The Lord is just and loves just deeds
May 27, 2023 - Saturday, Seventh Week of Easter
Psalm 11:4, 5 and 7
This Saturday comes before the feast of the Pentecost. The first reading concludes the Acts of the Apostles with a statement that Saint Paul although under house arrest “proclaimed the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31). Today, we also end listening to the Gospel of John that accompanied us for most of the season of Easter. It ends with the final testimony of its author that “there are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). In between these two readings, we have Psalm 11 in which we find a perplexing question: “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do” (Ps 11:3)?
Today, the foundations of Christian culture built for nearly two thousand years are being destroyed. New world order is being established in front of our eyes that do not want to have anything to do with the Christian faith and the values of Western culture rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition. We set up our standards of good and evil disregarding God’s commandments, we believe in science and technology, and consider religion as the “opium” for the poor, the powerless, and the uneducated. In the developed countries of the world, except for the US, church attendance is on the decline. On the other hand, in other parts of the world, Christianity is being persecuted. Our brothers and sisters are being put into prisons or placed in house arrest and unlike Saint Paul, they are forbidden to proclaim the Kingdom of God and teach about the Lord Jesus Christ. So, when the foundations are destroyed what can we do? Take refuge in the Lord (Ps 11:1).
The author of Psalm 11 exhibits an enormous trust in the Lord, the just judge, who from his heavenly temple searches both the just and the wicked. Jesus once said that the Father “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:45). But, we would be wrong in presuming that it does not make any difference for God whether someone is just or wicked. The psalmist declares that the Lord hates the lover of violence but he loves just deeds (Ps 11:5, 7). In the omitted verse 6 of our psalm, alluding to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (see Gen 19:24-29), the psalmist either declares or prays that God will punish the wicked (Ps 11:6).
A society where the wicked triumph and the righteous are told to flee away, like Lot from Sodom, is heading for destruction. In Jewish tradition, there is a belief that every generation has 36 saints on whose piety the fate of the world depends. It stems from the statement in the book of Proverbs that “the righteous is an everlasting foundation” (Prof 10:25). As Christians, we say that the fate of the world depends on the act of one truly righteous man, Jesus Christ (see Luke 23:47), who died for the sins of the whole world (see 1 John 2:2). It is from this sacrifice of God’s Son that the Church was born and empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel to everyone. This Gospel remains the only hope of humanity. We cannot find salvation in anyone except in Jesus Christ (see Acts 4:12). And it is the Holy Spirit that turns sinners into saints, enemies into friends, and establishes new humanity that rejects violence and embraces charity as its way of life.
The tiny community gathered in the upper room on the day of Pentecost transformed their world through the proclamation of the Gospel and the testimony of their lives. We are called to do the same with our world. We are called to rebuild the foundations that are being destroyed and so we come together and pray:
Come Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth and renew our lives!