November 2002

My Brothers and Sisters,

Honor is due to each of us who have taken time to christen this justice ship, captained by Judge Sands and named after the Honorable C.B. King. The prophet Micah has a word for us as he offers a ringing indictment of the leaders of his society-the political and judicial leaders of his day: Micah 3:1-4; 9-12

Then I said,
"Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel,
Should you now know justice,
you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
and tear the flesh from their bones;
who eat my people's flesh,
strip off their skin
and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
and flesh for the pot?"

Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel,
who despise justice
and distort all that is right;
who built Zion with bloodshed,
and Jerusalem with wickedness.
Her leaders judge for a bribe,
her priests teach for a price,
and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they lean upon the LORD and say,
"Is not the LORD among us?
No distaster will come upon us."
Therefore because of you,
Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

Then Micah asks the relevant question, responded to by millions of believers like you and me through the ages: Micah 6:6-8

With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

C.B. King had a glorious vision of the majesty of the law, where we are all protected by her reign of perfect judgment. We are humbled by her—rich and poor, black and white, red and brown and weak and strong. We all stand as equals before the "majesty of the law." But this was a wish, a dream of C.B. King, yet unfulfilled.

Justice in our city and state and country is still bought by the rich and powerful. International justice is bought; it is still determined by the rich and powerful nations, based on how many nuclear bombs, how many tanks, how many planes, how many submarines, and how many oil fields are controlled by a country. We will live or die, our whole world, depending on which decisions result in a domino effect of nuclear reactions set off from East to West.

Our economy is crumbling, creating even greater inequities of wealth and influence because of greed...and war will not correct it. Our children are being lost to a drug culture ... and building prisons will not correct it. Our elders, who have worked all their lives on a promise of retirement and a good life, are now searching for jobs, again, and a way to pay for this high cost of living, and present federal legislation proposed will not correct it.

Our new democracy cannot find a way to count an honest vote or catch an interracial terrorist after a hundred thousand tons of bombs. I am not a prophet of doom. I am like C.B., a gadfly for justice, another drum major, a trombone player for righteous indignation, a trumpeter for action. We must not die of old age. We must die fighting for justice. We must live and fight and die for the glorious majesty of the law, for ultimately, we are all children under her protection—the "majesty of the law." C.B. would have said something like that.

About Charles Sherrod
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