Today we continue 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 it moves into the commands that "pertain to economic welfare for the disadvantaged in society. The text is Deuteronomy 24:17-22. Four times in this passage reference is made to how the people of God are to care for the resident alien, orphan and widow.
The cadence of the text reiterates the "triangle of vulnerability," widow, orphan, immigrant. The triad refers to those whithout a male advocate in a patriarchal society who are, for that reason, dangerously exposed to economic disadvantage. The command provides that those with prosperity and produce are obligated to devote a portion of their produce to a welfare program for needy neighbors. The series concludes...with a reminder, "You were a slave in the land of Egypt." and therefore a recipient of the produce of Egypt at the behest of YHWH.
Welfare has become a bad word to many folks. When we put it in the phrase the "welfare of all" we have a standard idea of the movement Gandhi led and then it inspires works of justice and peace. The welfare of the least is the way we judge a soceity. When I was in Detroit, a priest who operated Focus Hope noted that we can determine the morality of a country by the way we treat the elderly and the poor. Amazing how so much talk about morality has been turned from these vast needs to a few trigger issues that seem to want to ignore the devastion thrust upon so many people by economics that do not consider and care for the least among us. Even prosperity gospel preachers find a way to lift up the rich and leave the poor behind as though they caused their poverty and choose to live there. Armies of people are fed up with how we treat the unborn but do not consider how we are to come together to work for the welfare of all...all those born...all those living in poverty...all those subjected to disrespect and abuse in a patriarchal world...all those who have lived long lives and are not honored as elders should be.
Connection: We really do need to spin our lives in a way that is counter to the ruling dynamics that continue to perpetuate a systemic brutality upon the least among us. I wonder what would be one thing that could be done by each of us today to begin to raise up and liberate the forgotten ones around us?!?
O Lord, how are we to break the cycle of economic injustice that serves many of us so well and yet is the weight around the necks of those who cannot bear anymore burdens in their lives. Can we hope when we are witnesses of such division and such oppression and such poverty? Guide us, O God. Amen.
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