| 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. It is not belated ideology to recognize that Israel's convenantal-prophetic sense of YHWH's justice does indeed have "a preferential option for the poor" and the marginalized. This preferential option that is mandated to Israel is rooted in YHWH's own practice and inclination, so that in the practice of justice Israel is indeed to imitate YHWH.
Bruggemann goes on to rec.ount the stories that call for a 'love of strangers' and a 'love for widows and orphans' - all of which means caring for them. Caring comes to be providing clothing, housing, food, and anything else that will help them have a place of honor and a place in which they can become an actual part of the community. Even though the poor could not offer much back, they were to be seen as ones 'at home' within Israel. Those who were in a position of power and influence and wealth were to be the ones who made sure that their power was used for the welfare of these 'least among us.' When we lose those who are at the edge - those who are marginalized within any society - we lose our spirit of life that is shaped by the God who claims us all. When all are seen as claimed or chosen, is there any margin that can be left alone to die or suffer or be uncounted? No. Never. Otherwise we divorce ourselves from the character that our God has called us to be.
Connection: It is not easy to remember those on the margins. Our lives can be so consumed by what is around us that we lose our vision and we forget that which is so central to who we are meant to be.
O God, who takes us up into the ways of justice, help us to keep in mind those who need us in order to simply make it through the day. For when we remember them, your glory shines among us. Amen. |
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