Psalm 99:4 "Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity..."
Today is the Kentucky Derby, the event of the year in the state I called home for part of my childhood. And so in reading about the Derby this morning, I came across an article written last year about the "forgotten history" of Black jockeys in the Derby: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-col1-kentucky-derby-black-jockeys-20190502-htmlstory.html. This is just one example of the several ways that today's Derby is wrestling with past and present injustice.
In so many contexts, we are confronting how our telling of history and our cultural celebrations have been and continue to be shaped by a system of white supremacy that offends God's equitable creation. The Divine "lover of justice" who "established equity" surely mourns at these "forgotten histories."
What forgotten histories do we need to uncover as a church? Can we truly keep God's decrees without doing that hard work?
Psalm 99
1 The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
2 The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he!
4 Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Extol the Lord our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the Lord, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them.
8 O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
9 Extol the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy.