Above: Brooms and Charcoal for Sale, Jeanerette, Louisiana, October 1938
Photographer = Lee Russell
Image Source = Library of Congress
Reproduction Number = LC-USF33-011853-M3
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The Collect:
Sovereign God, you have created us to live
in loving community with one another.
Form us for life that is faithful and steadfast,
and teach us to trust like little children,
that we may reflect the image of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 49
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The Assigned Readings:
Deuteronomy 22:13-30 (Monday)
Deuteronomy 24:1-5 (Tuesday)
Psalm 112 (Both Days)
1 Corinthians 7:1-9 (Monday)
1 Corinthians 7:10-16 (Tuesday)
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Alleluia.
Blessed are those who fear the Lord
and have great delight in his commandments.
–Psalm 112:1, The Book of Common Prayer (2004)
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I make no excuses for much of the content from Deuteronomy. Consider, for example, O reader, the following passage regarding an allegation that a young woman has lost her virginity prior to her marriage:
But if the charge proves true, the girl was found not to have been a virgin, then the girl shall be brought out of the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death; for she did a shameful thing in Israel, committing fornication while under her father’s authority. Thus you will sweep away evil from your midst.
–22:20-21, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
As we continue to read, we learn that a man a married woman caught committing adultery, an engaged virgin and another man who have had sex, and a man who rapes an engaged young woman are to die. Furthermore, an engaged young woman who has become a victim of rape incurs no legal penalty, but a man who rapes a virgin not yet engaged must pay a bride price and marry his victim. (But what about the young woman’s wishes?)
Thus you will sweep away evil from your midst
repeats throughout Deuteronomy 22, echoing after each death sentence.
The readings from Deuteronomy exist in the context of responsibility to the community and to God. Deuteronomy 24:5 makes plain the responsibility of the married people to each other. All of these ethics exist also in 1 Corinthians 7.
The ethics of responsibility to God, the community, and each other apply well in other circumstances. A healthy society avoids the tyranny of the majority or a powerful minority. The historical record tells that sometimes (if not often) powerful groups will, given the opportunity, deny civil rights and liberties to members of other groups, thereby denying human dignity. One might think of race-based slavery, civil rights struggles in many nations, struggles for equal rights for men and women, the oppression of the Gypsies, and the experience of Apartheid in South Africa. Sadly, not all of those examples exist in the past tense. Often people oppress each other in the name of God, whose image both the oppressed and the oppressors bear. However, a proper ethic of responsibility to the community contains a sense of mutuality, which denies anyone the right to oppress or exploit anyone else.
May mutuality in God, informed by a sense of dignity inherent in the image of God, inspire proper treatment of each other. That means, among other things, refraining from executing young women for not being virgins or forcing any woman to marry the man who raped her.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JULY 2, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH, WASHINGTON GLADDEN, AND JACOB RIIS, ADVOCATES OF THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
THE FEAST OF CHARLES ALBERT DICKINSON, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF GEORGE DUFFIELD, JR., AND HIS SON, SAMUEL DUFFIELD, U.S. PRESBYTERIAN MINISTERS
THE FEAST OF HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER, EDUCATOR, SCHOLAR, AND ANGLICAN PRIEST
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Adapted from this post:
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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