The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.” vss. 1-2
Psalm 97:1-9
Our experience of kings is very different from that of the psalmist. We think of them mainly in the context of wealthy and scandal-ridden royal families. For the psalmist kings were the most powerful people on earth, mortals who commanded single-minded devotion and loyalty. So, when he wanted a metaphor to describe God, it was natural for him to write, “The Lord is king!” Because kings have fallen out of favor among us, it’s tempting to just discard this whole psalm as irrelevant. But if we do this, we miss the important truth he’s attempting to convey. While we do not believe in a God who sits on a throne above the clouds, we do have a strong commitment to righteousness and justice as the foundation of the moral universe. Consequently, whenever we become aware of the creeping erosion of those values among our leaders, we are rightly appalled. There is just no room for a perversion of justice and the weaponizing of the legal system to serve our own human purposes. And it can happen so quickly! Sadly, we even become accustomed to corruption and assume wrongly that it will always be with us. People of faith know better and will always work together to practice righteousness and battle injustice.
Thought for the Day: Where have I seen justice perverted?
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