«At the center
of biblical
faith,» says Walter Brueggemann in a sermon on this passage, «is a command from God that curbs economic transactions by an
act of communal sanity that restores everyone to proper place in the economy, because life in the community
of faith does not consist
of getting more but in sharing well.»
But we need to remember also that the
faith we personally appropriate is the
faith of the community, and this means that even the most internalized, existential
act of personal commitment will bind us into a
communal relationship
of shared belief with others.