In the eyes of God, there are simply more important concerns than petty exactitude and getting our pound of flesh. If we really want to be righteous, if we really want to act justly, we need to look beyond the horizon of our own immediate concerns and see the needs of our neighbour. We need to loosen the stranglehold we have on his neck for a moment and look at his face and see the imago Dei.
If ever you take your neighbour’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. (Exodus 22:26–27)
When one man owes a debt to another, a very natural instinct is to take something from him as a pledge or security. If I borrow money from the bank, for instance, the bank naturally wants to know that I have something of equal worth they could seize in return should I prove unfaithful to our agreement. The hundred dollar word we apply to this sort of arrangement is “collateral.” Under certain circumstances, however, God calls it injustice: “If ever you take your neighbour’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate” (Ex. 22:26–27).
There are several things to note about this passage, but the first is that we are never in so much danger of committing injustice against our neighbour as when we feel we are owed by them.