Doing Justice

SCRIPTURE:  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  Micah 6:8 ESV

QUOTE: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Benjamin Franklin describing the form of government decided upon during the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, 1787

THOUGHT: Two hundred and forty-seven years ago today, history was made with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A stake in the ground for liberty from an oppressive ruler and system where freedom belonged to the wealthy and titled. From this public and costly stance flowed our Republic, it’s Constitution and it’s Bill of Rights: the right to free speech and religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to your own property and protection from unreasonable search and seizure there, due process, speedy trial and impartial juries, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and the acknowledgement that there are more rights, not named. Then, there’s the catch-all, that if not covered in these 10, the rights belongs to the states, not the federal government. A system of government built on rule of law, rather than people in power who made laws to suit themselves. A freedom built around what the founders called “inalienable rights,” endowed by an inalienable Creator God.

And it started a war. A war for the freedom to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

I wonder as I watch the system in recent years, just what form of government I am watching? So many of the founders, including Benjamin Franklin (see quote above), acknowledged the fragile nature of this Republic, warning, ironically, about the dangers of a democracy. “If you can keep it,” was Franklin’s way of sending up a red flag the moment he set his signature to the document. He knew it would require work and attention and face-like-flint.

This hard work – the work of doing justice while loving kindness and walking humbly with our God – is something we’ve forgotten, I think. During my lifetime, freedom has been a guarantee, and we’ve overlooked that thing Ronald Reagan saw so powerfully from his perch, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Franklin would say it’s slipping away, this Republic that the founders loved. The time to do justice is now. The time to figure out how faith without works is dead is now. Faith belongs in the marketplace of our nation and the halls of our government, not just in our private homes or hearts. The raw truth of it is that when faith, and the virtue it teaches, leaves the marketplace (or the humans in the marketplace and halls of government), it will not be possible in the private home for long either. Surely you can see the evidence of that too.

PRAYER: Oh God, I stumble to explain my heart. Will you take these words and help those who read them understand? Will you birth in all our hearts what works we should be about, for we are your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which you prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).