The “tude” of Righteousness

The News: what craziness this thing we call life is all about. Or maybe this is just the script we are attempting to write on our own?

Whenever I read the news I seem to ask myself: "Self (I like talking to myself, because I always have an attentive audience :0) what the heck does it mean to say I worship a Just God? Like Pilate I wonder what is truth, what is justice?" On Monday of this week, (Jan 21) the paradox of life could not have been more apparent: America inaugurates its first Black President for his second term and on the day this nation stops to celebrate the life a civil rights pioneer, the POTUS uses the very bible of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to be sworn in by; on this day, a 15 year old boy kills 3 siblings and his parents; on this day 37 hostages are killed in Algeria; on this day the POTUS hails civil rights for "all" people - black, white, gay, straight - moving the discussion on to the road less traveled thus far; on this day the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both finished in the green (with earnings) while nearly 1.3 billion people got by on less than $1 for the day (hardly a gain); on this day millions went about life with hardly a thought of the "other"; on this day, I wonder what Jesus thinks about our nation, His church, me and my role in His drama of salvation?

So often I remain blind to the reality of the action on the world's stage. I become bent on the "tude" of self as opposed to the "tude" of the Savior (cf. Phil 2). The injustice I appear to face always has a way of eventually making me aware of the lack of justice all over the world. Bummer that I am so often blind to injustice until it lands smack on my doorstep! I live just as Alice in Chains song "Man in the box" sings:

I'm the man in the box
Buried in my crap
Won't you come and save me, save me

Lord, would you open my heart, my eyes, my ears so that I would be one who "hungers and thirsts for righteousness" (cf. Matt 5.5-10) so that I might be one who seeks to be a peacemaker thereby helping "justice roll down like a river, and righteousness, like a never-ending stream" (Amos 5.24).

In reading through the Beatitudes, I was awakened to how so often the Lord uses the so called "injustices" in my life to re-orientate my focus back to Him. There are real injustices that I neglect because I don't want to be inconvenienced by them, be challenged by them, or what's worse I don't want them to destroy my own comfort because in the end I am nothing more than self-focused. This is how Eugene Peterson translates Habakkuk 2.4: "Look at the man, bloated by self-importance--full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive." Most of us understand or have heard this verse as "the just or righteous will live by faith."

A study of the four times this verse appears in the Bible sheds light on the attitude or the "tude" of the righteous. We have a choice in how we respond to life, the question we have to ask ourselves is what foundation will we build our responses on and from?

Helen Keller wrote:

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

For those who call themselves a follower of Christ, our character and our response to life is in light of His response to us, and this is not always easy nor does it often times lack pain and suffering, but we are called to respond to life as our Savior did, with joy and praise! We who follow the Crucified King are called to live out His insane love through actions that the world will see as being nothing more than pure insanity (cf. John 10.20). We are called to participate in His Eucharistic (self-giving) performance by and through our own self-giving (Eucharistic) performances. So as the author of Hebrews writes, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12.2). Let us live out the "tude" of righteousness as we live out the insane love of Jesus...

Dude Jesus you rock my world everyday! Thank you!