Week 2 – Friday 18 March

“See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’”

Reading

Deuteronomy 4.5-14

See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’ For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children—how you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people for me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live on the earth, and may teach their children to do so’; you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets. And the Lord charged me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

Reflection

The law books of the Old Testament do two things. They give guidance for judicial matters – small scale, interpersonal, community level justice. They also give guidance on a broad canvas, for things that are not ‘enforceable’ as such: economic and social justice, constant directives to care for the poor, vulnerable and alien. These two aspects are intimately related: we can never be fully just individually unless we live within systems and societies that are just too.

I may seek to buy fairly-traded products, to be environmentally conscious, to give to charity. Nevertheless, my life is enmeshed in unjust systems that damage our planet and prop up gross inequalities within and between nations. To do justice is to address both, because neither is enough without the other.

How might you engage with these two aspects?

Prayer

God of all things, we pray that you would help us to shape our lives for justice, to speak up and witness to those things that are beyond our individual power to change. Amen.

Today’s family challenge

Pray for charities and people working to make the world fairer

Faith in God inspires many people to work for a fairer world.

Pray for those who work for charities seeking to help.