What Happened to Justice?

There are those who turn justice into bitterness
  and cast righteousness to the ground. – Amos 5:7

There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
  and detest the one who tells the truth. – Amos 5:10


Today’s Reading: Amos 4-6; Revelation 7


Man… ain’t this the truth!?

I just saw in the news the other day a case of three men who have been in jail for 18 years for a crime that they didn’t commit. DNA testing showed no link to them and the victims and after 18 years they will be released from prison.

But there is one catch… they have to plead guilty…

Isaiah Goes Hard in the Paint!

When you come to appear before me,
   who has asked this of you,
   this trampling of my courts? 

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
   Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
   I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
   I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
   I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
   I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
   I am not listening.

   Your hands are full of blood!

Wash and make yourselves clean.
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
   stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
   Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
   plead the case of the widow. – Isaiah 1:12-17

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 1-2; Galatians 5

Good gracious that’s some withering heat! I said yesterday that Paul went hard in the paint but this is a whole different level. This is like footage of Shaq when he was in high school terrorizing the minions in his path.

Utterly unfair.

But look at the message. Isaiah spends a bunch of verses lambasting Israel for their wrongs and you’re thinking… okay… but what did they do? Then you get to this part.

Wash and make yourselves clean.
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
   stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
   Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
   plead the case of the widow. – Isaiah 1:16-17

This is amazing to me. Through Isaiah’s revelation we see that God is the champion of the oppressed and downtrodden. God cares more about how we treat our fellow human beings than he does about the number of prayers we offer, the amount of times we repent, or how often and loudly we praise His name.

This rings true to me. I’ve always viewed Jesus’ great commandments as the cornerstone of my faith. We are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

And really this is a circular notion. Given that we are all created in God’s image how can we truly say that we love God when we are willing to stand idly by as our brothers and sisters are oppressed?

It doesn’t work that way.

The prophet books are good for this. Through the gift of their timeless connections to God we can see how we need to improve ourselves. We are no better or worse than Israel was when these words were written; but we do have the benefit of these words to learn from.

If this first chapter of Isaiah is any indication… we are in for a rough and tumble ride!




(P.S. this is the instrumental... I just couldn't bring myself to put the actual song up... that's going entirely too far. Listen along with the second Shaq clip below Enjoy!)

Shaq going hard in the paint like Isaiah in his rookie year. smh...

Don't Ask is done, but we ALL still have a ways to go

Don’t ask don’t tell has been repealed. I have two thoughts.

1. It’s about time.

2. That was a pretty moronic rule to begin with.

First of all I’m going to start by saying this: I am happy that the decision has been made to end this policy. It was long overdue. There have been countless lives affected by this DADT and I hope that this will be the first of many necessary steps toward making openly gay and lesbian soldiers a reality in our armed forces.

Now on to the part about it being moronic… I mean seriously… Being a soldier is no joke. Those who choose to be soldiers are willingly putting themselves in harms way. And they choose to do this to protect us, the regular American citizens that have no desire to be out there. I cannot begin to imagine how many good soldiers we lost by having this policy. How many lives were lost because some of our best soldiers couldn’t go out into the field of battle? In a time when our soldiers are over extended and ill-equipped we’ve allowed our collective bigotry to prevent us from putting our best foot forward.

Shameful.

This is in no way an endorsement of the wars we have going on. I am not the biggest fan of war in general, nor some of the specific decisions that have been made with our recent foreign policy. I believe that we should do our best to avoid war at all costs unless absolutely necessary.

Plus I think that peace is pretty cool. But that’s just me.

But to deny someone the right to serve their country, no, protect their country, as a soldier because of their sexuality is terrible.

And it is wrong.

But of course we have seen this before. It wasn’t too long ago that the US military was segregated along racial lines. It seems that we are hard pressed to learn lessons from the past.

What has been will be again, 
   what has been done will be done again; 
   there is nothing new under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 1:9

Most of us are afraid of what is different. We are afraid of what is new. We resist change.

But that’s not the way the world works. The world is constantly changing. We move through seasons. We experience sunshine, winds and rains. Though we follow the same path around the sun we never come back to the same place.

Time marches on and so must we.

We have seen this battle waged before but under different banners. Whether it is race or gender, nationality or sexuality the struggles remain the same.

Either we can be fair, or we can be unjust.

This is a matter of morality. Everyone has all the right in the world to think or feel however they want to about anyone else. But they do not have the right to let those thoughts fuel actions that negatively affect the lives of others. They do not have the right to impose their will on others.

What is right for you is just that; right for you.

For our gay brothers and sisters this is just one battle of a larger war. I wish them the best as a fellow from one under represented group to another.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth Matthew 7:12

I want the freedom to live my life as I choose so long as I don’t hurt others. I believe that everyone else should have that same right. If freedom is denied to one then it is denied to us all.

Stay strong. There is still a long way to go… for ALL OF US.

Cold Blooded!

