2 Maccabees 8:30-36: a reflection

30Having had an encounter with the forces of Timotheus and Bacchides, they killed more than twenty thousand of them, and made themselves masters of exceedingly high strongholds, and divided very much plunder, giving the maimed, orphans, widows, and the aged an equal share with themselves. 31When they had gathered the weapons of the enemy together, they stored them all up carefully in the most strategic positions, and they carried the rest of the spoils to Jerusalem. 32They killed the phylarch of Timotheus’s forces, a most unholy man, and one who had done the Jews much harm. 33As they celebrated the feast of victory in the city of their fathers, they burned those who had set the sacred gates on fire, including Callisthenes, who had fled into a little house. So they received the proper reward for their impiety. 34The thrice-accursed Nicanor, who had brought the thousand merchants to buy the Jews as slaves, 35being through the help of the Lord humbled by them who in his eyes were held to be of least account, took off his glorious apparel, and passing through the country, shunning all company like a fugitive slave, arrived at Antioch, having, as he thought, had the greatest possible good fortune, though his army was destroyed. 36He who had taken upon himself to make tribute sure for the Romans by the captivity of the men of Jerusalem published abroad that the Jews had One who fought for them, and that because this was so, the Jews were invulnerable, because they followed the laws ordained by him.

After a great victory, Judas and his men gather the enemy's abandoned wealth, and notice what they do with it: they give the maimed, the orphans, the widows, and the aged an equal share with themselves. In the flush of triumph, with plunder to distribute, they do not simply reward the fighters and keep the rest; they make sure the vulnerable, those who could not fight and had no claim by strength, receive a full and equal portion.

That is a striking instinct. Victory and plunder tend to go to the strong, to those who won the battle; the weak and dependent are easily overlooked when there are spoils to divide. But these men, in their moment of success, deliberately included the ones with no way to claim a share, the orphaned, the widowed, the aged, the injured, giving them equal footing with the victors themselves.

There is a challenge in that for how we handle our own successes and gains. When things go well and there is abundance to distribute, the natural pull is to reward ourselves and those like us, and to forget the vulnerable who had no part in the winning. This ancient example points another way: to remember the weak precisely in the moment of plenty, to make sure the orphan and widow and aged get a full share, not the leftovers. When you win, when you have plenty to distribute, do not overlook the vulnerable. Give them an equal share.

Lord, in their victory these men gave the orphans, widows, aged, and maimed an equal share of the spoils. When things go well for me and I have abundance to distribute, keep me from rewarding only myself and forgetting the vulnerable. Help me remember the weak in my moments of plenty, and give them a full share, not the leftovers.