According to Thy name, O God, so is Thy praise unto the ends of the earth: Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Psalm 48:10
Righteousness is the combined force of rightness and justice. The Hebrew word for righteousness is tseh'-dek, tzedek- which according to Strong’s Concordance means righteous, integrity, equity, justice, straightness, upright, just, straight, pure, innocent, true, sincere. It is best understood as the product of upright, moral action in accordance with some form of divine plan.
So Charly and Marcus drove up to Phoenix yesterday to interview Joe Arpaio, not just “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” but now the self-proclaimed “World’s Toughest Sheriff.” And walked away with signed pink underwear and signed posters of him standing in front of Tent City. He does like publicity; his website says that he has been profiled in over 4500 U.S. and foreign newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs. Charly and Marcus said at first consideration, Joe appears to be a righteous man: upright, straight, true, sincere. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. Criminals should not live in luxury. They have chosen to commit crimes; they should pay the consequences.
Charly and Marcus then visited Tent City, a sprawling compound of wallless tents, metal beds far too short to lie on, lined with barbed wire. The mantra “no comfort items,” includes pillows. If an inmates rolls up his towel to put under his head to rest, it is taken away. There is no privacy, no walls on showers or toilets, and there is a constant parade of gaping visitors. He has the cheapest meals in the U.S. too. The average meal costs between 15 and 40 cents, and inmates are fed only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal delivery. He even stopped serving salt and pepper to save tax payers $20,000 a year. Mugshots of all those arrested (about 300 per day) in Maricopa County are posted on the Sheriff’s website as they are booked and processed into jail, before trial. Human dignity is not a big issue.
These effective measures have won him reelection year after year: 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012. In spite of an analysis by the Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget, completed in April 2011, that found Arpaio had misspent almost $100 million over the previous 5 years.The analysis showed that money from a restricted detention fund which could only legally be used to pay for jail items, such as food, detention officers' salaries and equipment, was used to pay employees to patrol Maricopa County. Arpaio's office kept a separate set of personnel books detailing actual work assignments, different from information kept on the county's official human-resources records. The analysis also showed a number of inappropriate spending items, including a trip to Alaska where deputies stayed at a fishing resort, and trips to Disneyland. Separate investigations by The Arizona Republic uncovered widespread abuse of public funds and county policies by Arpaio's office, including high-ranking employees routinely charging expensive meals and stays at luxury hotels on their county credit cards.
Charly and Marcus were there to talk about his illegal immigrant policies. On December 15, 2011, after a 3-year investigation, the Justice Department released the findings that under Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has "a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos that reaches the highest levels of the agency." Arpaio has said of his anti-illegal immigration efforts, "Ours is an operation where we want to go after illegals, not the crime first...It's a pure program. You go after them, and you lock them up." There’s that pure word again.
What is God’s divine plan with which we are to align our upright and moral action? The Psalmist talks about His laws and precepts. A lot.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart.
They also do no iniquity: they walk in His ways.
Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently.
O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!
Charly and Marcus tucked an umbrella under their elbow as they walked out the door this morning. Today they are with the Samaritans, people who according to their website, are of faith and conscience who are responding directly, practically and passionately to the crisis at the US/ Mexico border. They are a diverse group of volunteers that are united in our desire to relieve suffering among our brothers and sisters and to honor human dignity. Prompted by the mounting deaths among border crossers, they provide emergency medical assistance, food and water to people crossing the Sonoran Desert. In the last six years they have directly aided hundreds of people, some of whom were in dire medical need. Volunteers feel that even if they have only saved one life or helped one exhausted suffering person then their efforts have been worth it. It is not illegal to provide water, food and medical assistance to another human being in distress.
What is this righteousness held in His right hand, the combined force of rightness and justice?
When the lawyer, the expert in the Law of Moses, wanted to know– how do I inherit eternal life and who is my neighbor– Jesus told a story. A story about loving God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself, that we might have life. Jesus seemed unimpressed that the priest was supposed to be ritually clean, an exemplar of the law. If the person lying there was a nonJew the priest could be risking defilement, especially if the person were dead. That didn’t seem to matter. Rather he tells of unclean man caring for the wounds of another. There are no to do lists, no sacraments to perform, no doctrines to agree with, and no prayers found in the back of a Four Spiritual Laws pamphlet, even though I love that prayer and heard a happy-heart story this week of a twelve-year-old girl going out into the desert and praying those very words to God and it changed her life forever. That’s not what Jesus answered when asked What do I do to inherit eternal life?
Worship practice is going on in our living room. It’s pretty much my favorite way to spend Saturday mornings. Serving cookies and coffee to worship practice.
Dwell in the midst of us
Come and dwell in this place
Dwell in the midst of us
Come and have Your way
Dwell in the midst of us
Wipe all the tears from our faces
Dwell in the midst of us
You can have Your way
Not our will, but Yours be done
Come and change us
Not our will, but Yours be done
Come sustain us
and
Make me more like Jesus, fill me.
Lord, I want to be with you.
Because I know You are worthy
and You are working within me.
