Almost all religions and cultures that I know of have believed in one way or another that sin and evil are to be punished and retribution is to be demanded of the sinner in this world—and usually the next world, too. Such retributive justice is a dualistic system of reward and punishment, good folks and bad folks, and makes perfect sense to the ego. I call it the economy of merit or “meritocracy.” This system seems to be the best that prisons, courtrooms, wars, and even most of the church (which should know better) appear equipped to do…
Mere counting and ledger-keeping are not the way of the Gospel. Our best self wants to restore relationships, and not blame or punish. This is the “economy of grace.” (The trouble is that we defined God as “punisher-in-chief” instead of Healer, Forgiver, and Reconciler and so the retribution model was legitimized all the way down!)
Source: Daily Meditations, August 22, 2023
Verse of the day
For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.
– Ezekiel 18:32
Voice of the day
I am very much a proponent of that sort of Augustinian theology that says the Lord has no other hands but ours and no other feet but ours. I think that’s the message the white church needs to hear, too: that thoughts and prayers are not enough, that it will take our hands and our feet joining in with the will of God.
– Rev. Julian Armand Cook, ‘I Had Run out of Massacre Sermons’
Prayer of the day
Lord who delights in life, we lament those who have lost their lives due to terrorism. May we be a people who do more than pray but who use our hands and feet to bring life to the word.
“We must cross the threshold of this new millennium with the hope of those who have learned to resist, who have learned to build and dream of a brighter future—a future in which a sense of community and a respect for nature become parameters for coexistence, a future in which cultural and linguistic diversity is seen as the great wealth of humankind . . . based in equality, in justice at both the national and international levels, in the free self-determination of all peoples, and in a harmonious relationship with nature. Only then will it be possible to nurture sustainable development as well as an equitable distribution of wealth.”—Rigoberta Menchú Tum
“The movement of the fifties and sixties is talked about as the Civil Rights Movement, but we rarely talked about civil rights in Memphis, Nashville, Jackson, Mississippi, or the jails in Mississippi. We talked about the movement, we talked about freedom, and we talked about justice.”—James M Lawson Jr
“My sense of being ‘out of joint’ was deeply embodied. At the same time, I was beginning to see the faint glimmer of the sun’s rising in the east finally.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness
How did your experience of the long dark night of the soul manifest in your body? What led to faint glimmers of the sun’s rising again in your life and spiritual journey?
From the wonderful new book by my dear friend and Abbess, Christine Valters Paintner. It has been such a blessing to me as I reflect on the journeys Denise and I have shared with five parents since 2015… we feel the presence of Shirley Moore, Jeanne Hauck, Betty Buckner, Roland Hauck, and George Moore with us every day.
I can’t recommend this book strongly enough, especially if you are in the midst of such a night as you walk with others and as others walk with you.
Verse of the day
But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
– 1 Samuel 8:19-20
Voice of the day
It’s tempting to let our collective fear and pain shape our Savior into one who will be militaristic and merciless. … Oppression is always more palatable when it is wrapped in the language of faith.
– Juan Martínez Ovalle, “What’s Behind the ‘Peace’ in El Salvador?”
Prayer of the day
Lord, for too long we have let our fears and desires for power make a Savior who is in our image. Redeem our imaginations; may we reject this God of Empire we’ve created.
“It’s ironic that a term that means to repair—reparations, to repair, to repair broken relationships—would be a notion that there’s such visceral and emotional reaction to. It’s ironic that [Reparations], a term that’s meant to bring people together towards restorative justice and repair relationships, has been seen as such a divisive kind of issue.”—Charles Henry
Detachment is often understood as letting loose of what is attractive. But it sometimes also requires letting go of what is repulsive. You can indeed become attached to dark forces such as resentment and hatred. As long as you seek retaliation, you cling to your own past. Sometimes it seems as though you might lose yourself along with your revenge and hate—so you stand there with balled-up fists, closed to the other who wants to heal you. . . .
Praying means, above all, to be accepting of God who is always new, always different. For God is a deeply moved God, whose heart is greater than our own. The open acceptance of prayer in the face of an ever-new God makes us free. In prayer, we are constantly on our way, on a pilgrimage. On our way, we meet more and more people who show us something about the God whom we seek. We will never know for sure if we have reached God. But we do know that God will always be new and that there is no reason to fear.
“There are some persons whose great gift, in a dark age, is simply to maintain a candlelight of humanity and so to guarantee that darkness should not have the final word.”—Robert Ellsberg
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