The psalms show us what justice looks like.
Justice maintains the right of the weak, and it rescues
the needy (Ps. 82). It rejects the desire to take advantage of the vulnerable
(Ps. 94). The just refuse to speak out of two sides of their mouth (Ps. 28).
They aren’t bloodthirsty (Ps. 139), greedy (Ps. 10), or conniving (Ps. 94), and
they don’t love violence (Ps. 11). Those who love justice actively reject all
systems that oppress people (Ps. 58).
Who are the recipients of justice? All people alike
require justice. But those who need it most, according to the Psalms, are what
philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff calls the “quartet of the vulnerable”:
widows, orphans, poor, and resident aliens”
In other words, the very people being abandoned by the
American right (those who paradoxically claim Jesus)
A Psalm for our times
God is
We know God
We know God
God is immanent and transcendent
God is in us
A spark
A roaring fire
A rushing wind
A spring of living wate
And God is just
And God demands justice
How long O Lord will this continue
How long with the liars, the frauds
The greedy
The abusive
Flourish
How long will they sit in the seats of power
And in the courts of justice
A promote inequity, and inequality
How long will they make the rich richer
And the poor poorer
O God love
Change us!
Transform us
Give us new minds, new hearts
New eyes
Make us a people
Make us a nation
That defends the weak rather than shames them
That lifts the poor up rather than shames them
That defends the weak rather than ridicules them
That refuses to accept and sustain systems that oppress
Rather than worshiping the wicked
May we see them for who they are
Destroyers
Dividers
Plunderers
They talk about God
They sell Bibles
They claim God’s favor
They claim God’s call
But they know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
O God, is it not time?
Is it not time, before there is no time
For love to win?
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