Nov 29 2009
Advent Devotional
Our advent devotional this year is ADVENT REFLECTIONS, assembled by the Wisconsin United Methodist Federation for Social Action. click here for a pdf, or pick up a hard copy at the church.
The reading for Tuesday, December 1:
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Jeremiah 33:14-16
14The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
We hear much about peace and security – and their symbols of dove and hawk. Playing this polarity off against one another has not led us very far. Let us look for connections between another pairing – justice and righteousness. One interesting commonality is that both are connected at their roots with a difference in gender. In Hebrew here, Justice is male and Righteousness is female. Since they are parallel terms, when Jeremiah speaks of Judah and Jerusalem, the general and the specific, the generational time frame and the specific representational location, as being saved, finding security, it is in a “name” called: “The Lord is our righteousness” (feminine) which also reveals “The Lord is our justice” (masculine).
We would all be helped if this pairing were more closely connected in our speech, even to the point of not being able to say one without the other.
As one living image of the heavenly host, this justice and righteousness pairing is our birthright. Within myself I carry both. And so do you. The effect of holding these two aspects of a larger story is to bring forth a new creation. They don’t return us to the days when we yearned for security because things are in such a mess or to some perceived past perfect moment to be carved eternally outside a flow of time. Justice and Righteousness flourish together. Together they provide the space needed for a new heaven and earth, seedtime and harvest.
Ultimately this polarity needs to be managed, not chosen between. Justice and Righteousness have
left their ideal homes and entered into the give and take of a living together with a vocation to
provide a creative safety from whence their offspring of hope, mercy, love, redeeming forgiveness, etc. might spread their wings and drop their roots into our present moments so in need of reformation.
Instead of looking for a fancy word that might stand behind Justice and Righteousness as their
measuring rod and evaluator of their implementation in a personal or social context, we may have to settle for a small word that needs these two to reveal its creative energy. At least one candidate for an appropriate context would be the small but complex word of “kind”.
The next time you see the word “Righteous”, substitute “Just” and see what your ear tells you.
Likewise, hearing “Justice”, speak “Righteousness” and see where the dialogue takes you. You may find a kindness developed toward self and others that could approximate the love G*D had/has for creation.
