By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Posts Tagged ‘Leviticus’

Labor and Politics and God

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. – Lev. 19:9-10

Notice that God commands that they are not to consume all of the fruits of their labors for themselves. Sow to the edges of your field and tend all of your vines. But when you reap, you intentionally leave some for the poor.

Also notice that God does not command them to harvest the rest and deliver it to the poor.

Work is good and so is sharing the fruit of your labor. At the same time, work is good for the poor. Keep this in mind when you hear the politicians debating about income inequality. The fault is probably not solely located on one side or the other.

God continues in Leviticus and says:

You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. – Lev. 19:15

Too often only one side or the other is cited as the problem. The progressives blame only the rich and the conservatives blame only the welfare state. If we’re to do no injustice either for the poor or the great, we have to understand that many do indeed reap to the edges of their fields. They consume all that they make only for themselves by taking the highest possible wage they can. At the same time, others refuse to rise and go glean from the edges of the fields. It seems below their dignity to work for minimum wage or minimum wage can’t compete with the government benefits they receive. Or they are not allowed into the field at all.

It is injustice against the rich to just assume that we’re not taxing them enough and it is injustice against the poor to trap them on welfare. We need to weigh these issues with impartiality. That just doesn’t happen in a political campaign when people are trying to appeal to their base by speaking to their prejudices in order to secure their votes.

We can surely do better than this for the great and the poor alike.

Fascinating

Leviticus has some fascinating spots in it. Chapters 13 – 15 are about skin disease on people, mildew buildings and about bodily emissions. Here’s what I find fascinating. We have this ritual required a few times:

[T]he priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. He shall take the live bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field. – Leviticus 14:4-7

What is really neat to me is that this ritual isn’t given to make the disease or mildew or emission go away. The Bible doesn’t give magical spells for curing people. What precedes this ritual in every place it is commanded are steps to be take to determine if the disease is only skin deep or commands to scrape plaster and remove rocks from buildings or specific time periods to allow after an emission is stopped but never is there a spell or ritual to remove these things. God does not command magic for his people to gain power over the natural world. It is, after all, the world he created and he expects them to live in it. His law gives them ways to live in the world, not power over it.