"The Lord hears the cries"

This blog uses the Catholic Daily Bible readings to look for wisdom. 

Psalm 34

11 Come, my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 

12 Who among you delights in life, longs for time to enjoy prosperity? 

13 Guard your tongue from evil, your lips from any breath of deceit. 

14 Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. 

15 The eyes of the Lord are on the upright, his ear turned to their cry. 

16 But his face is set against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 

17 The upright cry in anguish and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. 

18 The Lord is near to the broken-hearted, he helps those whose spirit is crushed. 

19 Though hardships without number beset the upright, the Lord brings rescue from them all

At some point in the history of ancient Israel the troubles of the nation and the troubles of the decent person were seen as one in the providence of God: both could experience terrible suffering, but this did not mean that God had abandoned them. “The Lord brings rescue” is a fundamental tenet of the Jewish creed. The question is how, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, they were able to keep this faith. For Christian believers the refutation and paradoxical confirmation of this faith is the death (no rescue) and resurrection (rescue forever) of Jesus. I do not believe that God will rescue me from the accidents or evils of this life, other than through the actions of other people. If there is no “other life”, then stuff God, the game’s a bogey. Meantime, I think that the Lord is near to the broken-hearted.

Gospel, Luke 17:7-10

7 ‘Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal at once”?

8 Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards”?

9 Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told?

10 So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty.” ‘ 

Jesus does seem to have told stories about “slaves” which would be a more normal translation than “servants” which suggests the upstairs/downstairs of 19^th century Europe, rather than the fundamental division of the ancient world. Slaves had no rights. They might be treated well or badly, but they had no rights. Jesus’ story shows no recognition of the offensive nature of the master-slave relationship. We can see this as a falling away from the Exodus story in which God hears the cry of slaves in Egypt and inspires a leader to set them free, and from the “Jubilee” rules of Leviticus which command the liberation slaves every 50th year. If Jesus had been opposed to slavery could he have told this story? Could he have been contrasting the wrongness of the social system with the rightness of a God who expects more than duty? My conclusion is that Jesus, like all his contemporaries, took the institution of slavery for granted. If that is true of a person of incomparable compassion and justice, I have to ask what evils I take for granted in my place and time. 

Yes, yes, but sometimes, when I’m whining about how my Christian obedience has brought no reward, the realism of God brings me to my knees and I hear myself saying, “I’m a useless slave; I’ve only done my duty.”