Understanding Community Responsibility in Scripture

The book of Deuteronomy is sort of a, you can see it as an explanation of the Ten Commandments in some ways, because it deals with an explanation about how each one of them might show up in personal life experiences. So he's talking about how to be able to put into practice those things that are commanded by God in the Ten Commandments. In this one, he's talking about the issue of killing someone. In chapter 21, beginning with verse 1, If a man is found slain lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it's not known who killed him, your elders and judges should go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. The elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, and has never worn a yoke, and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted, where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they break the heifer's neck. The priest, the son of the Levi, shall step forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord, and decide the cases of dispute and assault. Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, and they shall declare, Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Accept this atonement for your people, Israel, whom you have redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man. And the blood shed will be atoned for. So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord." In Deuteronomy, it already talked about what to do if there was a murder, and the process by which you would go through to determine whether a person was guilty of murder or simply of manslaughter. Manslaughter being an accidental death, murder being one that you had planned to kill someone as a result of anger or as a result of something that was taking place. So now he's dealing with another instance of death. The death of someone where there is no one who could plead manslaughter, and there's no one who could be accused of murder. But there is the death of a human being. This is a little bit foreign to the way we think of things, because in our culture, we think of things in terms of individual responsibility. In the Bible, there is a sense in which the whole people have an obligation and responsibility for the thing that takes place in their community. Now, I was trying to think of a way in which this might be true for us. Sometimes we think of families as a unit. If you live around a family, and you know a lot of the family, you might say, well, that's just the way those people are. So that an act that they do, you would say, was consistent with the way they did things. Then I thought also, you might have had an occasion in your life, if you are a Baptist, or if you're a Methodist, or a Presbyterian, or Catholic, in which you heard of someone who was of your religious group who did something that was a public issue, and heard people say, well, that's just the way those people are. So that the whole group has a sense of responsibility for the behavior of one person. In that instance, they're blaming the whole group for their nature or character, and the behavior of that person reflects on it. In the Bible, the people of God were seen as a unity. All of them belonged to God. All of them were living under His authority. And the action of any one person in the community brought guilt on the whole group. Because, to become a part of the people of Israel, everyone had to make a declaration. A declaration that said, the Lord our God is our God, and we will serve Him from now to the end of our days. So this declaration that they would make to be a member of the nation of Israel, required them to make this oath. So when any one of them violated that oath, it reflected on all the other people who were a part of the community of faith. Now you see it in the Old Testament in different ways. There was a man named Achan one time, when they were doing battle at Jericho, and the Lord said, because these people have sinned in such a way, the whole city needs to be destroyed. And nothing in the city is to be taken on your part. Everything is to be burned. Whatever is of metal or of value, gold or silver, is to be given to the Lord for His temple. What God was telling them was, the battle at Jericho was a matter of God's judgment on the sins of that city and the people who lived there. Therefore, the whole city was to be offered as a sacrifice to God. And they had polluted the land, and so they were being punished for that. So one man took some gold and some clothes and hid them in his tent. The next battle the people of Israel went to, the battle of Ai, they were defeated. They came back and the Lord said to Moses, someone in the nation of Israel has sinned and that's the result of this defeat. Every family was brought before Moses. The family was finally identified. Every person in the family was brought before Moses. And the Lord identified finally the person who had done this. He confessed to what was taking place, and his whole family was executed. This is probably the most powerful example in the Old Testament that we see of the fact that one member of a family represents the whole family. It means that that family were all guilty because of the action of this person. Maybe they knew about it, maybe they didn't know about it, but the guilt was all theirs. They knew that the responsibility to be obedient to God resided with all of them. Now, in the passage of time in the Old Testament, in the book of Ezekiel, God says to Ezekiel, no longer will the children be punished for the sins of the fathers, but each person will