{"id":22785,"date":"2023-08-21T08:38:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22785"},"modified":"2023-08-21T09:53:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T13:53:10","slug":"22785","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22785","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sam Cooke -A change gonna come  lyrics\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BLtEag0ym5U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Divine Love Restores<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr is convinced that <strong>God\u2019s justice in the Bible is fundamentally loving and restorative rather than punitive<\/strong>.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we read the Bible, <strong>God does not change as much as our knowledge of God evolves. <\/strong>I certainly recognize there are many biblical passages that present God as punitive and retributive, but we must stay with the text\u2014and <strong>observe how we gradually let God grow up.<\/strong> Focusing on divine retribution leads to an ego-satisfying and eventually unworkable image of God which situates us inside of a very unsafe and dangerous universe. Both Jesus and Paul observed the human tendency toward retribution and spoke strongly about the limitations of the law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biblical notion of justice, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Jewish prophets\u2014especially Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea\u2014is quite different. If we read carefully and honestly, we will see that God\u2019s justice is&nbsp;<em>restorative<\/em>. In each case, <strong>after the prophet chastises the Israelites for their transgressions against YHWH, the prophet continues by saying, in effect, \u201cAnd here\u2019s what YHWH will do for you: God will now love you more than ever!<\/strong> God will love you into wholeness. God will pour upon you a gratuitous, unbelievable, unaccountable, irrefutable<strong> love that you will finally be unable to resist.\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God \u201cpunishes\u201d us by loving us more!<\/em>&nbsp;How else could divine love be supreme and victorious? Check out this theme for yourself: Read passages such as Isaiah 29:13\u201324, Hosea 6:1\u20136, Ezekiel 16 (especially verses 59\u201363), and so many of the Psalms. <strong>God\u2019s justice is fully successful when God can legitimate and validate human beings in their original and total identity! God wins by making sure we win\u2014just as any loving human parent does.&nbsp;<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Love is the only thing that transforms the human heart.<\/strong> In the Gospels, we see Jesus fully revealing this divine wisdom. Love takes the shape and symbolism of healing and radical forgiveness\u2014which is just about all that Jesus does. Jesus, who represents God, usually transforms people at the moments when they most hate themselves, when they most feel shame or guilt, or want to punish themselves. Look at Jesus\u2019 interaction with the tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1\u201310). He doesn\u2019t belittle or punish Zacchaeus; instead, Jesus goes to his home, shares a meal with him, and treats him like a friend. Zacchaeus\u2019 heart is opened and transformed. Only then does Zacchaeus commit to making reparations for the harm he has done.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Isaiah says of God, \u201cMy thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways\u201d (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we largely pulled God down into \u201cour thoughts.\u201d <strong>We think fear, anger, divine intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. We cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. God always and forever models the highest, and our task is merely to \u201cimitate God\u201d <\/strong>(Ephesians 5:1).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tracy Chapman - The Times They Are A Changin Lyrics (Bob Dylan)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CQU0TugySoo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus\u2019 Work of Shalom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author and activist Shane Claiborne connects biblical justice with righteousness:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The word \u201cjustice\u201d gets abused and misused. People demand \u201cjustice\u201d all the time but have very different things in mind as they call for it. It has been so misrepresented that justice itself might do well to find some new lawyers; it needs better representation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For starters, the <strong>word for \u201cjustice\u201d in the Bible is the same word as \u201crighteousness.\u201d<\/strong> This overlap shows that the central <strong>concern of biblical justice was not \u201cgetting what you deserve\u201d; rather, it was making right what was done wrong, restoring what had been destroyed, healing the wounds of an offensive act.<\/strong> It was about bringing balance and wholeness back to the community, which is why you often see scales as an icon for justice.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the scales can be misleading, since it is not just about balance or even \u201ceye for an eye\u201d justice. Real justice goes much deeper. One of my friends who is a biblical scholar says the <strong>best contemporary translation for the ancient notion of \u201cjustice\/righteousness\u201d is \u201crestorative justice<\/strong>.\u201d [1]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sister Mary Katherine Birge offers examples of ways Jesus enacted restorative justice:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The kingdom of God that Jesus taught, preached, and enacted during his ministry \u2026 begins from a conviction that God\u2019s deepest hope for humanity\u2014that we live with God and with one another in relationships that are just\u2014is possible.\u2026&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus lives, teaches, preaches, and demonstrates to all who are willing to listen to him this same kingdom of God, the image of&nbsp;<em>shalom&nbsp;<\/em>[<em>wholeness, harmony, and peace<\/em>]. He makes the kingdom of God present every time he performs a miracle of healing (see Mark 1:29\u201331), drives out evil spirits from someone they possess (see Matthew 9:32\u201334), and brings back to this life a person who has died (Mark 5:21\u201324, 35\u201343; Luke 7:11\u201317; John 11:1\u201344). Through his own hospitality and openness to the alien and the enemy &#8230; [and] to those who would put him to death &#8230;, [Jesus] makes it possible for others to join him in building the kingdom of God, building&nbsp;<em>shalom,&nbsp;<\/em>in the present age.\u2026&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the task of those who would follow Jesus: to live in just relationships with one another, to work at restoring to wholeness those people and relationships that they and others have broken, and to repair as best they can what cannot be restored. This practice of restoring and repairing relationships between people and God and among people themselves is not unlike that in which the contemporary practice of restorative justice engages. Like Jesus\u2019 own work &#8230; to bring about the fullness of&nbsp;<em>shalom<\/em>, through the practice of right relationships and the healing of those people who are \u201cbroken,\u201d<strong> restorative justice focuses on the present and future needs of the victim, the perpetrator, and society in order to repair what has been broken or stolen from the victim, to bring the perpetrator to acceptance of responsibility, and to mend the threads that hold society together.<\/strong> [2]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5-500x296.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22790\" width=\"555\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5-500x296.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5-300x178.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5-768x455.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5-1536x910.png 1536w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-5.png 2038w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 555px) 100vw, 555px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Divine Love Restores Father Richard Rohr is convinced that God\u2019s justice in the Bible is fundamentally loving and restorative rather than punitive.&nbsp; As we read the Bible, God does not change as much as our knowledge of God evolves. I certainly recognize there are many biblical passages that present God as punitive and retributive, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22785"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22794,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22785\/revisions\/22794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}