MY WIFE DOES a lot of knitting. Blankets for charity. Hats and mittens for family. Sweaters for the grandkids. I have to admit: the very idea of knitting still boggles my mind a bit. I can’t quite visualize how the loops interweave and hold together. It leaves me with a feeling of wonder: how is it possible to take a single long piece of yarn and turn it into that?

Of course, there are mistakes. She drops a stitch; she miscalculates the size; she runs out of yarn. With a sigh, she pulls out the needles, takes hold of the tail of the yarn, and pulls. And little by little, what had been slowly taking shape as a sweater unravels loop by loop, turning back into a single strand.

Knitting and weaving give us useful metaphors for describing relationships. We speak of “close knit” families, for example, or the “fabric” of society.

And we know that sometimes, if you persistently pull on the same thread, things can unravel.

WE’VE SEEN REPEATEDLY how Micah describes the corruption of the leaders in Jerusalem. Instead of being upright and fair in the performance of their duties, they use their position for their own personal gain. But the nation isn’t being condemned for the bad behavior of a handful of scoundrels. Merchants routinely cheat their customers. Greed and deceit have permeated society. People have become like thorns in each other’s sides.

And because of this, God is coming in judgment:

The day God visits you has come,
    the day your watchmen sound the alarm.
    Now is the time of your confusion. (Mic 7:4b, NIV)

The problem isn’t just about people in power. Micah goes on to describe how the entire fabric of society has begun to unravel:

Do not trust a neighbor;
    put no confidence in a friend.
Even with the woman who lies in your embrace
    guard the words of your lips.
For a son dishonors his father,
    a daughter rises up against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
    a man’s enemies are the members of his own household. (vss. 5-6)

Recall how earlier, in verse 2, he lamented how “every man hunts his brother.” Here, his words deepen the pathos. Things are so bad that you can’t trust the people closest to you: your friends, your neighbors, even your own family. Even in the most intimate of relationships, you have to watch what you say. What the New International Version translates as “guard the words of your lips” could be rendered literally as “guard the doors of your mouth,” for any word you let out in private could be used against you.

For a lot of us living in a highly individualistic culture like the United States, it can be hard to grasp just how important family loyalty was in Micah’s world. There could be a dark side to that loyalty, of course, as when King David’s son Absalom defended his sister’s honor by engineering the revenge killing of the man who raped her (see 2 Sam 13). But generally, people knew in a positive way that even if the rest of the world turned on them, they could count on family. Conversely, there was no betrayal more treacherous or shameful, no wound as deep as that between close kin.

If some of Micah’s words sounded familiar to you, it’s because Jesus quotes them in Matthew 10:35-36. There, Jesus is sending out the Twelve on a mission of evangelism, and warning them in advance to expect trouble. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth,” he tells them in verse 34. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Jesus is not saying, of course, that he wants to cause conflict and war, nor is he denying that the gospel is meant to bring peace. He’s telling the disciples not to expect that people will all break out in choruses of Kumbaya when they hear the message. He quotes Micah directly to warn them of the sad reality that even families will divide over the gospel — sometimes to the point of betraying family members to their death (see verse 21).

Moreover, in the centuries between Micah and Jesus, these words of the prophet had come to be understood as describing what would happen when the Messiah finally came. Jesus, therefore, is not simply giving the disciples a sociology lesson or managing their expectations. By quoting Micah in this way, he is implicitly affirming that he is the Messiah.

HERE’S SOMETHING I’D like us to consider. Micah is describing the widespread moral degeneration of the nation of Judah, the unraveling of the very fabric of their society. What would hold that society together? What was supposed to hold it together? Not mere religious behavior or ritual sacrifice, no matter how impressive. What God wants is a people who walk humbly with him. What God wants is a people who remember and are grateful for God’s character of justice and mercy. What God wants is a people who then embody that justice and mercy in their relationships with each other.

The embodiment of the character of God should have knit their community together. Justice, mercy, humility: pull those threads out, and everything unravels.

We cannot separate a relationship with God from our relationships with each other. The quality of the former is demonstrated in the quality of the latter. So let’s ask ourselves: in what way could humility, justice, fairness, mercy, and kindness knit us together, in our families, in our communities, and in our nation?