| We continue with our look at 'the obligation to listen and to do justice' that is a part of being the people Israel with their God.
Israel is to "listen' to the command of YAHWEH and to respond in obedience. While the commands in the tradition concerning listening are many and varied, we may say in sum that Israel's obligation is to do justice. Israel is a community put in the world, so the testimony suggests, for the sake of justice. The justice commanded by YHWH, moreover, is not the retributive justice of "deeds-consequences" wherein rewards and punishments are meted out to persons and the community according to conduct. Rather, Israel understands itself as a community of persons bound in membership to one another, so that each person-as-members is to be treated well enough to be sustained as a full member of the community. In its articulation of justice as its principal obligation, Israel is acutely alert sociopolitical differentiations and is aware that the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, live differently and need to be attended to in different ways.
I wanted to stop at this point in this ongoing quote because a community that takes on the shape of the God who is shaping them to be a living presence of that love must deal with how different each member will be. How to we honor those differences? For the welfare of all, each one must be taken seriously. I think that means that some will and must be allowed to exercise a greater degree of power. That is not power to be over and against others, but power used for the well-being of the community. Those with lesser power as individuals must be held accountable for what they can and must be within the community - but it never needs to be nor should it be a power that is beyond them. This all takes time. This takes finding out who each person is - what gifts are present - what weaknesses seem to prevail. I immediately think of the lamb lying down with the lion. Wow. What a community image for the people of God. Extremely different embodiments of power - ones that could become destructive and yet are used to show the wonderful imagination of God's Reign.
Connection: Lion honoring lamb - Lamb honoring lion: the welfare of all.
O God, who takes us up into the ways of justice, remind us to find the essential power of the other and help that one grow as s/he has been called within the community of saints. Guide us to share this life we have been handed together. Amen. |
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