Much of the Old Testament is about the nation of Israel as a whole. Israel is God’s chosen people: it is as a people that it is led to the promised land, is exiled, chooses a king, etc. When individuals start misbehaving, the whole nation gets the stick jointly. It works the other way around, too, although there is far less of an emphasis on the link between joint, congregational behaviour and return to grace (I can think of one explicit, though academic, instance).
Background: GreatPaperWolf, reused under CC license
The Old Testament is, then, mostly the story of the Israelites as a people and of a few heroes whose actions are directly linked with that of the people (the judges and kings, in particular). It is particularly revealing of the mindset of the Israelites to notice that the names listed in the early genealogies include those of nations we still know today, or that they are used as bywords for the whole nation (in particular, Jacob/Israel in the Psalms). Job is, admittedly, an exception (1).
The luxury afforded in the Old Covenant, of being able to say “us and them”, is now gone. The parables and the beatitudes are not generally linked with nations; and when nations get mentioned, it is in a culturally challenging fashion: the Samaritan’s behaviour surprises, and Jesus’ behaviour towards the Samaritan does to. What I consider to be one of the most powerful verses of the Epistles spells it out with no escape left to us: the New Covenant is available not simply to all nations, but to each individual. This is not to say that nations stop being relevant; but that they stop being sufficient.
This shift is twofold: “us” is no longer sufficient. We can no longer leave to the Levites the duty of prayer and worship; we can no longer leave to others the duties of care, even if we support them. And whilst we do not have to go it alone, we should not let the need for congregate action become an excuse for not doing stuff individually. To spell it out, if someone comes knocking asking for help, we should not reject them, merely sending them off to whatever organisation, justifying ourselves by the fact we financially or practically support said organisation sometimes – i.e. by the fact that we are “citizens” of that nation/organisation. We have a duty to love our neighbour, and that goes through listening. I’m not saying we should ignore the work done by organisations, or that we should do all the work they’re doing as individuals – just that we cannot use them as excuses.
“Them” is no longer sufficient either. We are no longer allowed to lump all homeless people together into a nation of homeless. We are no longer allowed to lump all drug addicts into their own nation. We are no longer allowed to lump all Catholics together. We are no longer allowed to lump all middle-class people together. Even so for coffee drinkers: they may be in the wrong, but that should not stop us from connecting with them as individuals; rather than as people who merely need to discover tea.
This is a difficult task to which we all fail. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say I don’t quite live by these values. I sometimes walk past homeless people and fail to care for the individual; and I sometimes justify it in my head thinking either about how busy I am (commitments to my nation) or that there are plenty of ways for these people to find help (dumping responsibility onto my nation). While I don’t tend to assume they will use whatever I would give for alcohol or drugs (which would be lumping them together into one nation), I sometimes still think that they might (I just say, well, if they do, there’s nothing I can do about it) and fail to engage with the individual. Which, again, is treating them as a nation.
But the command is clear: love your neighbour as yourself. Not the nation of your neighbours: your neighbour. And that is a great challenge.
—
(1) Isn’t it interesting that it also happens to be, as far as I can recall, the only place in the Old Testament where the Devil is seen undeniably as an external entity rather than as a mere tempter?
