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BIBLICAL JUSTICE

1/26/2025

Deuteronomy 10: 12-13, 17-19
“So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being ….. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

There are many different themes to be found in the Old Testament – there’s the initial creation of all that is; there’s the history of a wandering people, far from any idea of being an actual nation; there’s the building of a faith system based on their one God; and then there’s the political lives of God’s “Chosen” ones – and finally, there are the promises given that would one day be fulfilled in what we call the New Testament.

These themes are scattered over the books of the Old Testament -- depending on whose bible you’re reading – (Protestant bibles have 39 books, Catholics have 46, and Orthodox have 49), and over roughly 1000 years – times when the people’s lives were constantly changing, emphasizing very different values and needs. This week – and I think next week, too – I want to look into the whole idea of biblical justice – who is calling for it, what is God’s role in justice seeking, what are we called to do about it – and where the idea of “justice” has remained steady in the scriptures – and how it has changed over the centuries.

The primary prophets of justice as found in the scriptures are Isaiah, Amos, and Micah – and I think we’ll leave those three for next week. This week I want to look at the more generically focused books, like Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Psalms, where a great deal is said about justice, but not necessarily assigned to any one particular prophet.

The call for justice is rooted from the very beginning in the creation story, and particularly in the idea that humans were created in the image of God – who surely formed the entire concept of justice. As early as Genesis we are told that we – humankind – are created to be like God. Surely then, we are meant to be a justice-loving people – right from the start.

So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27).

All humankind is created in the image of God. It doesn’t matter our gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or socio-economic status. All humans are created in the image of God and thus are to be valued and respected. Right from the start. This is basic teaching.

So it has always seemed interesting that one of the first stories about justice and injustice from the Old Testament comes from Genesis, the 4th chapter. And ever since I was a child, it has appeared to me that God is the one who was at fault in this story.
Adam and Eve originally had two sons – Cain and Abel. Cain tilled the soil and brought forth crops from it. Abel was a herdsman who raised sheep. Each brought God their best offerings from their labor, and God rejected Cain’s and praised Abel’s. In a rage over the blatant unfairness of this, Cain killed his brother.

Now, I entirely agree Cain should not have killed his brother – no argument here – but nowhere in this story does it say that God liked lamb shanks better than sweet melon and wine grapes. How was Cain to know? Didn’t God create the very first man to be a tiller of the soil? Adam, the Gardener in Eden? This turns out to be a lose/lose story as it’s told here. The only answer I can come up with is, this early in Genesis the people were still learning who God is.

Maybe God is still learning who They are.

Later, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses speaks long and seriously to the people of the things God shared with him while they have been on their long journey through the wilderness -- things that they must practice in their everyday lives as they come ever closer to the end of their long wandering -- teaching on how to live a life of justice with such statements as

“You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore, I command you to do this.”

and “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

There is, of course, much more to be found in Deuteronomy, including the longer reading with which we opened this message today, but the necessity in justice is scattered all throughout this book.

Or, we can look at some of the many statements found in Psalms that urge us to follow the rules of living in just ways:

“O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed,
so that those from earth may strike terror no more.”

Or maybe this one, referring to Solomon ...

“Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness
and your poor with justice.” (Psalm 72:1-2)

“Justice” is a multi-layered concept. Every quote I’ve used here is a truthful example of the meaning of justice – and yet they are not all the same.

Biblical references to the word “justice” mean “to make right.” Justice is, first and foremost, a relational term — people living in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the natural creation. From a scriptural point of view, justice means loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and is rooted in the character and nature of God. As God is just and loving, so we are called to do justice and live in love.

It may well be best condensed into the simple, but deep phrase we refer to as The Golden Rule:
“Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”

It is no coincidence that most every creed. every statement of spiritual belief of every faith system contains some version of this statement.
“Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”

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ARISE, SHINE ... FOR OUR LIGHT IS COME

1/19/2025

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Isaiah 60:1‑2, 19

Arise, shine;
   for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord
   has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
    and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will appear over you…..
The sun shall no longer be
    your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
    give light to you by night;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light.

We are still in Epiphany, and will be for a few weeks yet, until we come to Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 5th.

Epiphany always seems to me to be a somewhat hodge-podge season without a clear theme – or maybe it’s a time with too many different themes. So I’ve decided, rather than trying to follow a theme, we’re just going to stick with Old Testament readings for this time. In fact, today’s reading from Isaiah isn’t even in the lectionary choices this year, but it fits our world right now.

I’ve covered this before but it never hurts to have a refresher. There were at least three Isaiah’s. Our reading today is from the third Isaiah. First and Second Isaiah’s were written before and during the Babylonian exile. The parts written by our Isaiah today, Third Isaiah, were written during the restoration – the time when the Israelites were actually returning home again after the years of exile. Third Isaiah is filled with promises that God was even then in the process of re-establishing the people of Israel as a nation living in righteousness. It sounds good but in reality it wasn’t all that smooth and easy. Their captors had set the Israelites free and allowed them to return home – but once they were all there, the people themselves could not seem to live in peace with each other.

