Today’s Scripture Reading (August 24,
2012): Numbers 31
Why do the
innocent suffer? It has been one of the reigning questions from the very
beginning of time. Why do those who have done nothing, or have not done much
evil, seem to have to suffer with all of the rest of evil humanity. And the
stock answer has always been sin – it is the sin that we commit that not only
shapes our own lives, but shapes the lives of those around us as well.
Suffering too often is the result of the wrong that we do. And sometimes it is
tough to make the connection between the sin and the suffering. But
sometimes it is not.
So the
soldiers had come to the priests to make atonement to God. The concept of
atonement is the repaying or making amends for wrong that has been committed. Its
presence alone is an admission of guilt. This was not giving to God his share
of the plunder; it is not about the paying of a tithe. Wrong had been committed
that needed to be atoned for – and evil that needed to be admitted. Scholars
tend to look back a few verses to Moses accusation about the army letting the
women live who had been instrumental in leading the men of Israel into sin, but
it might be that the sin the soldiers stood needing atonement for happened much
further back than that.
The reality
is that while Israel had been tempted into sin, they did not have to give into
the temptation. It may have been Balaam’s plan, hatched through the women of
Midian that had lured Israel into sin, and therefore out of the protection of
God, but the men of Israel also had to take their share of the blame. The temptation
could have been resisted, and a lot of lives – both innocent and guilty – could
have been saved.
Sin is never
easily contained. Whenever we give into temptation, it always seems to take us
beyond the current situation; causing damage to parts of our lives and the
lives of others that we would have never dreamed was possible before we committed
the wrong. And maybe that is the reason we are a people that seem to
continually stand in need of atonement.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers
32
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