SCRIPTURE: And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there. I said to myself, “God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.” Ecclesiastes 3:16-17 NIV
QUOTE: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, Inventor, Writer
THOUGHT: Although virtue isn’t a word we often use today, it’s definition is “moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.”
We end the week with yet another voice from our national heritage claiming that virtue is tightly wound up with the capacity to live as a free people. When so many founders say the same thing, it speaks volumes and what I think I hear it shouting is that we cannot sustain democracy without private virtue that is widespread enough that it leads to public virtue.
The writer of Ecclesiastes was a powerful king, yet he saw wickedness entering both the system of justice and the system of law in the country he governed. He warned that there was a time and place where God gets the final say, and while I am grateful for that, I am still convinced that I must do what I can to not be part of the problem — to offer myself and my gifts to the world around me, asking people to think about what is at stake as we lose freedom, together with moral excellence, goodness, and righteousness. May we not be as proverbial frogs getting used to the heat in the pot while those with an appetite for frog legs stir the pot!
PRAYER: Lord God, I do feel like a frog in a pot many days. But you are able to do far more than we ask or imagine, even with frogs, or sheep, or sparrows, or two fishes, or a whale or a donkey. Do with us, and in us, your will. On earth as in heaven.
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