be responsible for their own sin. So there was a change in God's dealing with people. Now, in our understanding of the New Testament, we are no longer responsible for the sins of others around us. However, whenever Paul writes to the church at Corinth about one of the men in the church who is living a life contrary to what he should have been doing, he tells to the congregation that this man must be excluded from the congregation. His sin was that he was having sex with his stepmother. And Paul says this is contrary to any kind of teaching in the Scripture, and even contrary to the morality of the pagans around you. You must see that the behavior of this man reflects on all of your church. And you must stand for purity before your community. So you must ask this man to leave your congregation so that his sin will not be polluting all of your congregation. And we understand something of what that means. If someone from our country, for example, makes a movie that is insulting to the Muslims, they feel a proper need to punish all Americans, any ones they can find. Because they represent, each individual person represents the whole of our country. And we see that with all kinds of cultures. What the Bible is trying to say in this passage in Deuteronomy, is that when someone is killed, it is a violation of God's intent and purpose. Because all life belongs to God. Now he says, I've already told you what happens if someone is killed. There must be a trial. If the person is innocent, he can go to live in a city that's safe. But he has to live there until the high priest dies. For the shedding of blood must be paid for, even if it's the high priest who dies of natural death. If the person has actually done this act as a result of anger, so that it's murder, then that person must die. The shedding of blood was a sin against God. If it was accidental, there would be no capital punishment, but there would still be a consequence, even for an accidental event of murder. Because God wanted everyone to understand that all human life belonged to Him. No one was to take it. Now, that might seem a little odd to you, but if you think about that for a minute, whatever belongs to you, if a person were to come into your house, and they were to walk over to the other side of the room and accidentally knock over a vase, and because it's your vase, they would feel compelled to say, I want to pay for it. And you might accept the pay because they had done this accidentally. And you might then refuse it. But if someone came to your house and purposefully picked up your vase and smashed it on the floor, you would expect a payment. You would expect to be justified by that. All human life belongs to God. Only God has the right to take it. So when someone does it on purpose, they must pay by their life. If someone does it by accident, they will not be killed, but they will still be responsible for it. Here, there is no one to pay and no one to be responsible. But God does not want the people of Israel to feel ever that human life is not valuable. So here is the pattern that he set up. If there is a death that occurs, and no one knows whether it was murder or manslaughter, then this is the procedure that they are to follow. They are to get the people from Jerusalem, the chief priests, the people who are sort of the supreme court, and they are to come out to the scene of the murder, and they are to measure the distance between the murder and the nearest town. Once that is established, then the people in the town nearest them are now responsible for dealing with this death. They are to take a heifer. It is not a sacrifice, because there is no blood drawn, no blood to be poured on an altar, no altar there to kill the animal on. But they are to take a heifer, one that has never worked in that way pure, never had a yoke on her neck, never worked pulling a plow, so that she is not used, but pure. They are to take the heifer to a valley where there has been no plowing, so this is a land unused. They are to take her to a place where there is a stream, where there is a spring, where flowing water always flows, and there the act of killing her is to take place, not cutting her throat, but breaking her neck. The breaking of her neck takes her life, as if the life is given, a sort of symbol of what has happened. Now this act is the result of God saying, here is what you should do. Then the people of the town nearby are to come and swear an oath saying, we did not do this act of killing this man, nor do we know who did this act, so we are innocent of all the responsibility for the death of this human being. The river by the animal is to symbolize the taking away of the sins of whoever it was that did the act of killing. Now this may be sort of strange to our way of thinking about responsibility and guilt, and yet you see it every once in a while by, someone told me about going to a religious meeting one time, where everyone in the crowd was asked to write their name, not write their name on a piece of paper, but write their sins on a piece of paper. And then they would take them and throw them in the fire. I heard someone also, the church had a big cross at Easter time, and they would ask people at the end of the service to write on there their sins, and take them and nail them to the cross that was sitting in the church. Now, nailing your sins on a piece of paper to the cross does not absolve you. Throw them in the fire does not forgive you. What it does do for you, is it gives you a physical way to be able to express your confession. That's what