I spent a lot of time processing the result of the presidential election. The results left me dejected and perplexed. Not because the outcome was the opposite of what I voted for, but because of the speed and finality with which the outcome was decided.

To put it bluntly, the Democrats got their asses kicked in what appears to be a full-fledged referendum on Democratic Party policies. This election was a clear and resounding rejection of liberal and progressive political agendas, confirming that perceptions of the American economy and immigration had more influence on voters than abortion and the freedoms of a liberal democracy .

Darrell Hamilton II

Additionally, this election put to rest the notion that the country viewed electing a 34-count felon as a moral issue or that his role in inciting insurrection would spell political death. . Even sounding the alarm about Project 2025 and the perils of Christian nationalism wasn’t enough to elevate the nation’s first woman to the White House.

I wait for the rest of my life I will address the outcome of this election in one form or another. I’m sure one day I’ll even have to explain to my daughter when and where I was when democracy collapsed. But for now, as she sleeps next to me, I am awake trying to make sense of the tensions and contradictions of a just God.

Like Job, I sit on a pile of ashes. My complaint is bitter and I call on God to act justly. And I also ask what justice is when the wicked prosper and the perpetrators of evil are not accused by God of wrongdoing.

“I think for the rest of my life I will deal with the outcome of this election in one form or another.”

A few weeks ago I was encouraged to read the book by American philosopher John D. Caputo Hermeneutics: facts and interpretations in the information age. In it, Caputo tells the story of French philosopher Jacque Derrida during a panel discussion on justice at Cordozo Law School in New York. Caputo quotes Derrida telling the panel that justice does not exist. Justice is not something “constructable” or concrete, nor does justice exist as a supreme being or pure form. Rather, justice is a hermeneutic that colors our way of seeing and “haunts” our way of living. And perhaps the way we think about justice needs to be better thought through.

Caputo quotes Derrida as saying: “Justice always comes; justice is always promised, but it never comes, as such.”

In other words, justice does not come as an ideal place and time, but justice occurs as something felt, hoped for, and “always demanded.” Justice comes in longing and calling for justice in light of injustice. Beckoning, disturbing, compelling, and haunting us to make laws, institutions, and communities more just, even if justice never arrives. as such— that is, fully, perfectly and concretely in the laws, institutions and communities that we aspire to make just.

Perhaps justice is what we should think of as we envision and anticipate the Kingdom of Heaven, although not fully realized on earth, but already present and known on earth. Therefore, I think Derrida’s view fits well with the story of Job because, for Job, justice does not exist. Justice does not exist in his life or in the lives of others, and much like us today, Job envisions the day when Shaddai, God Almighty, the supreme judge of the cosmos, will finally bring judgment, justice and righteousness in the world. .

Job turns to a definitive moment, a concrete act, a pure form where the God who is sovereign over all the earth will arrange all things. But Job nonetheless grapples with the tension and contradiction of what justice should be.

But what Job highlights is that justice exists in the integrity we demonstrate in the midst of unjust circumstances. Justice exists when we decide not to curse God and die. Moreover, justice exists in sitting on the ashes of our sorrow, sorrow, disappointment, despair, frustration, anger, sadness and failure, and not giving up and by not succumbing to temptation and peer pressure to leave our righteousness behind.

Justice exists by “meeting the challenge of establishing and maintaining” God’s righteousness, while existing in unjust and imperfect systems and working for that righteousness to come.

NT Wright and Michael Bird adroitly and prophetically says it this way in their book Jesus and the powers: Christian political witness in the age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies:

Wise humans can and must rise to the challenge of establishing and maintaining God’s intention for a well-functioning human society (recognizing, of course, that our current efforts will fall short of the ideal, but for this reason we cannot evade this attempt. Kings can be wrong. Crowds can also be wrong. This is why wise criticism is a central element of the Church’s vocation. – remains vital.

Simply, what Wright, Bird, and Job are suggesting is that as long as people continue to demand justice, to believe in justice, to hope for justice, justice will exist. As long as people continue to live their lifestyles, reflecting justice, justice will exist. And I like the way Martin Luther King Jr. says it:

“I decided, even sitting on a pile of ashes, that I would live well despite so much going wrong in the world. »

If you do good only to avoid going to a place that theologians have called hell, then you are not doing good. If you are doing good just by going to a place that theologians call heaven, then you are not doing good. If you do good only to avoid pain and feel pleasure, then you are not doing good. Ultimately, you have to do good because it feels good to do good.

Therefore, whatever the Regardless of whether or not justice exists, the Church is nevertheless called to reflect on the fact that justice exists. Furthermore, regardless of how others live, I am called to reflect on the fact that justice does exist.

Regardless of how others live, worship, and vote, I am haunted by the command to do good. I am haunted by the commandment to love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind and with all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. I am haunted by the commandment to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. And I am haunted by the promise that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, and though weeping may last for a night, joy comes in the morning.

Therefore, I decided, even sitting on a pile of ashes, that I would live well despite so much going wrong in the world. I decided not to curse God and die, but to live so that God could use me to bring about justice. Justice for the Palestinians. Justice for immigrants. Justice for the poor. Justice for my daughter.

I am called and the church is calledto proclaim the good news that justice always comes, that the Kingdom of God is near, and I am convinced that justice will always come as long as there are people willing to hear and respond to the call of justice.

Darrell Hamilton II is administrative pastor at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and Protestant chaplain at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is an ordained Baptist minister and graduate of Wake Forest School of Divinity. Her ministry and leadership focuses on promoting diversity, inclusion, and advocacy for vulnerable and marginalized people to inspire greater justice and love for all.

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