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Psalm 27; Matthew 4: 12-25Thursday morning is DV day in the Somerset County Courthouse: the day when victims of domestic violence come to court and get or try to get the TROs -- temporary restraining orders -- converted into final restraining orders; FROs in our legal jargon. The judge on these matters, the Hon. Julie M. Marino, sits and listens to people who are explaining how their hopes, their dreams, even their lives, have fallen apart. She’s been doing this since 2003 when she was first nominated to the bench. Superior Court judges are first nominated for seven year terms, then, depending on a variety of factors, such as demeanor, comments from the bar,
and the Governor, may be renominated for a lifetime tenure position. Lifetime tenure is a major guarantee of an independent judiciary, free fr...
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Psalm 81; Luke 16: 1-13Some of you may remember the name of a Wall Street investment firm called Drexel Burnham Lambert and its most notorious employee Michael Milken who drove the firm into bankruptcy by his dishonest trading in what are called junk bonds. That was back in 1990; so you see, the greed of Wall Street has not just been a recent phenomenon. Even further back, of course, we have this morning’s story of the dishonest steward. It’s a really strange parable, the story of a steward who, being dismissed from his master’s service, decides to cut deals with people who owe his master money. And then Jesus tells his listeners to cuddle up to these dishonest people asking how one can expect the true riches to be entrusted if they haven’t been faithful in the unrighteous. What a strange approach this para...
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Psalm 79; Luke 12: 49-56The Dean of Students looked at all of us and shook his head. Then he called us into his office, one by one. We did not know what to expect. As the others left, they looked stunned. Then came my turn. After he went through what I considered the regular litany of why we should not petition the student council to permit a SNCC (Student Nonviolent/National Coordinating Committee) chapter on campus, he delivered the final blow: If you persist, we will expel you and you will
never, never get a college degree. I could never have imagined such a response to what I had considered a simple request. I thought about how my parents would react. I was their dream, the National Honor Society student, the bright one, the one who would go on to get the doctorate. Like all the others, I...
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