As soon as the word left the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, "A gallows seventy-five feet high stands by Haman's house. He had it made for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king."
      The king said, "Hang him on it!" So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's fury subsided. – Esther 7: 8-10

Today’s Reading: Esther 6-8; Acts 6

Talk about what did the five fingers say to the face… good gracious.

Haman concocted this elaborate plan to have Mordecai killed. He even built a 75 foot tall gallows to hang him from. How arrogant was that? He was so sure that his deceitful plan would succeed that he built the instrument of his own destruction.

Have you ever known someone who became so mad at another person that they devoted entirely too much energy to bringing that person down?

We always gotta remember an important spiritual truth. Haters never prosper.

Retribution, justice, revenge… these are all things that are not your job. Plus, given the extremely subjective nature of our existence, we are not equipped to mete them out righteously.

So sit back and chill. Folks who do dirt are preparing their own disastrous beds that they will surely lie in.

If they deserve to fall, they will fall.

But if you stick your leg out to make them stumble, surely, it will be crushed under the weight of your deceit before it causes them to fall.

Wanna test that? Go for it? As for me… I’ll mind my own business and keep chasing these dreams. 

What's Taking The Catholic Church So Long?

So I just read this article about the Pope begging forgiveness for the child abuse problems with the priests in the Catholic Church.

As I read his statements and those of the organizations that advocate for the victims I couldn’t stop thinking one thing…

What’s taking so long?

Like seriously… what’s taking so long here? Why has the Pope not come with a clear resolution and plan of action? Maybe there is so much more under the surface that it would be too damaging for the church to reveal it. Maybe the Pope has some personal involvement here…

Who knows?

But what I find interesting here is that the Pope is asking for forgiveness when he really wants reconciliation.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say someone does you wrong and they ask for your forgiveness. Sure, you can forgive them; but, would you ever put your trust in them again?

Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But it takes time to build trust, and that building of trust is reconciliation. It only occurs when you follow up your request for forgiveness with sustained and consistent action to demonstrate that the victim of your treatment can have faith in you again.

And that’s what these victims need. They need to see results. They need to see that the church has taken concrete actions to expose those who committed these crimes. They need to see that there are measures in place to prevent this from happening again and to deal with the offenders who do this in the future.

Every rational person knows that no single person or entity is perfect. The Catholic Church cannot reasonably promise that their priests will not do anything bad in the future.

And no one is asking for such a promise.

But good gracious… let’s get some transparency here! As people of faith, the folks in the Catholic Church should do what Jesus said.

"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. Matthew 5: 23-26

They seem to have done neither. If they go and reconcile with the victims by demonstrating their remorse through meaningful action then this will eventually go away.

Otherwise, the victims will continue to drag them to the courts of law and public opinion…

These courts are not friendly to anyone.

An Open Letter: So That We Might See

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. – John 9: 1-3

Today’s Reading: 1 Chronicles 25-27: John 9:1-23

Dear Jesus,

First of all I want to say thank you for giving me my vison. The mud thing was pretty dramatic… but yeah man… thanks a lot.

Now… I don’t mean to sound ungrateful… but you said that I was blind so that the work of God might be displayed in my life. That doesn’t make sense to me. Ok yes what you did was super impressive but man, I went through my whole childhood blind as a bat! I’ve had to beg for money my entire adult life because I had no means or wherewithal to provide a living for myself.

The “why” that you gave your disciples I’m sure works for them. But to keep it real with you, it doesn’t work for me. This is MY life that you are talking about here! Where were you all these years when I was starving, ridiculed, ashamed, vulnerable, and taken advantage of? Where were you huh?

Sigh…

Ok… I just had to get that off my chest. But you gotta understand me here. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would I have to suffer all of the hardship that I suffered so that your followers could learn a lesson? It just doesn’t seem fair.

Please help me understand.

Sincerely,

Your thankful servant.

My son,

I am sorry that you feel the way that you do and I will do my best to help you understand; but first I must ask you a few questions.

What is fair? How do you judge what is and what is not fair? Are your struggles yours alone? How did you make it all of these years? Were you loved?

I am love and I work through love. I never left you and I will always be with you. How did you feel when you received the caring touch from your mother or could hear the warm smile in the heart of your father when he spoke of you? Who was it that provided alms for you when you were hungry? Who looked out for you when you could not look out for yourself? Who guided your steps when you could not see the stumbling blocks in your path? Who reached down to help you when you fell?

It was I this whole time for I am love. When people act in love they are connected with the divine. It is hard for many people to learn to love because they only see what they want to see. So I sent them one who could not see to show them what they have been unable to see.

Through your blindness you taught the world to love; not only those who raised you, who knew you, and who saw you, but also all of those who will come after you for millennia. The fact that you grew up and lived to the age that you were when I encountered you is a testimony of the love that humanity is capable of.

It is only through love that a blind child can grow to be a man.

So I am sorry son for the sacrifice that you feel you have made but know that you are one of the great teachers of the ages. The greatest teachers are those who teach others how to love.

And you my friend succeeded at that; greatly.

Sincerely,

J.