The Second Sunday of Lent

The Second Sunday of Lent

Watergate notwithstanding
there is a certain mystique
about the legal profession.
H & R Bock and all other para-legal camp-followers
share in that mystique.

The prosecution argues this is so
because the law is so complicated
far beyond the minds of ordinary citizens.
The defense in me argues for that reverence
because the law is so profound
both the lawyer and the client
stand in awe before its depths.

The defense calls as its first witness
the Constitution of these United States .
It testifies that it is the law
and not the growing glut of legal codes
states and federal statutes.
It testifies that it defines
not behavior but relationships
one to one
the citizen to the state
the state to the people
and the state to itself.
It concludes by saying
it belongs to everyone
not to lawyers alone.

Ezra then takes the stand
before the assembly
and proceeds to read the Law of God
from beginning to end.
It is a story he tells
more intricate
than the statutes of our sovereign state
more compelling than the codes of canon law.
For it is our story
how we wandered aimlessly
in the chaos of disorder
killing our brothers and sisters
holding them as slaves
in bondage to our customs
until set free
thrown into the wilderness
and delivered to a promised land.
Along the way the Law was forged
from the remnants
twice carved into stone
and finally written on living hearts.

The final witnesses to the Law’s profundity
are you and I.
It is our story that must be told.
The unfolding not of our life’s behavior
but of our life’s relationships
not of where we have arrived
but of how we have wandered and searched
not of words written in someone else’s book
but of the Word written in our hearts.