Living the Word

Securing Justice
By Peter B. Price

"God’s saving justice is never served by human anger," points out James in his letter to Christians struggling against the power structures that threatened to consume the Christian community. The readings of the next few weeks reveal the struggle between the forces of sins in the human heart, the principalities and powers, the saving grace of God, and the vision of a restored and renewed creation.

We shall have to face choices: whether to place our trust in the political, economic, social, and eccleisal structures that offer us the promise of security now, or to opt for the One who has the words of eternal life. We too will need to face our sin, our complicity, our own betrayal of the One who "came to bring the good news of peace" (Ephesians 2:17). The only justice worth securing is that of God’s saving justice. May God’s strength be made perfect in our weakness.

July 27
God Working in Us
Psalm 14; 2 Samuel 11:1-15; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

Don't those who do wrong know? Those who devour my people as if eating bread (Psalm 14:4)? These are profound questions for our time, as they were for the increasingly successful King David. A successful military strategist, he could afford to stay home and play both monarch and tyrant, exploiting sexually and politically for his own ends, regardless of the cost to individual lives or national morality. For a while David is the fool who thinks there is no God (Psalm 14:1), joining the ranks of other ruling elites who have exploited, oppressed, and victimized in order to achieve political influence.

Having issued his challenge, "Don't all those who do wrong know?" Jesus realizes that he is in danger of being misunderstood, for the crowds were about to come by force and make him king. Jesus is forced to flee into the solitude of the hills for safety and reflection. Jesus will be king, but on his own terms, not on the terms of those who have only the tyrant model on which to base their hopes.

We do not know what was in Jesus' prayer, but Paul gives us a prayer that goes to the heart of the spiritual challenge today. We too are to seek the glory of God working in us so that God can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever.

Reflection and Action

Where do you find yourself asking the question, Don't all those who do wrong know? In what ways can you demonstrate a critique of the systems that oppress the poor? Where do you look for solitude and safety when things are difficult?

PETER B. PRICE is general secretary of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, an Anglican mission agency based in London, and practices—with his wife, Dee—a ministry of hospitality.