Today is a day to celebrate!
Like many you, I cling to the hope of justice, and am awed by the rulings that move the
needle one step closer to the fulfillment of what Christ calls the "kingdom of heaven" where "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled".
Yesterday, a group of federal court judges ruled the North Carolina Congressional Map
Unconstitutionally Gerrymandered. Just as Chief Justice Earl Warren said in 1965 in the school desegregation cases: "Justice delayed is justice denied."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his article Civil Right No. 1: The Right to Vote, which
appeared in the New York Times on March 14, 1965: "Clearly, the heart of the voting
problem lies in the fact that the machinery for enforcing this basic right is in the hands of state-appointed officials answerable to the very people who believe they can continue to wield power in the South only so long as the Nero is disenfranchised."
Fifty years later, this truth remains as do the evils at the hands of men who have been
appointed to govern, to lead, to represent an equality of statutes, of liberties for all, a
constitution that should lead us towards a "heaven" where the only "kingdom" for which
one might long to dwell is that of their own soul made sacred, safe and holy by the
arbitrators of love and law.
As we live into this Epiphany Season where Jesus will call his first disciples to journey with him in Hope, healing and curing the sick, and calling his Church to join him, until the fulfillment of the gospel, let us celebrate each day that Hope is alive, Hope is available, and HOPE is Life. Let us not delay in living into the hope of which we know, for which we were created! Spirit is leading the way,
Rev. Jenny Shultz-Thomas