Left overs – Love ii
I can imagine that if I told my menfolk when they were mowing the lawn that they didn’t have to go right up to the edges, or go back over the bits they had missed they would be thrilled.
Such is the command for harvesting corn fields and when gathering in the grapes from the vineyard. Don’t go right to the edges, don’t go back over bits that have been missed, don’t pick up what you drop – leave it there.
Leave it for those who have no crops of their own – the poor and refugees. That those who have nothing, may have something. It is the responsibility of those who have to feed those who have not.
What a fine principal – but it doesn’t perhaps mean much to us in our 21st Century lifestyle. Not many of us have fields or vineyards. But many do have veg plots and allotments. How generous are we with our gluts?
And what about the rest of life?
Leviticus goes on:
Don’t steal or cheat or lie;
Don’t take advantage of anyone;
Don’t rob people;
or hold back wages that have been earned;
don’t cause those who are disabled to stumble;
be honest and just in legal cases;
don’t show favouritism;
don’t bear a grudge
That is how to love your neighbour.
Having learnt to love ourselves, that love is not for keeping to ourselves, not for making us feel warm and fuzzy. It is for us, but it is also then to make us pass that love on, and to pass it on in a very practical way.
What can we be doing to make the world a more fair and just place? To pass on the love from God that we know?
Lord, as we pray for justice
move us
and equip us
to act.
May justice not just be a good idea,
something to aspire to,
something for “them” to get on with;
but a way of life
in our lives and hearts
every day.
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