Please read the text before the commentary.
What does the Lord God ask of us? After all the things the Lord had done for the Israelites, bringing them out of slavery into freedom, guiding them in the desert, defending them in danger, and being with them, Moses asked the Israelites what they thought they should be doing in response to the Lord. Moses further recalled the grandeur of the Lord’s universe and the power of nature. Moses did not wait for the people to answer; he told them what to do, things like circumcising their hearts and relaxing their stiff necks, code words for doing justice to widows and orphans, welcoming and feeding strangers. We sing in our Patriotic songs that God shed his grace us thee”. Then we ask that God would “crown our good with brotherhood”. If we have recognized God’s benevolence with us as a people and nation, then we should be executing justice for widows and orphans, if not all women and children, and we should be befriending and feeding the stranger, the “alien”, who is from another country instead of rounding them up for deportation. If we appr3ciate all that God has done for us, then we should be giving tax breaks for young families instead of for those who are rich. We know our God is great because he has used his power to protect and defend God’s people, to defend us. We ourselves became great by supporting Europe from Naziism during the Second World War. We became great by giving service to others instead of enriching ourselves. Is this being political? Only insofar as each of us individually is political. Our national policies are epic conglomerates of our individual choices. We elect. If we were to change our behavior to suit our religious, we would change our national decisions and behavior. Moses spoke to the people, to everyone, not just to those in the government. The same Scriptures speak to us people today, not just to our leaders.