Upside-Down

Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;

    I call for help, but there is no justice. (Job 19:7)

These days I'm experiencing so much cognitive dissonance that I hardly know which way is up.

People are getting canceled and losing their livelihoods for saying things like "Men can't have periods" and "Riots may be bad PR for the Democratic Party." Others are able to tear down statues and deface public property, or take over a whole section of a city, and no one stops it. My conservative friends, always so pro-life, are taking umbrage at the recommendations to wear a mask in public, even though masks will help to preserve life. It's like they're now all "My body, my choice," and they don't even realize the irony. (And yes, there are people on "both sides" who aren't seeing the irony.)

The world is upside down.

Last night we watched "Just Mercy," a 2019 movie based on a true story of a black man, Walter McMillan, who was sentenced to death row for a crime he didn't commit. He was eventually exonerated, but it took the tireless efforts of a young lawyer to uncover the power of racism and "status quo" in their small Alabama town, and to show how that power had landed an innocent man in prison with a death sentence. It was impossible to watch it and not be appalled at the injustice and the arrogant "move-along-nothing-to-see-here" attitudes of those in power.

At the same time, it's lately been appalling to hear about people making 9-1-1 calls to report criminal activity and threats, and to be told that no one is going to come and help, and no one is going to stop someone who is more powerful from hurting someone who is less.

Injustice is injustice. And using injustice to correct injustice is no way to make the world just.

As I read Job this morning, I reflected on McMillan's story, and also much of what we're seeing now, when I came across this verse:

Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;

    I call for help, but there is no justice.

Is it odd that probably every single person who reads those words can probably identify with them to some degree? (Though, admittedly, some will identify with it much more acutely than others--and it's important to realize that.)

But of course it isn't odd. One thing I love about Job is that he speaks to our deepest humanity, our universal human experience in a fallen world--and he has done so for millennia. We are part of a long chain of sinning, loving, questioning, suffering humanity to read and resonate with Job.

The world is upside down, but the truth of Job's words later in Chapter 19 gives me hope:

For I know that my Redeemer lives,

    and at the last he will stand upon the earth. (Job 19:25)

As upside-down as the world is, there is a "right-side up." Perhaps the existence of that "right-side up," of that world that Job knows is to come, is how we know that the world today is upside down.

Lord, give us ears to hear, the wisdom to discern true injustice, and the courage to stand against it when we do.

Which way is up?