Are these Biblical standards too much to aspire to and to hope for in today’s world?

Seeking Wisdom and trying to be attentive at Vespers in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been at Vespers this evening in the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road in Stony Stratford.

Before the readings at Vespers, the call goes out: ‘Wisdom. Let us be attentive.’

So, prayerfully seeking wisdom, I sought to be attentive. In the first reading (Deuteronomy 1: 8-11, 17-17), Moses recalls for the people the charge he gave to the judges:

‘Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgement is God’s’ (Deuteronomy 1: 16-17).

In second reading (Deuteronomy 10: 14-18, 20-21), Moses reminds the people: ‘For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing.’ (Deuteronomy 10: 17-18).

Now, these are the sort of judges I would like to see in courts, and these are the standards by which I would like to judge how the orphan and the widow are treated, how the political, legal and justice systems deal with the strangers in our midst and ‘the resident alien,’ and how we respond to those in need of food and clothing, both here and in Trump’s US.

Are these Biblical standards too much to aspire to or too much to hope for in today’s world?

‘Wisdom. Let us be attentive.’