was happening here. This group of men who the leaders of the city nearby were confessing for whoever did it, the failure to keep the law of God. They were doing it in a way that would show the results of death. They were doing it in a way to show this was a primitive area where the animal hadn't been worked, or the ground hadn't been plowed, and by a stream where the stream would represent the flowing away of the guilt and the sin of the people who were involved in it. Therefore, all of the community could say to God, we have done every single thing that you've asked us, so that our community will be absolved of any responsibility for this. Now, the people who came to say we didn't do it, and we don't know who did it, had to swear before God that they did not know who did it, and they had not done it themselves. Now, we don't think very much about measuring the nearest town because our mobility is so great, but for many people who lived in those days, they would never ever go more than 15 or 20 miles away from their home their whole lives. So it wasn't like somebody could drive up from Dallas and kill somebody here and drive back to Dallas. That was not possible for them. It was very rare that they would find someone who would be from a great distance away, unless it was travelers who were selling things in caravans or groups like that. So they were accepting responsibility for the death, acknowledging that all life belonged to God, and asking God for forgiveness for their community for what had been done. It was not their act. Now, it didn't mean that God didn't take responsibility for making sure the guy that did it paid for it. That's his business. But what he did for them was allow them to say, this does not count to our own community. God will not hold this against us. So the act that he does allows them to recognize the authority of God over sin, the sin of killing someone. It allows them to be able to find a way to put it behind them that the bloodshed was not a part of what their community was really about. Now, the next section in the book of Deuteronomy deals with another situation in which you have a war taking place, and your army has gone out and defeated the enemy. And in the defeat of the enemy, the Bible in the Old Testament never suggested that polygamy was a good thing. Bigamy was more common in the Old Testament than polygamy. But oftentimes, if they had a battle in the land of Canaan, all the men and women and everybody in the city was to be killed. So what he's talking about here is if there was a war that took place outside of the land of Canaan. And in this war, the Israelites would be victorious. And in that situation, the men had to be killed, the women were allowed to live, and the proceeds or whatever they could get would be divided among the army. Here's an instance in which a woman in the foreign land is now taken as captive and brought back to Palestine, the land of Canaan. Now, what the Bible is concerned about is the woman who's in a vulnerable situation and the protection of her life and herself. Here is what he says. When you go to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand and you take captives, if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails, and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she's lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. If you're not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave since you have dishonored her. You can see the rules of law that God is giving to His people to take care and protect those who cannot protect themselves. Here's a woman in her home country. There is a war. Everybody, the males are all killed, maybe even her family. And a man says, I want you for my own. Now, we've all heard stories about what happens in war, and it's very vicious sometimes, especially for the women who are defenseless in those circumstances. Here God makes a very careful presentation as to how the men of Israel are to respect foreign women who are vulnerable with no one to defend them. You can choose a wife from the group of women that are left. Now, this is not necessarily an evil thing because if all the men in their land are killed and they're left without any men there, having no one to protect them or defend them, they're defenseless, and they have no way to be able to make a living or to earn money to live on. So, if a man chose someone as a wife, he's to bring her home, but she's not to be treated as if she is his possession. In other words, he can't rape her. He can't do whatever he wants with her. Instead, he's to bring her home, shave her head, which is a sign of mourning or grief, let her cut her fingernails, a sign of mourning or grief, and take off the clothes where she used to be, a sign of mourning or grief, or even perhaps of the fact that you used to live in this place and dress this way. Now in this new place, you will dress the way the people dress here. We don't know for sure why that's done, but here she has one month in which she is to grieve over the loss of her parents and her home. He's not to do anything to her. At the end of that time, then he can consummate the marriage with this lady. If he should, for some reason, decide that he doesn't like her, in the culture of most of the people in that world, he could just kick her out. But God did not allow that. If you find yourself that you haven't really wanted her as much as you thought you did, you must let her go wherever and whenever she wants to. In other words, she's free. She's not a slave of yours. You're not to sell her or to