At the time of the exile, most had been carried off to Babylon, but others had been left behind in Israel (to serve their invading conquerors) and so, never left home. Among those who went into the exile, some assimilated into the Babylonian culture, even marrying and having children with native Babylonians, while others held fast to their Hebrew heritage, which of course was completely against any intermixing.

What we had then were one group that never left home, one that held true to their Hebrew ways, and one that intermingled with the Babylonians culture. Now, these three different groups were more or less thrown back into Israel all together, two generations later, and – rather than greeting each other with kisses of joy – there was jealousy and back-biting as each group claimed its own moral superiority.

They’re back home again – sure – but they find they can’t stand each other. The ones who had never left Israel believed they were the real Hebrews and should have all say as to how things should operate here at home – while the Jews from the exile who had fought hard and suffered to hold fast to their Hebrew heritage saw themselves as the true salvation of the faith. Both of these groups hated the third group -- those who had actually assimilated into the Babylonian culture -- and no one trusted anyone else. There was fighting and back-stabbing -- all at a time we would expect there to be rejoicing and thanksgiving to God.

So even though the long-awaited restoration had already begun, things were not going well. The people were home, they have been restored – sort of – but they are still fighting. They’re home - but neighbor can’t even stand to pray with neighbor. After having their hopes raised by the return home, they are still in darkness --- a nasty, hateful darkness, and they long for the light of God’s radiance to lift that darkness and lead them once again toward a life of integrity and wholeness.

This sounds a lot like where we are today, right? We are a divided, angry nation where, in some cases neighbor can’t bear to talk with neighbor and some of us have started to suspect that people we thought we knew are really from another planet. We‘re all stumbling around in the dark.

But, in spite of the darkness, this is what Third Isaiah promises: things are going to be good again – God’s light is going to be shining on us all again – but in order to see these marvels, the people – from all three groups -- must do one thing first – they have to lift up their eyes and look around. God is doing the rest, but they have to do this little bit – they have to at least look around for their salvation – and believe it is there to be found.

Do we do our part? Do we look around us – seeking – expecting -- to find Christ? Do we expect to find goodness in others? Or anywhere?

We have waited for the Light of the World – this is what we’ve been looking for and for those of us who call ourselves Christians, this Light is to be found through the love and teachings of Jesus. But Jesus has this annoying thing he does. He promises to be with us in every problem we face…..but he also expects us to be part of the answer.

Do we want light in the world? Then we need to go out and be light. There’s a lot of dark out there these days with threats of more to come, and it seems as if a whole lot of people are busy hoarding their wattage all to themselves. All the more reason for the rest of us to go out and shine even brighter. Open our eyes, look around, and if we aren’t seeing light, then that means it’s our turn to be light.

Feed the hungry, care for the lost and abandoned, smile at a stranger, stand up against injustice, march, look at each other with kindness for pete’s sake – light wears many faces. There is one to fit each of us. And the love of God will shine right there with us.

Rise up, people of goodness – rise up, and shine. It’s an old, old message, but one we still need. The world needs our light.

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CLAIMING THAT WHICH HAS FIRST CLAIMED US

1/12/2025

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Exodus 4:10-13
But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” But still he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.”

I mentioned last Sunday that I had attended an ordination service the previous day. I have been thinking ever since about the whys and wherefores of the kinds of things we do in churches. The service of ordination, for example, involves a number of promises made by the one being ordained, by the officials who speak and act in the name of the church, and by all the rest of us – all those there to witness this Call and Answer.

There are multiple occasions – such as baptisms and ordinations -- when “the rest of us” play a role much larger than simply being “the audience”. We are there to give our affirmation to the event taking place, to offer a free-handed welcome, and to pledge our continuing support to the one taking on a new role.

Many folks, I suspect, would, like Moses, feel suitably aghast if one day God were to demand that they – individually -- become God’s spokesperson. There are times we are comfortable wearing our faith publicly, and times we might prefer to be less public about it all. Not that we are ashamed or embarrassed but just that we don’t feel up to the challenge.

Here is where being part of a church community can make us feel more able to state our faith aloud because we are not alone, but part of a larger group. Somewhere in our world, God’s love has made a claim on us. It is entirely within reason for us, in return, to show our own claim on that love – as individuals or as members of a group.

