We pick up from last week with Walter Brueggemann's five accent points we can consider when we think about the future of the church. We are still on #3 and "the conditions of inclusion."
Today we look a bit closer at what it means to "hold fast to the covenant." This comes primarily from the book of Deuteronomy. Brueggemann notes that the core of being a "holy people" in the tradition of Deuteronomy is about neighborly generosity that is an imitation of the God who practiced neighborly generosity since the exodus. He uses two texts here.
So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord you God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. (Deut. 10:12-13)
For the Lord you God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. (Deut.10:17-18)
The text offers remarkable vision of the God who presides over the great synod of all the gods and yet who is the one who does justice for widows and orphans who have no advocate in a patriarchal society, who gives attentive mercy to strangers who do not really belong, and who responds to material need for food and clothing.
If we are talking about inclusion, our God has invited us into a tribe of people who will be attentive to and responsive to the least and lowest who must be honored among us. In a world of gods and lords, the least have no place because such gods and lords must do everything they can to find ways in which people can be coerced into propping them up. Our God challenges us to risk stepping out of the culture of power and might and into the realm of benevolent love that will not only welcome...but will also provide for life.
Brueggemann does such a good job at bringing these texts from the Hebrew Scriptures right into the life of the church so that we might be reminded of the radical kind of roots that are a part of what shapes the radical reality of the church. This God...this God who provide and resides and does not forget the ones the world so easily passes by, is the God about whom we proclaim: God is Great. This God is "attentive to societal justice" and that is the character that distinguishes our God from the gods who want to bring themselves into power. It may not be easy to bring that eye and that work of justice into a congregation, but it is so vital to the whole life we live together as saints of God. We may not be able to turn the powers around, but we can have eyes open to the needs of the least among us and then....act to set them free...to give them space...to set a place at the table and experience this life we have been offered by our inclusive God.
Connection: Look around - we have been given a life that is freely given and can be freely given to others. There will be many ways -large and small- to walk within the wideness of God's Reign.
You, O God, invite us into life that is meant to blossom within the fields of life that surround us. You have planted us so that we would flower and give witness to your eternal Reign. Make this a day full of your brilliance among us. Amen.
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