Summons to Justice
Christopher B. Harbin
Judges 20:1-9
We are good at issues cries for justice when we are the ones affected. We are not quite so good at hearing the cries of others. We are good at revenge. We are not nearly as good at restoration. We are good at getting riled up, but not nearly as good at addressing the attitudes underlying the issues we need to face. It is easier for us to deal with an egregious example of injustice than to address the attitudes that make us unjust as individuals and a society. Can we learn to take a look at our personal failures rather than focus so much on the failures of others?
Taken individually, the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures are something of a mixed bag. They are not presented to us for adoption by following every example set before us. They are rather a call to reflection. It is often in the larger or meta-narrative that we see God's guidance or revelation in a more specific manner. The Book of Judges presents all sorts of failed attempts of the nation to follow Yahweh, such that it is in retrospective reflection upon its narratives that we find direction for our lives. Today's passage is no exception.
The Levite in today's text had a concubine who had run away from him back to her father's home. She was apparently seeking protection from some kind of abuse. She was apparently a teenaged girl taken as a slave to become the Levite's recognized mistress. The narrator is far too polite to address the plight of this girl directly. We know only that she has fled at least a couple of days across the country to escape the living conditions she faced. When the Levite finds her at her father's home, we find the father torn between running interference to keep his daughter safe, while bowing to expectations of the society that this girl was property and belonged legally to the Levite as something less than human.
The father attempted to keep them both in his home, where he might offer some protection for h ...
Christopher B. Harbin
Judges 20:1-9
We are good at issues cries for justice when we are the ones affected. We are not quite so good at hearing the cries of others. We are good at revenge. We are not nearly as good at restoration. We are good at getting riled up, but not nearly as good at addressing the attitudes underlying the issues we need to face. It is easier for us to deal with an egregious example of injustice than to address the attitudes that make us unjust as individuals and a society. Can we learn to take a look at our personal failures rather than focus so much on the failures of others?
Taken individually, the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures are something of a mixed bag. They are not presented to us for adoption by following every example set before us. They are rather a call to reflection. It is often in the larger or meta-narrative that we see God's guidance or revelation in a more specific manner. The Book of Judges presents all sorts of failed attempts of the nation to follow Yahweh, such that it is in retrospective reflection upon its narratives that we find direction for our lives. Today's passage is no exception.
The Levite in today's text had a concubine who had run away from him back to her father's home. She was apparently seeking protection from some kind of abuse. She was apparently a teenaged girl taken as a slave to become the Levite's recognized mistress. The narrator is far too polite to address the plight of this girl directly. We know only that she has fled at least a couple of days across the country to escape the living conditions she faced. When the Levite finds her at her father's home, we find the father torn between running interference to keep his daughter safe, while bowing to expectations of the society that this girl was property and belonged legally to the Levite as something less than human.
The father attempted to keep them both in his home, where he might offer some protection for h ...
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