The Daily: Tuesday December 5, 2023

Daily Lectionary Reading: Psalm 79 (NRSV, The Message); Micah 4:6-13 (NRSV, The Message); Revelation 18:1-10 (NRSV, The Message)

This is a problematic passage in many ways. The God who saves us from the affliction he himself inflicted is harmful theology.

While these words were written to a nation, I heard them spoken to me. "Why the doomsday hysterics?" is how Eugene Peterson translates this first line. I engage in doomsday hysterics all too often. What awakened me from my glassy-eyed-while-reading-apocalyptic-scripture stupor was "no king in you." There is a king in me, there is a counselor alive in the depths of my being - call it God, call it spirit, call it our daemon or inner genius. What a great reminder from Micah to be still and listen to the voice of the king "in me."