Ordinary Days #10: Civil Law

Your decrees

   are my delight. (Psalm 119:24)

One of God’s decrees is that each tribe (maybe we could say city, county or state) “shall appoint judges and officials in all our towns …and they shall render just decisions. You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Dt 16:18-20).

That’s pretty close to the motto engraved on the west façade of our Supreme Court building: “Equal Justice Under Law.” Even God’s chosen people living in God’s Promised Land, require “judges and officials in all their towns.” It’s God’s idea; it is his decree for our good. Maybe that’s why the Apostle encourages us to “be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God” (Ro 13:1).

 

Ordinary Days #9: Ordinary Laws.

Open my eyes, that I may behold,

   wondrous things out of Thy Torah. (Psalm 119:18)

One does not naturally behold the beauty of Torah. It requires help from the Lord. Psalm 119 praises God’s Law (torah) every which way and in all its forms: precepts, statutes, ordinances, etc. The Psalmist believes, with the help of the Lord, we can see the wonders of even these ordinary “precepts and statutes”. Maybe it is because Sarah and Anna are visiting the Supreme Court today that I’m prompted to ponder with the Psalmist “wondrous things out of Thy Law.”

After the giving of  the Ten Commandants given on the mountain, when Moses went up and the rescued people of God stood below at the foot of the mountain and heard God’s Ten Words—words to be written in stone and housed in the Ark of the Covenant; there follows all sorts of ordinary laws. The Ten written on stone tablets will always need some “But ifs.” We might call these ordinary, everyday, getting along laws.

For example, one of the ten, “Thou shalt not murder” (Ex 20:13); is followed in the next chapter with: “But if one murders with intent—if it is premeditated murder, then the murderer is to be killed; but if, there was no intent to kill, something of an accident, then the guilty party is not to be executed, but rather he is free to flee to a place of refuge”—something like Cain. Or again, what if one gets in a fight with another, and the other is wounded but not killed, what then? Well, “then the one who caused the injury must pay for the loss of time and provide for his complete recovery” (Ex 21:18-19). I’m not sure God got tangled up in all these ordinary laws. They are not placed in the Ark of the Covenant like the stone tablets. Luther suggests Moses and God worked them out along the way. These are laws for people who mess-up, like us. They are meant to keep a fallen community together—to keep us civilized.

These ordinary laws extend to those different from us, even our enemies: “When you come upon your enemy's ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free” (Ex 23:4-5). Maybe something like this was on Jesus’ mind when he tells us to “love our enemies.”

Ordinary Days #8: The Supreme Court.

I have put my hope

   in your laws. (Psalm 119:43)

Psalm 119 came to mind as I heard of our Supreme Court’s decision to protect the religious liberty of Catholic Social Services. The surprise was that it was a nine to zero decision—unanimous. Our often divided court was undivided in its interpretation and judgment of the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s the deal. No state church like England or Germany—the kind of religious tyranny from which our forbearers fled. Instead, the state puts into law the promise of religious freedom to worship as we choose.

Some years ago, when Sam and Liz Walker led us on our first Washington D.C. pilgrimage, we lingered in the Supreme Court Building. There was much to see. I was taken by its simple and elegant beauty. This little temple of the Constitution sits in the shadow of the capital—that mammoth, maybe even pretentious, building that houses our legislature. The Supreme Court's diminutive dignity reminded me how the Holy Spirit tends to be the shy member of the Trinity; yet, without God the Spirit, God wouldn’t be God. 

So it is with our three branches of our government. Without this little guardian and interpreter of our Constitution, America wouldn’t be America.

Ordinary Days #7: Journey Worthwhile

A Holy Kiss! (Romans 16:16)

The “holy kiss” made the struggles of flight all worthwhile:

 

Ordinary Days #6: Airport Mayhem

 When you were young…

   you could go wherever you wish;

But when you grow old…

   someone else will take you. (John 21:18)

We’re back from our flights to Denver and back. The “and back” part turned into one of those airport nightmares—a five hour delay, getting us home somewhere around 2:00am. Rachel got us to the Denver airport and Jen and Sarah picked us up at OAK somewhere around 1:30am.

It is this getting to the airport; or, more precisely, getting us to the proper gate, that changed both in our going and coming. In our going, our pilot friend offered not only to drop us off at the curb, but to help us through the mayhem and get us to our gate. At first we insisted that would not be necessary, but the closer we got to airport pandemonium; our “No thank you, that’s very gracious of you.” turned to “Yes please, that’s wonderful.” On the flight back, Rachel parked in “short term parking” and saw us through to the TSA and waved good-by, not knowing of the mayhem that awaited us on the other side—that’s the five hour delay part of the journey.

When I awoke this morning at the usual hour (makes no difference what time I get to bed, the getting up remains fixed), I thought of Jesus telling Peter about when he gets old “someone else will take you.” We needed someone else to take us and see us through.

 

Ordinary Days #5: For our college bound granddaughter.

We fly away. (Psalm 90:10)

It’s not the big “fly away” that awaits us; but, even the little “fly away” provided by Southwest Airlines, is something of a wonder. We fly to Denver in the morning. I’m a bundle of nerves. One does not fly for the fun of it. We fly because there’s something special at the other end. In this case, it’s a celebration for our granddaughter who just graduated from High School and is on her way to Baylor University—what a smart, bright, believing wonder of a young woman. She’s worth flying away for.

It was said of Solomon the Wise that, “He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish.” And that, “People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom” (1K 4:31-34). 

That’s why she is off to Baylor—to learn the arts and sciences. Like Solomon’s first university that teaches Israel’s great poetry and songs (the arts); and studies the wonders of the natural world like “the cedars of Lebanon…” (botany and physics), and all sorts of “animals…” (biology, even entomology as in “Go to the ant and study her ways” Pr 6); and learns some of those 3,000 proverbs (psychology, philosophy and sociology). Because God created all things, all things are worthy of our study—it has to do with making one wise.

Ordinary Days #4: For my sister…

Happy are those who are blameless,

   …seeking God with all their heart (Psalm 119:&1&2)

I have wandered away.

   …seek me out, O Lord. (Psalm 119:176)

The longest Psalm ends with the Psalmist, who started out so sure of himself, wandering away; and now, at the end, praying that God will stick with him and seek him out “like a lost sheep.” One hundred and seventy six verses in praise of Torah, ending up with a plea for something more—for grace.

The Psalm is a technical marvel—an alphabetical acrostic eight times over. That’s how we get to 176 verses: 22 letters times 8 poetic lines for each letter from alef to tav, like our “A” to “Z” (no vowels in Hebrew so take out our five vowels from our 27 and you get 22) comes out to 176—a marvel. 

There are other technical achievements, like how the eight lines of poetry manage to use eight synonyms for God’s Torah: laws, decrees, precepts, statues, commandments, ordinances, word and promise. Yet, in the end, the greatest marvel is that God, out of his freedom—his love and his grace, seeks out those who have gone astray.