Deuteronomy 24-27/Luke 7

Deuteronomy
24-26 in a continuation of the laws. Notice these are pointed specifically at justice and fairness which should be applied to everyone, not just the people of a particular status level. The poor, the stranger, and the orphan are even accorded some extra rights. You cannot utterly deprive someone of their dignity, no matter what they owe you. As human beings, they are not to be treated as animals or sub-human. 26 ends with further ratification of the agreements of the covenant God is making with the Israelites.

27 tells us of the ceremony held when the people enter the holy land. There are a couple of competing stories regarding exactly where and how these things happened. The curses at the end, however, echo the meaning of covenant as "to cut." Remember the animals that were halved, between which the two covenant makers passed: the declaration being, "If I break this covenant, let what happened to these animals happen to me."

Luke 7
Here we have three stories in which the people who are supposed to get it don't get it, and the people who aren't supposed to get it, do. The Centurion does not represent the nice police officer or NCO from the local base. The Centurion represents "The Man." He stands against freedom and self-determination. John of course is the crazy man from the wilderness who is prophesying the fall of the "system." Then there is the unrespectable woman, the woman who does not get invited to dinner parties but to bachelor parties. In each case, Jesus sees beyond the classification their society has laid upon them, and sees the true person underneath - in need of the good news of his kingdom and his healing and forgiveness.