Guest Entry: And Justice For All

A few years back my brother David wrote a guest blog entry. It is time to once more here from undoubtedly the greatest Dryden brother I have ever had. (He happens to be the only Dryden brother I have, but that’s not the point.)

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden

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Greetings to everyone who reads my brother’s blog! I’m David, brother of this most talented writer. As he has invited me to have a little visit, I will just share a few thoughts I’ve been having.

Deuteronomy 16 says “justice, justice you shall pursue.” “You shall pursue justice, justice!” Proverbs 21 says that doing righteousness and justice is more desirable to God than sacrifices. Jeremiah 9 says that a man shouldn’t boast for any other reason than that he understands and knows God, that He does righteousness, justice and kindness and that in these things he desires.

There is a lot of talk about the importance of prayer. Favourite passages of scripture include “renew in me a clean heart” and “if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray” and there are those that like to emphasize the importance of praying, fasting, worshipping, going to a place of worship and the singing of songs. And yet we live in a land of injustice. Immorality and lies are accepted facts of life when a person considers the courts and the politicians that occupy the countries we live in. People would even use the “lesser of two evils” argument to literally vote immorality and injustice into the ruling classes of the country.

But in places like Isaiah 1, a picture is painted of a people who love worship, prayer and other acts of worship. And God is sick of all of it. Because justice is more or less dead amongst that people.

It’s very easy to get a superiority complex and say “look at how bad Israel was.” And usually people who are ready to make such statements have no grasp of the injustice and immorality in their own land. And the problem isn’t the lack of prayer or fasting or worship or the lack of bibles and pamphlets that may be flowing for certain companies. It’s that there is a disconnect between the worship of God and a righteous life. A holy person these days is seen a person who prays and fasts a lot but the verses above highlight the fact that a good life is more than just words and stopping eating. It is about knowing what justice is and doing one’s best to align one’s life and one’s surroundings with that justice.

It is said that God is in the midst of your praises. But the scary thing is that if justice and fairness is missing from your life and environment, then those praises are empty and much closer to being insults to God rather than true praise, even if you believe your heart is sincere.