A Structure for Sharing -- FPC sermon excerpt
The New Year is here, and many of us have made resolutions. We want to eat better … drink less alcohol … get out of debt … find a better job.
Some people set ambitious goals, such as learning a foreign language. Some people go easy on themselves, resolving simply to grow their hair. Or take fewer showers — to conserve water.
As for me, I hope to lose a few pounds. One of my hobbies is running, but I find that the heavier I am, the harder it is.
New Year’s resolutions are easy to make, but hard to keep. The problem is that we often fail to change the structure of our lives. We say we want to eat better, but continue to go to fast food restaurants. We intend to get out of debt, but don’t live on a budget. We resolve to lose weight, but don’t come up with a plan to eat less and exercise more.
The same is true in the church, where we say we want to help the poor and the homeless, but have not developed a concrete plan for giving people access to decent, safe, affordable housing. Sure, we participate in the hypothermia shelter program here at FPC, opening our doors to our homeless neighbors, as we did last month. I’m glad we do this, and I believe that it saves lives on cold winter nights. But when the weather warms up, the homeless go right back to sleeping in the woods.
To be truly helpful to the poor and the homeless, we need to develop some shared understandings of what should be done about housing in our region, and then take action in our congregation, community, and local government. Without a shared understanding of how we can and should help the homeless and the poor, we will forever be pulling people out of the woods in the winter, and sending them back in the spring.
Fortunately, the Bible gives us a structure for helping the needy, one that can be adopted by us today, and adapted to our current situation. It is a structure for sharing.
I was reminded of this last fall, when I was participating in one of our small groups on being a hospitable congregation. A church member was talking about her community garden, and how she had been surprised that some of the vegetables were disappearing. There was a path running by the garden into the woods, and her husband told her that a homeless man was living in the woods. The woman said that she hoped that the homeless man was taking the vegetables and eating them, rather than someone else.
At that point, I mentioned that the ancient Israelites had a well-established structure for sharing with the poor. The 19th chapter of Leviticus says, “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” (vv. 9-10). Based on this passage, I encouraged the woman working the community garden to leave a little produce in the garden for the poor and resident aliens who might need it.
The ancient Israelites did not simply put band-aids on their problems, but built care for the poor and the alien into their farming practices. This was not charity; it was the way they structured their common life. I would argue that we face the same challenge today: We need to build structures of sharing into our community, and to use these structures to change public policy and perception around the homelessness issue.
Some people set ambitious goals, such as learning a foreign language. Some people go easy on themselves, resolving simply to grow their hair. Or take fewer showers — to conserve water.
As for me, I hope to lose a few pounds. One of my hobbies is running, but I find that the heavier I am, the harder it is.
New Year’s resolutions are easy to make, but hard to keep. The problem is that we often fail to change the structure of our lives. We say we want to eat better, but continue to go to fast food restaurants. We intend to get out of debt, but don’t live on a budget. We resolve to lose weight, but don’t come up with a plan to eat less and exercise more.
The same is true in the church, where we say we want to help the poor and the homeless, but have not developed a concrete plan for giving people access to decent, safe, affordable housing. Sure, we participate in the hypothermia shelter program here at FPC, opening our doors to our homeless neighbors, as we did last month. I’m glad we do this, and I believe that it saves lives on cold winter nights. But when the weather warms up, the homeless go right back to sleeping in the woods.
To be truly helpful to the poor and the homeless, we need to develop some shared understandings of what should be done about housing in our region, and then take action in our congregation, community, and local government. Without a shared understanding of how we can and should help the homeless and the poor, we will forever be pulling people out of the woods in the winter, and sending them back in the spring.
Fortunately, the Bible gives us a structure for helping the needy, one that can be adopted by us today, and adapted to our current situation. It is a structure for sharing.
I was reminded of this last fall, when I was participating in one of our small groups on being a hospitable congregation. A church member was talking about her community garden, and how she had been surprised that some of the vegetables were disappearing. There was a path running by the garden into the woods, and her husband told her that a homeless man was living in the woods. The woman said that she hoped that the homeless man was taking the vegetables and eating them, rather than someone else.
At that point, I mentioned that the ancient Israelites had a well-established structure for sharing with the poor. The 19th chapter of Leviticus says, “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” (vv. 9-10). Based on this passage, I encouraged the woman working the community garden to leave a little produce in the garden for the poor and resident aliens who might need it.
The ancient Israelites did not simply put band-aids on their problems, but built care for the poor and the alien into their farming practices. This was not charity; it was the way they structured their common life. I would argue that we face the same challenge today: We need to build structures of sharing into our community, and to use these structures to change public policy and perception around the homelessness issue.
posted by Henry Brinton | 11:45 AM
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