Scripture Focus: Psalm 49.5-8; 15
5 Why should I fear when evil days come, 
when wicked deceivers surround me— 
6 those who trust in their wealth 
and boast of their great riches? 
7 No one can redeem the life of another 
or give to God a ransom for them— 
8 the ransom for a life is costly, 
no payment is ever enough— 

15 But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead; 
he will surely take me to himself. 

Reflection: The Promise of Justice
By John Tillman

The Bible is the most grounded and realistic of holy texts. Scripture doesn’t blink when things go bad. It weeps. Biblical authors don’t shy from distressing realities. Cries for justice ring out in every book.

Modern people deceive ourselves that evil is only a disagreement about mutual benefits. The Bible knows that evil is real and people both cause and suffer from it.

Complaints and cries for justice come from an awareness of its lack. Deep down humans know a moral standard exists. Those who deny moral absolutes cannot show that they lack anything. Without a moral ideal, no complaint regarding justice can be made. Without some measure of wrongness there is no reason to expect goodness. How can a world with no absolutes be upset about evil? So you suffered or were harmed… Well, what did you expect? Who promised you something else?

Only amidst the Bible’s moral absolutes, do we find a promise of justice.

We know, soul deep and sinew deep, that sin exists. This is what it means to have partaken of the fruit. We KNOW evil. It looks good and tastes sweet but soon, it cramps us up, doubling us over. The knowledge of good and evil sickens our stomachs and rumbles through our guts. We soil ourselves with it and the runoff soils the earth, awakening Death.

The psalmist pulls no punches about death, the greatest evil of all. Death is the last enemy to be defeated. (Even though he has already lost.) Death treats rich and poor with perfect and efficient equity, yet every death is unjust to the Lord of life.

We work whatever justice we can on earth, but when death comes, human justice is insufficient. We cannot restore or repay, even with our lives, the loss of a victim of murder, cancer, starvation, Covid, or any other cause. But just as evil exists, righteousness does too. Whatever meager form of justice humans offer, Christ’s justice is incomparably greater.

Death’s victims need not stay in his grasp. Death’s grasping arms were broken in a wrestling match lost at the cross. Christ kicked in Death’s doors, opening the pathway to life for all who believe.

Like Old Testament sacrifices, human justice is not meaningless and we must enact it, but it is a mere shadow of the justice wrought by Christ. We do justice, as we do all else, in remembrance of His promise.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. — Psalm 84.9

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Numbers 12-13 (Listen – 5:53) 
Psalm 49 (Listen – 2:10)

Read more about Justice Starts Within
Justice starts within. It doesn’t stop there. May we answer the call…shining a light of justice and truth.

Read more about Christ the Enemy of Death
Death is God’s enemy because it harms and hurts his children..He has defeated them both on the cross…Christ is the deadly enemy of death.

Scripture Focus: Psalm 46.1-7
1 God is our refuge and strength, 
an ever-present help in trouble. 
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way 
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 
3 though its waters roar and foam 
and the mountains quake with their surging. 
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, 
the holy place where the Most High dwells. 
5 God is within her, she will not fall; 
God will help her at break of day. 
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; 
he lifts his voice, the earth melts. 
7 The Lord Almighty is with us; 
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Reflection: Ever Present Help and Gladdening Streams
By John Tillman

The “ever-present” help that most people are used to, are the digital assistants embedded in devices attached to our hands and wrists. The streams in which we search for gladness are bottomless diversions of entertainment options.

These platforms, designed for profit, hinge on addiction and ubiquity. The most powerful corporations ever to exist on the planet are working to make their products increasingly addictive and ingrained in our day to day life. 

Technology is a jealous god.

In an article for the New Yorker, Jia Tolentino wrote about the difficulties of putting down one’s phone, when it is filled with technologies that, from the start, were designed to keep us from doing so:

Facebook was described by Sean Parker as a “social-validation feedback loop…exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.” Tristan Harris, a “design ethicist” at Google, has said that smartphones are engineered to be addictive.

Technology promises freedom of movement and ease of remote work, but more often than not, workers clock in, but they can’t clock out. The workday becomes borderless, invasive, and all-encompassing. 

Technology promises emotional fulfillment and freedom of expression, but often we find ourselves chained to the emotional highs and lows of reactions, comments, and likes on social media. Technology can numb the connections and community that we truly need.

Platforms designed to help us connect have had disastrous, unexpected consequences. Loneliness looms in our lives despite more “connectedness” than ever.

We aren’t the first to worry about this. In an interview with Kris Boyd on Think, author, Jenny Odell, discussed how 400 years before the time of Christ, Epicurus started a garden school outside the city because he thought life in the Greek empire was becoming too hectic and people were disconnected from what was important.

The solution of cultivation, retreat, and pursuit of community is one we can apply toward our spiritual pursuits. Walking in a park is the key metaphor we use to refer to exploring God’s word, and cultivation is how we picture the growth of the seed of the gospel in our lives.

Technology is capable of aiding us in these things. May we use technology to tie God’s Word on our hands and integrate it into our lives. The Park Forum is dedicated to encouraging this kind of usage. For in connection to the gospel, we find freedom, fulfillment, and community that technology can’t deliver.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
God looks down from heaven upon us all, to see if there is any who is wise, if there is one who seeks after God. — Psalm 53.2

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Numbers 10 (Listen – 4:11) 
Psalms 46-47 (Listen – 2:15)

Read more about Where Our Hearts Are
If our hearts are where our treasure is, our hearts may well be in our devices.

Read more about Mustard Seed Prayers
A prayer of a few words, thrown into an inconvenient crack in your life, can grow like a mustard seed…