Sermons
“Meditation of My Heart” Page based on Leviticus 19:9-18 Psalm…
What sort of world do we want to live in? What world are we trying to create? This is a central question of faith, and the answer has sacred names. It is often called the kindom of God, it is also known as the beloved community. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.”1 I believe that this vision goes back to the beginning of our faith tradition, and is the the vision of the Torah itself. (The Torah is a name for the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.)
Today I want to look at that vision for the world, and build on it into the vision we see God seeking to build from the world as we know it today into what it could be. The vision we’ll see was one that detailed how society should be set up, specifically outlining how to to create a just system where even the vulnerable can thrive.
Not everyone sees this vision in the Hebrew Bible. Many Christians have been taught to distrust the vision of the Hebrew Bible. The Torah is often interpreted into English as “the law” and that has gained disfavor in many Christian circles. Paul wrote in Romans 7, “But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Romans 7:6 NRSV) Those following his ideas have seen the law as old, as dated, as dead – and thus definitely not as life giving.
I think we miss a lot when we simplify that much. “The law” is a series of rules, regulations, and expectations about what it would take to develop a stable community that values human life. They’re profound, intentional, and life-giving.
The Torah vision emerges out of the core conception of the Divine in the ancient Jewish faith – that God was a God who cared about how people treated each other. God wanted the people of God to create a community where all of God’s people could survive, and thrive! This was notable in a time when most communities conceived of gods and goddesses who cared only for how humans treated the gods and goddesses – related to worship and sacrifices. Instead of a concept of God that is self-serving, the Torah vision sets out a series of rules and regulations about how humans are to treat each other, under the impression that this is what God wants from them. God is pleased when people care for each other. This is the foundation of our faith tradition, and of the Torah vision for good living.
As we see in several of the 10 commandments – don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet what your neighbor has – how neighbors get treated is central to how a stable and supportive society is formed. Of course, we also see in the 10 commandments that how God is understood matters – don’t have other gods, don’t make idols, don’t take the name of the God in vain, and even I would argue, remember the Sabbath day. These two facets coincide with the great commandments as found in the Hebrew Bible. Leviticus 19:18b, “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” and the Shema, found in Deutoronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” On these two foundations – care for each other and love of God, ancient Israel was built.
According to John Dominic Crossan, the vision was one of distributive justice, and we see that as staring with the Sabbath. Sabbath is a distribution of rest, that applied to both Israelites, and foreigners. It applied EVERYONE, and came every week. That prevented people from being dehumanized by constant work. One day off out of seven means that there is an identity other than work. The Sabbath laws were also about distribution – distribution of rest and thus humanity! The Sabbath rules also, in a way, applied to the land. Fields were mean to lie fallow every 7 years. The Jubilee year was also an extension of Sabbath. Leviticus explains this in chapter 25:
“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.
In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. (Leviticus 25:8-13, NRSV)
This brings us to the the distribution of land, that land that each family returned to! Every tribe got a portion of the land and then every family got a portion of the tribe’s land. That is, every family got land on which they could live and farm. There was a careful distribution of land to enable all of the Israelites to have subsistence.
Then, there were rules and regulations to make sure that the land wouldn’t be appropriated out of the hands of the family!! One of those was the rule that loans had to be forgiven every 7 years so that debt did not accumulate. The other piece was that land could only be LEASED, as we heard in the Jubilee passage a moment ago. If a family got into financial trouble and had to sell their land, it could only be leased for up to 49 years but it could not be sold outside of the family. This meant a family could not permanently lose their basis of subsistence.
There is one exception to the land distribution though. One tribe did not get ANY land. That was the tribe of Levi, the Levites. The Levites, instead, lived off of the tithes of the other nations. The Levites were the “holy people”, from that tribe the priests were chosen. The Levites were set aside to deal with matters of the Divine. They were the moral compass of the community. The Levites were dependent on the other tribes for their survival when they otherwise had so much power, it kept them motivated to seek the well-being of the tribes because they were interdependent. It also meant that while most of society was at work farming and tending to herds, there were people pondering, considering, and attending to the big picture. It wasn’t that they were closer to God, simply that they got to spend more of their time attending to the things of God on behalf of everyone else.
The Torah vision had other safeguards in place to try to keep things just. Loans could not be given with interest. That means that there was no penalty for needing a loan. One did not go further into poverty because one was in poverty. It also means that those who were doing well enough to offer loans did not glean further wealth from it.
The was also a provision for gleaning. Those who owned land were banned from picking the edges of their fields as well as from going back to pick a second time, making sure to get it all. That way, those who didn’t have land – the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners, had a way to feed themselves by picking the leftovers. I am also under the impression that some of the work of the tithe was to feed the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners. That is, that even though the Torah tried to make sure everyone got land, there were also careful provisions for the exceptions! This is summarized in Leviticus 19, “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.” (Leviticus 19:9-10)
Finally, the Bible absolutely obsesses over having a fair justice system that shows no partiality. To go back to Leviticus 19 for a concise version of this, “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:15) The very concept of justice in the Torah vision is tied into the lack of partiality, neighborliness, and to God’s own nature. Almost all of those Leviticus 10 provisions end with “I am YHWH.” God’s own being requires this care of people, and this care of people is what builds a society that reflects God’s own being!!
Of course, ancient Israel often failed to live into the Torah vision. That’s why we have so many prophetic books filled with prophets calling kings and the powerful into compliance with the care of the vulnerable and justice for all!
Now, I do not wish to live in a theocracy, I think they tend to go poorly. But, I think there is a whole lot in the Torah vision that is worth considering and pondering. I don’t see a whole lot of justice in our society, and I do see a LOT of partiality. Starting with where we are today, what do we see God at work trying to create? How is God seeing to make sure all people have sustenance? How is God at work to make justice systems just and fair? How is God trying to ensure the vulnerable are cared for and that those who have experienced oppression or harm are heard? I believe we can hear this work of God, if we listen for it; and see this work of God, if our eyes are open.
Psalm 19 celebrates the vision of the Torah, it celebrates the Torah itself! It is beautiful, isn’t it? It calls the Torah a source of reviving the soul, and wisdom, and clarity. It says the Torah is sweeter than honey and better that gold! It thinks this communal living that attempts to reflect God’s love of God’s people is THAT good! What delight is there in envisioning a society, a WORLD, where all are cared for?
The Torah-vision, the kindom of God, the beloved community, they are different ways of saying the same thing. So too, I believe, is the often repeated quote from Rev. Dr. J. Edward Carothers, teaching of the church existing to “to establish and maintain connections of mutual support in ever widening circles of concern.” Just so, the Psalmist says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” As people of faith, we are called into these visions – to see them, to dream them, to move towards them, to celebrate them as they come into being, and work towards them. Sometimes the biggest work of all is to dream big enough for God. Thanks be to God. Amen
1Martin Luther King Jr. 1957, found at http://www.wearethebelovedcommunity.org/bcquotes.html. Accessed on 9/27/28.
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Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers