In the last four verses of Psalm 85, we read:
Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before the Lord
and prepares the way for God’s steps.
Or, in the Douay-Rheims Bible translation (1610):
Mercy and truth have met each other:
justice and peace have kissed.
In the flurry of activity attending summer’s end and the start of fall, amidst the stress of continued challenges to ministry in North America and the anxiety of another election approaching in a divided land, atop all the worry and wonder about what tomorrow holds for faith and life, it is easy to forget that the foundation of each congregation is built on God’s way of mercy, truth, justice, and peace.
A pioneer for reconciliation in Northern Ireland recently told us that he uses these words to anchor his own work. They are, he said, “the four dimensions of reconciliation.”
Mercy
Truth
Justice
Peace
It might be worth holding these four words up as a windowpane of sorts, through which to look at your congregation. When things get fraught, or when anxiety ratchets up, how are these values present in how people speak to one another and what they say? Which value rises to the top? Does one of the four disappear under the weight of another? Perhaps crucially, is one of these always present?
Mercy
Truth
Justice
Peace
And how about looking at your church board through the same lens? When you say “yes” to something, can you draw a straight line from your decision to Truth, or Justice, or Mercy or Peace? When you say “no,” is your “no” rooted in Truth, or Justice, or Mercy, or Peace?
In the following poem, playwright and poet Clare Dwyer Hogg, who lives in Northern Ireland, encourages us to “really know the soil” that roots us.
Live in your roots.
It has been said
Many times before but
To really know
The soil
At the base of you
Is a different kind of true and
Not just truth in abstract or one that depends on
Curated refract of light plus play of word and
Show of might.
To live there
Instead of visit
There is
To find all
Your need is met despite
The season up above,
Storm wrecked or
Spring riot.
Each thing however long it takes must go:
Glorious flight of new wing
Or not – half-formed cocoon in rot –
Whatever.
The sting will pass
As will celebration song.
None of this is wrong unless
You make your home on every branch
Above, and dress your soul
In each result, fleeting, believing
This is the whole.
You are more than the fruit
Or no fruit.
This is why I say
Dwell at the root.
Of the four words (Truth, Justice, Mercy, Peace), which are you most drawn to? Which do you feel is most embodied in your ministry?
What do you make of the line in Psalm 85 that “Righteousness goes before the Lord and prepares the way for God’s steps”?
Where in your own life have mercy and truth met? (How did the meeting turn out?)
Where in the life of your congregation have justice and peace most recently kissed? What did that look like?
What does Dwyer Hogg mean in her poem by “the soil at the base of you”?
What do you make of her claim that “None of this is wrong unless/You make your home on every branch/Above, and dress your soul/In each result, fleeting, believing/This is the whole”?
What is she calling us to root ourselves in, and to what end?
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