Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, March 9, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
May I recommend, perhaps, an intervention rather than ritual murder? This kind of thing just gets my hackles up—the perfect example of a law or practice that allows one person or group of people dominance over another, demanding complete obedience and perfection in the name of law and order. And if you can’t make ‘em do what you want, just get rid of ‘em. On a macro level, this is what leads to oppression and even genocide. Yikes!
On a more personal level, as someone in the recovery community, I can’t help but wonder about this son who is a ‘glutton and a drunkard.’ Is he an addict? Does he not, then, require compassion and help rather than death? At worst, if the addict refuses to seek help and continues to use, his parents might have to end their relationship with him. But stoning? Again: Yikes!
Nowadays we think we are a lot less barbarous than this. Yet if we look at the evils of mass incarceration, I’m not so sure. We may not outright kill the folks who don’t do exactly as we say, but we sure do so indirectly. We destroy lives and communities and more. Some of us might even justify it using a passage like this one. I wonder what Jesus would have had to say about this law, particularly as someone who was the epitome of stubborn and rebellious in the eyes of the authorities. I have a feeling he’d be telling all of us to put down our stones, and by extension, our prison system.
God of justice and mercy, give me compassion for all those who might rub me the wrong way, that I may move away from wholesale condemnation into a posture of humble justice-seeking. Amen.
