Bartering for a Piece of Peace?
Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets
Who make my people stray;
Who chant “Peace”
While they chew with their teeth,
But who prepare war against him
Who puts nothing into their mouths: Micah 3:5
Lance Morrow warns in 1948: The Best Year of Their Lives, on the pivotal nature of the year in the lives of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, "As president in the White House, a man becomes himself, squared – his hyperself, flaws and virtues enlarged by world attention and brought to fulfillment by the nature of the work and power, and by the inescapability of the buck that stops on the desk in the oval office."
Of course, God as the only safe custodian of ultimate power warned of its impact long before there was an oval office. In Micah 3:5, the prophets are trusted with compounding cultural impact. They use it to reinforce the satisfaction in the status quo. They waste the attention their followers faithfully yield to them with a mindless mantra of "Peace." All is well. Go about your business.
We might find a certain amount of feckless benevolence in the negligence of the prophetic class if Micah 3:5 didn't continue. But it does, in a fashion Morrow, and Kennedy, and Johnson would recognize. Leaders who could make a difference, who could challenge the flaws, really the idolatry, in contemporary thinking and don't do so are worse than negligent. They have an agenda, the perpetual, expansive feeding of the self.
The people they feed on a pablum of peace feed them in return. They tell the people what's great about them and their time in history, and in return the people feed and appetite more bottomless than anyone's desire for food. The leader, told at successive levels that he or she is entitled to lead, is needed to lead, needs to continue hearing that. He or she is in a very real sense fed by swelling metrics and fresh compliments.
Karl Marlantes in What It Is Like to Go to War relieves us of the notion that ego as appetite is an over-stretched metaphor. He perceives, “We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body for its own sake. Look at overweight executives headed for heart attacks on the way to getting their pictures in Fortune or anorexic models suffering slow starvation on their way to getting their pictures in Vogue. Protecting ego is the general case.”
Or perhaps we think that the rot of ego only devastates above a certain elevation. If we are not what society thinks of as a Leader, perhaps we are immune from serving a following badly by looking to it to reinforce our sense of ourselves in Micah 3:5 fashion.
Charles Spurgeon closes this escape hatch in Morning and Evening. He warns those whose influence may go no farther than the threshold of their own homes, "If Christians desire to grow thorns to stuff their sleepless pillows, let them dote on their dear ones."
Looking to be filled by our following can metastasized into deadly manipulation even, and maybe especially, when that following is tiny. Count on one or two people to affirm us in critical positions, and it's harder to move on to the next possible source of ego gratification.
What reciprocity are we looking for in our relationships? Have we been bartering for it so long that we have forgotten the implicit terms of the "deal" to be each other's supplier of temporary peace more like a stalemate than soul refreshment? It is a blessing, then, that we aren't BETTER at meeting each other's deepest needs.
The Micahs who question the arrangement don't have to shout very loudly or intrude very often. We know we were made for something more, and this week's first minor catastrophe will remind us of the same.
The ONLY source of true peace is Christ. He isn't trading it. It is His to give because the chastisement for our peace, Isaiah 53:5 says, fell upon Him. He isn't a sheep pretending to be a shepherd. All authority in Heaven and Earth is His. He knows Who He is, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't need more likes, or more followers, to fill some gaps in Him.
He doesn't need raw material, declares Matt Chandler in The Explicit Gospel. He MAKES raw material. Put nothing in his mouth, so to speak, recognize you have nothing to give to enhance or uphold his position, and you are exactly where you need to be.
Exit the wearying game. The only reason He permitted it to go on this long with our duped and duping participation is so that our stubborn hearts would, at last, be convinced of His sufficiency and the emptiness of all besides Him. Every frustration this week, then, is a reminder of what we were created to rely on Christ to provide.
Who make my people stray;
Who chant “Peace”
While they chew with their teeth,
But who prepare war against him
Who puts nothing into their mouths: Micah 3:5
Lance Morrow warns in 1948: The Best Year of Their Lives, on the pivotal nature of the year in the lives of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, "As president in the White House, a man becomes himself, squared – his hyperself, flaws and virtues enlarged by world attention and brought to fulfillment by the nature of the work and power, and by the inescapability of the buck that stops on the desk in the oval office."
Of course, God as the only safe custodian of ultimate power warned of its impact long before there was an oval office. In Micah 3:5, the prophets are trusted with compounding cultural impact. They use it to reinforce the satisfaction in the status quo. They waste the attention their followers faithfully yield to them with a mindless mantra of "Peace." All is well. Go about your business.
We might find a certain amount of feckless benevolence in the negligence of the prophetic class if Micah 3:5 didn't continue. But it does, in a fashion Morrow, and Kennedy, and Johnson would recognize. Leaders who could make a difference, who could challenge the flaws, really the idolatry, in contemporary thinking and don't do so are worse than negligent. They have an agenda, the perpetual, expansive feeding of the self.
The people they feed on a pablum of peace feed them in return. They tell the people what's great about them and their time in history, and in return the people feed and appetite more bottomless than anyone's desire for food. The leader, told at successive levels that he or she is entitled to lead, is needed to lead, needs to continue hearing that. He or she is in a very real sense fed by swelling metrics and fresh compliments.
Karl Marlantes in What It Is Like to Go to War relieves us of the notion that ego as appetite is an over-stretched metaphor. He perceives, “We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body for its own sake. Look at overweight executives headed for heart attacks on the way to getting their pictures in Fortune or anorexic models suffering slow starvation on their way to getting their pictures in Vogue. Protecting ego is the general case.”
Or perhaps we think that the rot of ego only devastates above a certain elevation. If we are not what society thinks of as a Leader, perhaps we are immune from serving a following badly by looking to it to reinforce our sense of ourselves in Micah 3:5 fashion.
Charles Spurgeon closes this escape hatch in Morning and Evening. He warns those whose influence may go no farther than the threshold of their own homes, "If Christians desire to grow thorns to stuff their sleepless pillows, let them dote on their dear ones."
Looking to be filled by our following can metastasized into deadly manipulation even, and maybe especially, when that following is tiny. Count on one or two people to affirm us in critical positions, and it's harder to move on to the next possible source of ego gratification.
What reciprocity are we looking for in our relationships? Have we been bartering for it so long that we have forgotten the implicit terms of the "deal" to be each other's supplier of temporary peace more like a stalemate than soul refreshment? It is a blessing, then, that we aren't BETTER at meeting each other's deepest needs.
The Micahs who question the arrangement don't have to shout very loudly or intrude very often. We know we were made for something more, and this week's first minor catastrophe will remind us of the same.
The ONLY source of true peace is Christ. He isn't trading it. It is His to give because the chastisement for our peace, Isaiah 53:5 says, fell upon Him. He isn't a sheep pretending to be a shepherd. All authority in Heaven and Earth is His. He knows Who He is, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't need more likes, or more followers, to fill some gaps in Him.
He doesn't need raw material, declares Matt Chandler in The Explicit Gospel. He MAKES raw material. Put nothing in his mouth, so to speak, recognize you have nothing to give to enhance or uphold his position, and you are exactly where you need to be.
Exit the wearying game. The only reason He permitted it to go on this long with our duped and duping participation is so that our stubborn hearts would, at last, be convinced of His sufficiency and the emptiness of all besides Him. Every frustration this week, then, is a reminder of what we were created to rely on Christ to provide.
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