It seemed to me that here at the beginning of a new year is a good time to remind ourselves – again, individually and as a community – of our own commitments, by reading aloud together our mutual Affirmation of Faith:

As members of the Christian Church,
We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and proclaim Him Savior and Lord of the world.
In Christ’s name and by His grace
we accept our mission of witness
and service to all people.
We rejoice in God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and in God’s covenant of love
which binds us to God and to one another.
Through baptism into Christ
we enter into newness of life
and are made one with the whole people of God.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit
we are joined together in discipleship
and in obedience to Christ.
At the Table of the Lord
we celebrate with thanksgiving
the saving acts and presence of Christ.
Within the universal church
we receive the gift of ministry
and the light of scripture.
In the bonds of Christian faith
we yield ourselves to God
that we may serve the One
whose kingdom has no end.
Blessing, glory, and honor
be to God forever.
Amen!

This is a group commitment – our claim on who we are. We enter into this pledge as the many, not just as “Jesus and me” so, in that way, this is a pledge – not just to the church – but to the life we live in Christ together. Our membership in a church community is another pledge that we seek to live as Jesus calls us to live – together.

Living out our life in Christ within a church community is not, of course, the only way we can fulfill this promise. There are many places, many occasions for us to choose living as Jesus calls us.

We live in a world filled with reminders that God is everywhere. When we look out a window in the early morning and see the world painted with a color that defies definition, we understand that this is a way of God saying, “I love you,” to us. When faced with issues of loss of loved ones, we may be led to remember that God is always with us.

There are so many times and ways to be aware that we are connected with God, whether we are alone or in church, whether we find ourselves in nature or in words read in a book, or finding love in the simple affection of a beloved animal friend, or just sitting in quiet prayer.

Public, unified prayer, is simply one reminder that we are never alone and when we join with others, we lift not only those “others” but ourselves into union with that One, that Spirit, in which we “live, and move, have our being.” And how grateful we should be to find ourselves there.

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EPIPHANY AND MORE

1/5/2025

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John 1:1-4a, 14, 16-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being ...

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth ...

From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. The Law indeed was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seenGod, only the Son, who has made God known to us.

Today is the day before Epiphany or, as UCC Pastor Vicki Kemper puts it in our daily reading for today, “Tonight the season of gift-giving and divine presence we know as Christmastide comes to an end.” Tomorrow, we enter a new liturgical season, Epiphany.

Epiphany has several tightly nuanced meanings. I ‘ve spoken about its several meanings before when we come to this multi-faceted feast day. The phrase it is most often translated as is “to make manifest.” It refers to the times when something becomes clear or visible or obvious; when something right in front of us suddenly becomes plain to see.

In the scriptural sense it refers to events that happened when the Christ Child was born – angels in the sky singing praises and pointing shepherds toward the newly-born child; a star like no other shining over that same child; priest-kings from distant countries, bringing rich gifts and bowing down before the child in a stable -- all saying "look here – look here and understand what it is you are seeing. Something is being revealed to you that prophets have awaited for hundreds of years. Something is being manifested to you.”

These are stories we have heard all our lives, whether we are children playing our first role in our church’s annual Christmas pageant or elders looking back and remembering so many Christmases long past, but this very repetition can create a problem for us.

As we spoke last week, we’ve heard these stories so many times that they have, in a way, lost their meaning. Adorable as babies are, it is not the infant Christ who has filled our lives with grace upon grace – it is the adult Jesus – the Son – the Word -- who has made God known to us.

In our daily reading for today our writer Vicki Kemper gives us a sentence that I found myself reading over and over again just for the beauty and wonder of what it says to us. Here she refers to our reason for these early stories – our reason for Christmas – as “the one who put flesh on God’s love.”

God’s love for us is such an amorphous, formless idea – it is something we believe in but how can we image such a thing in our thoughts? How can it be part of our everyday world? We can know God’s love because the Son, the Word, chose to put flesh on God’s love, and he became that flesh that made love tangible for us – and presented God’s love in a way that we can at least partially understand.

When we read, “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us,” this is what it means. Not that Jesus put on a human disguise, but that the Son, the Word, became flesh, just like us, to live among us as one of us.

When we shake hands, when we hug those dear to us or reach out to lift up one who needs help, what we hold is God’s love. When we are down or lost ourselves and someone embraces us and helps us face the world, what we are held by is God’s love. When we welcome a new-born child, the flesh we welcome is God’s love.

As it is written in our scripture for today, from the first chapter of John, “…from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, the Word, himself God, who is close to God’s heart, who has made him known to us.

Grace upon grace…This is gift of Christmas…grace that is with us throughout the year, throughout our lives, because of Jesus’ gift of himself. Grace that is given us at Christmas, into Lent and Easter – and on through every moment of every season. May we always be aware of just how immeasurably we are blessed – and in so doing, let us share that gift – that grace upon grace with all around us.

Amen.

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BIBLICAL JUSTICE

ARISE, SHINE ... FOR OUR LIGHT IS COME

CLAIMING THAT WHICH HAS FIRST CLAIMED US

EPIPHANY AND MORE

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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