treat her like a slave, since you have asked her to be your wife and now dishonored her by divorcing or making her leave your home. What the Bible is helping us understand is that God sees great interest in protecting those who have no defense, who are helpless. All the way through the Scripture, God's concern for people who cannot defend themselves or help themselves is clearly displayed. And what he demands of us is that those that the world sees as powerful and strong are going to get by on their own. But for the people who follow God, they must always have an eye open to the people who cannot help themselves. They're in positions where they're vulnerable and unable to defend themselves or protect themselves or provide for themselves. And there are rules that God gives to his people that require certain kinds of behavior that would put the interest of that person ahead of your own. Here, the man is able to take a woman that he thinks he might want to have as his wife, but if for any reason, even if she's not a good person, even if she's not being nice to him, if for any reason he decides to get rid of her, she is absolutely free and able to do what she wants to do. She can't be sold as a slave or treated as a slave. She has to be treated as a wife if he keeps her in that family. And if she leaves, he can't sell her to anyone so he can gain from her being sold, his personal profit. He has to respect her because he has created dishonor in her life. When a man would divorce his wife, the disgrace was on her. You still see this in some Middle Eastern cultures, where the divorced woman is seen as the one at fault always in those cultures. And this was true for the biblical times. But God made special provisions to say you are not allowed to use the power you have to bring pain or suffering to people who cannot defend themselves. What we have here in these stories are a picture of the nature of God. God holds us accountable for living in obedience to what he's asked, as in that first story. Every one of us are accountable for our behavior, not only individually, but also for the community around us. As part of a church, we're responsible for the reputation we give to the family of God. God holds us accountable for the things that are done, and we are responsible for encouraging each other to live lives that are responsible and obedient to God. In the community of faith that we're in, no one becomes a part of the church unless you stand publicly and openly to say, I give my life to Jesus Christ to live in obedience to him. We are responsible for holding each other accountable for that promise that we make to God, because we are a part of the community of faith. And when one of us acts in a way that brings disgrace to the community, we bring disgrace to God. The second one of these stories lets us know that God has made himself a covenant, that he will protect those who cannot protect themselves. And if we take advantage of people who cannot defend or help themselves, we make ourselves an enemy of God. Now, you think of your culture, the culture around us. Who are the people who are vulnerable in our society? The people that work for minimum wage positions, and they are subject to people who want to criticize them or to make life difficult for them. The people who cannot defend themselves, children, men, women, it doesn't matter who they are. People who are not in a position to protect or defend themselves. God makes it clear that he takes their side. A culture that does not care for the vulnerable people will find itself a culture opposed by God, because he commits himself to be the defender and protector of those who have no one else to care for them. And when we talk about our political programs or political actions, we must always be conscious that God is concerned that we make sure that those who are vulnerable are cared for. He has a stake in what happens to them. And he holds us accountable for how we do that, both personally and as a culture and a country. What God is revealing is how he works in the world. And so when you see people who are vulnerable, you know that God is at work trying to help them. And when we do something that helps those who are vulnerable, we are at God's side in that effort. Would you bow your heads, please, for just a moment? Who are the people that you know who are vulnerable? That is, they can't do very much to protect or defend themselves. You think of classes of people. Sometimes the elderly people are in that position. Sometimes children are in that position. Sometimes people without economic benefits are in that position. Sometimes people that others make fun of are in that position. We have to ask ourselves where we stand around those places. Do we protect those who are being bullied? Do we protect and stand for those who are being ridiculed or taken advantage of? Ask God to open your eyes to people around you who might fit in this category that God is trying to help, defend, and protect. We know you're a God of compassion because of the way you treat us. Sometimes it's hard for us to see and have compassion on others. We depend on you to show us the people who need our help. We depend on you to help us know how to live our lives so that we will not bring a reflection of evil on the community of your people. We want the world to know that followers of yours are people who live correctly in obedience to you. We want them to know that your community of people are people that care for those who have no one else to help. May our lives reflect your nature and your character. Amen.