Real Justice

I haven't got time to write much right now...
BUT - today's God Pause devotion from Luther Seminary is excellent. Here it is:

Monday, 1/7/2008
Isaiah 42:1-9
In a post-Sept. 11 world, we may have a very warped view of justice. We expect the authorities to catch Osama bin Laden and make him pay for his crime. Television relentlessly airs stories about a search for someone who has killed an attractive female. We understand these "catching the criminal" efforts as doing justice.

But more than likely the prophet had a very different understanding of justice. His understanding was not "retribution" but "distribution." Around the world, in areas where the church is growing, people understand justice as fairness. Justice is distributing the goods fairly. Here the prophet's idea lives!

Isaiah's warning applies to us in this country, where the gap between wealthy and poor grows bigger. The servant community's task is to establish justice, not pray for retribution. A true justice department has as much to do with banking, business and trade agreements as with courts, jails and law enforcement.

O God, show us what fairness is. Amen.

Harry Mueller
Reformation Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minn.
Master of Divinity , 1972


Isaiah 42:1-9 (NRSV)1 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
5 Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it:
6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations,
7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
8 I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.
9 See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.