Scripture: Deuteronomy 23:25 – “If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.” (NRSVue)
According to Rabbinical tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah, the first five books in the Bible (that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy for those counting at home). Many of these commandments seem completely arbitrary or irrelevant to our daily life. There are many commandments about the robes of priests or crossbreeding animals or the importance of adding salt, but not olive oil, to sacrifices. As such it is easy for Christians to ignore pretty much the entire Torah as silly or even detrimental to faith.
However, Jesus believed the Torah had a through line: to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbors as yourselves. All the commandments show honor to one or the other. As hard as it is to curtail certain behaviors as signs of belonging to God’s people, like wearing fringes on one’s garments, the real difficult commandments are the ones about treating neighbors properly, because it often calls upon us to give more than we want to.
The Torah has very explicit examples about how to treat immigrants and the poor. For example, the book of Deuteronomy talks about fairness in our economic life. In one commandment, it speaks about taking grain from a neighbor’s field. How does this matter to us? Think about the scale of such actions. The commandment permits taking a grain or two to feed yourself, because what is grown by God is created for all to enjoy. However, you cannot actively harvest the grain of others, because that would threaten your neighbor’s livelihood and survival. In other words, there is a difference between sharing and theft. One is for the benefit of all, and the other is to the detriment of some.
I think it is difficult for us to grasp this concept sometimes because we think about things in a zero sum way. Anything you gain is something I lose. We lack a sense of the abundance of God’s gifts to us, and it makes us cold and greedy. Few people revel in their wealth and celebrate the poverty of others, but most of us feel like we do not have enough. Not enough to live off of. Not enough to survive an emergency. Not enough to prevent others from surpassing us and taking what we have (as in the “price of doing business”).
From ancient times, God commands us to think bigger. Do we have a few grains to spare from our fields? It ultimately is not a question of material, but a question of faith. Jesus pointed out the widow who gave her last pennies to support those worse off than her. She did this not out of obligation, but out of faith that sharing leads to the benefit of all because of God’s abundance.
So, this morning ask yourself: what are you worried about losing? What can you share without threatening your livelihood? It is probably more than society is telling you. Have faith in God, and you shall live abundantly too.
Prayer: Lord God, help me to follow your will for love in the world, for we receive more love the more we give it away. Amen.
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