait, there’s more,” isn’t only for good stuff.
As I was reading through this next conversation with Jesus that is recorded in John’s Gospel, I couldn’t help but think that there might have been a narrator in the background saying, “but wait, there’s more…”
