Week 2 – Weekend

“If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.”

Reading

Exodus 22.21-27

You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.

If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbour’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbour’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.

Reflection

The Old Testament is nothing if not realistic. The community is given a vision for life, yet it also assumes that the vision will not be fully embodied. Specific laws are there because people break them. If there was no murder, theft or violence, there would be no need to legislate against them, or direct how to deal with them.

The laws implicitly say: injustice is a rule of life, it happens, and it must be taken seriously by the entire community.

Yet even with the best laws, sometimes, justice fails, through weakness, through ignorance, or deliberate fault, as in the words of confession. When justice fails, the words of Exodus take special poignancy: ‘if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.’ Injustice may be rampant, but it never has the final word.

Prayer

Merciful God, we recognise our failure to do justice, through the things we do and those we fail to do, through our words, and through our silence and complicity: cleanse and transform our lives. Amen.

Today’s family challenge

Say sorry for any times you have been unkind or unfair this week

No one is kind and loving to others all the time.
But God loves us all and forgives us when we are sorry.