Scripture: Leviticus 19:9-10; 25:8-12
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.
You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.
Meditation
I used to think that love was simple.
You would know when you know,
What was meant, would be.
But I fell in love
And it’s not that easy.
It’s compromise and identity,
Mountains and valleys,
Apologies and memories,
Imbalance, recentering.
It turns out, "
Love took reimagining.
This poem may be familiar to those of you who’ve had a chance to read, reflect, and do some of the work in the Study Journal for our stewardship season. We have been reflecting on our money stories. The Rev. Sarah Are begins the poem with words about love—falling in love, which can be so easy, and then, doing the work of love, which can be so hard. Compromise and identity; mountains and valleys, apologies and memories. Imbalance. Recentering. Reimagining.
In a way, scripture tells us a great and grand love story. God chooses to create for no discernible reason, but then seems to fall in love with the creatures wrought by the Divine Hand. And together they learn—it seems to me—compromise and identity. (I mean, God forgives, and forgives, and forgives.) Mountains on which the law is received and valleys that need to be raised so that God might come again in rescue. Apologies. Memories.
And through it all, God teaches God’s human creations how to imagine, and then reimagine what it is to be a people. A covenant people. A people of law, and a people of love.
I used to think that Church was simple.
Church was community, not the walls,
Faith and hope mixed with call.
But then the world grew violently sick
And the way to be Church
Was to keep distance.
So doors were closed,
And people sent home.
It was all love, by another way.
And yet it was not how we imagined Sunday.
And that reimagining goes on today. To our chagrin, we church folk are learning a new way of loving one another, reimagining what it means to care for each other. And for now, that means continuing to refrain from gathering together to worship God. It also means figuring out how to serve our neighbors through our food pantry, in a way that keeps us all safe. This was not how we imagined our lives together. But for now, it is not only the best we can do; it is the most loving; love by another way.
I used to think that justice was simple,
That I could make a difference, all by myself.
There was a clear right and wrong,
a way I could help.
But then I learned of privilege and bias, "
Of white savior complex and our
Church’s silence.
And all at once, it wasn’t so easy.
I needed to learn. I needed to listen.
I needed to reframe my original vision.
God helps God’s people to reimagine what justice might look like, as well. In today’s verses from Leviticus 19, God first commands those who have enough, to share with those who do not. All through scripture, the most vulnerable are identified as the poor, the widows and orphans (who are usually poor) and the immigrants—sometimes translated as “alien” or “stranger.” In this case, those who have enough are those in a position to work their own land—farmers. Here they’re told to harvest their crops, to pick their grapes—but not to harvest to the edge of the field, not to stoop for every last grape that has fallen from the vine. Instead, they are to leave some for those who need help, for those who are on the edge. Leave some for the poor, for the immigrant, God tells the people. And then, much like the mother who responds to a challenge with “because I said so,” God states the obvious. “I am the Lord your God.”
Our mother is telling us how to be fair. Our mother is reminding us that everything comes from her to begin with. Our mother is urging those of us who are able, to share what we have.
God proposes something else in our verses from Leviticus 25: a year of rebalancing, of re-booting the systems that relegate some people to the bottom of the social ladder, and elevate others so high, that their kind of comfort and wealth become unattainable to almost everyone else.
The new vision is a year of jubilee, known in some writings as “the trumpet blast of liberty.” It’s a remarkable thing by description: a Sabbath of Sabbaths. Last week we heard of every seventh year being a year of release from debt. Now, after seven cycles of seven years, that trumpet blast calls God’s people to a year of freedom: Slaves are set free. The trumpet blast calls God’s people to a year of return to their original tribal lands, and to their families, freeing them from obligations that take them too far from their roots. Finally, it calls God’s people to let the land itself have a Sabbath rest: they are not to plow or sow, they are not to do an organized harvest. Instead, for one year, the land is set free from its cycles of planting and reaping, and everyone is a gleaner. Now, the people approach the land with reverence—they understand that the land itself is a hard-working servant, deserving of its own fallow season, its year of rest. God’s people will eat what the land offers, no more.
This is a massive interruption of the systems that are in place: systems of buying and selling—goods and humans and land. Systems of borrowing and lending—ever-increasing burdens of owing another your life. Systems of working both people and land until all are utterly depleted, and have given everything, and have nothing left to offer.
The jubilee year challenges all that, and proclaims: there is a better way. There is a way that will ensure that everyone has enough. There is a way that will allow everyone to rest—even the earth. There is a way that will allow all people to live together in freedom: a Sabbath of Sabbaths.
In a 2016 sermon, Rev. Amanda Kerr said,
Sabbath is not simply a pause in time, but a way of reimagining life. Rather than being driven by consumerism and consumption, the Sabbath reminds us that we are called to a life of solidarity and compassion. It is through the practice of the Sabbath that we can finally experience the reality of abundance, acknowledging that there is more than enough. For the Israelites then, and for us today, the Sabbath is a call to remember the work of God in our lives, to resist the spirit of consumption, and to reimagine our community with eyes of justice, equality, and thankfulness.
If you could reimagine our world—or our community—or your own home—so that it might more faithfully respond to God’s invitations to jubilee, what would that look like? How might we weave compassion into our spaces and our decisions? How might that ethic of “enough” challenge the ways we consume? How might we discover ways to consume without causing harm? How might we rest in the abundance God provides?
None of these things are easy, but nothing that is truly good and lasting is. They involve compromise and identity; mountains of success and valleys of frustration, apologies when we get it wrong, and memories that enrich and refocus us. Sarah Are concludes her poem:
For I am
Starting to believe
That what matters in life
Will never be easy.
So we must imagine and imagine again.
We must dream and try, die and rise.
And in our rising, may we see
The next right reimagined thing
Until step by step we are home.
Love, by another way. *
Thanks be to God. Amen.
“Love By Another Way,” by the Rev. Sarah Are, (C) A Sanctified Art.