Old Testament
Psalm 72:1-4
1 God, give the king your justice; your righteousness to the royal son.
2 He will judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
3 The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. The hills bring the fruit of righteousness.
4 He will judge the poor of the people. He will save the children of the needy, and will break the oppressor in pieces.
New Testament
Romans 14:17-18
17 for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
18 For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.
Psalm 72 is a prayer for the king, and it is strikingly concrete. Justice is not ornament. It is protection for the poor, defence for the children of the needy, the breaking of oppression. The psalm imagines authority that does not forget who will be crushed if power turns lazy or cruel.
We are tempted to treat public justice as someone else’s work, or as a topic fit only for arguments. Scripture makes it a matter for prayer. It asks what kind of common life we are willing to accept, and what suffering we have learned to call inevitable.
Paul, in a different key, reminds us what the kingdom is and is not. It is not reduced to disputes and badges. “The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Justice, in the Christian imagination, is never detached from holiness; and holiness is never detached from neighbour-love.
So today we intercede for those who bear the cost of unfairness: the poor, the unseen, the delayed, the misjudged. We pray for rulers and servants of the state to be given wisdom and courage. And we ask the Spirit to make us people who love righteousness not as a weapon, but as a way of life.