Contents
- Scottish Parliament Wednesday 12 January 2005
- Time for Reflection
- Business Motions
- Oath
- One Minute's Silence
- Tsunami Disaster
- Child Protection
- Gambling Bill
- Business Motions
- Parliamentary Bureau Motion
- Decision Time
- South Asia Earthquake and Tsunami
Time for Reflection
Welcome back. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is David Searle, who is assistant minister of St Andrew's Church in Arbroath.
I will begin with a few words from ancient literature. Chapter 14 of the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew scriptures says:
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to a people."
Language can be both fascinating and confusing. We use words to denote objects, feelings, beliefs and ideas. We chop up our knowledge into little fragments that we call words. That works reasonably well until we cross over from our own culture into another, where feelings, ideas and beliefs come in quite different sizes of fragment. The result is baffling because words appear that have no equivalent in our language.
Let me illustrate that. The word "righteousness", which unquestionably refers to one of the most important concepts in the Christian scriptures, has no exact equivalent in our English language. Indeed, the history of the attempts to translate righteousness from Hebrew into Greek—which were made 200 years before Christ—from Greek into Latin and then from Latin into European languages is a rather sad story of centuries of misinterpretation and misunderstanding.
What is the original meaning of righteousness? It refers to a whole network of relationships, each of which has quite different customs and expectations. There will be my relationship with my family, which self-evidently will be quite different to my relationship with the family next door. Similarly, if I am a schoolteacher, my relationship with my children will be different to my relationship with the children whom I teach. My relationships with my tax inspector, my newsagent, my employer, my colleagues at work, my general practitioner and so on will all be different. Each set of relationships will be distinct.
The person who is righteous in the original sense of the word will be someone whose relationships throughout the whole of life, in all its facets, are right, faithful and true. Given that the word "righteousness" originates in the Hebrew scriptures, there are no prizes for guessing that it includes that special relationship with God. As it also includes a person's relationship with himself or herself, it has a vertical reference—Godward—a horizontal reference—to my neighbours—and a personal reference—to myself.
"Righteousness exalts a nation", says the ancient wisdom of our Hebrew scriptures. It is clear that to be righteous in that sense, all our relationships must be marked by compassion, justice, honour and integrity.
Our nation looks to this Parliament always to act in righteousness by showing compassion—for example, towards the victims of the tsunami—and by acting in justice, truthfulness, integrity, honour, courage and grace in its mundane daily business. All those qualities are inseparable from righteousness.
For those who follow the Christian faith, as I do, our founder and exemplar is called the son of righteousness, who has risen with healing in his wings and whose grace can renew and confirm the righteousness of all who trust in him.
Lord God, may righteousness exalt our nation of Scotland as our leaders in this Parliament and the decisions that they make are marked by compassion, justice, integrity and honour.
Amen.