Recontextualizing Gleaning.

I have been fascinated for the past few years by the idea of "gleaning" in the Old Testament. Basically the idea is that those who grew crops were to leave the edges of the field unharvested so that the poor and the foreigners could harvest the food and take it for themselves. The reference I find for it is Leviticus 23:22 - “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’”. 

First, what is the reason that God gives for doing this. Because he is God, right? When I read that verse as a kid, I accepted that as justification for why. Sure. God is God, I am not. Do what he says. It's not much different than "because I said so", and kids are expected to go along with that (even if it's ridiculous to expect them to). I think it's more than that. 

By identifying himself and by implying that it is because he is God that they should follow this law, it seems that identity is a major part of this law. Israelites were chosen to represent God to the world. They were to be a blessing. By declaring who he was (and remember, LORD in all caps is actually The Name of God, not just a generic title), God was identifying himself, his nature, his character, and his mission to the world. As his people, who were told over and over again to do things that would bear his image in the Old Testament, "so that the world would know that he is God", they were to do the same. 

Okay, so it's in God's character to care for the poor. Jesus made this clear when he declared (or re-contextualized) his purposed by quoting from the prophet Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

People of God, this is our identity too. I am so enamored by the idea of gleaning. It's interesting because if we were to witness this today, we would hear a lot about it. We would hear about how the poor are leeching off of the wealthy (or the middle-class, or whoever). We would hear it as though they pilfered the goods. We might be shocked that someone would give over some of their abundance. In fact, maybe not abundance, since for the landowners, the crops were their very livelihood. This action, this participation in God's mission, pushed for more than just following a rule, but for a change of mindset.

In psychology, one of the topics I found fascinating was the idea that behaviors could change the mindset. I know mindsets change and cause behaviors. But behaviors have a significant effect of mindset. This is even highlighted by the gospel of John, wherein the author proclaims that those who do good love the light. His logic makes sense, but it's the reverse of what we would expect, so that it somehow condemns the Pharisees and uplifts those who are looked down upon.
  
How could we participate in God's mission in a similar way? I was blown away recently when I considered that tithing is not much different than leaving a portion of your fields open. It's a refusal of profit. It's accepting a sort of loss along with your gains. It's recognizing that your gains are somehow linked to the loss of others. It's recognizing that your gains may even be at the expense of others (in the U.S., we either know this is true or choose to be ignorant of that fact). 

I have always been resistant to the idea of tithing. And I'm not known for being a scrooge. Tithing bothered me because there was no reason given. It bothered me because in my church background, you never knew where the money was going. Early church writers talked about distribution practices. They knew where their money/belongings were going. They were going to the poor, the widowed (who in those days had no protection), and the orphaned. They went to the world's most vulnerable. Tithing today shouldn't be much different. And in fact, if you are distributing your means to the most vulnerable, I would say that is a form of tithing. 

Can we do this in a way that is directly linked to our spending practices, to our gains? The main difference I see between gleaning and tithing, in our modern context especially, is that the practice of gleaning was directly linked to gains made. It caused cognitive dissonance. It brought to the forefront the question of identity, as I believe God does of himself and of his people when giving this command. Perhaps tithing did the same, but it's more removed (I contend) in that way in our modern lives. 

I once heard about this bank with a program that, any time you made a purchase, rounded up the total to the nearest dollar and donated the change from each purchase to the cause of your choice. This, to me, is a good start. This seems undeniably linked to the idea of gleaning and to the question of identity.

At some point these things become automatic. "Okay boys, only harvest till the line with the big rock." That can pose the danger of no longer requiring the landowner (or resource-holder) to be mindful and to be at a greater risk of divorcing one's gains from the recognition of another's need. But at the same time, its becoming automatic may have positive meaning as well. At some point, what you had once regarded as yours, which you did work for, and which in all rights is yours, is no longer considered yours in your mind. 

This is a question of identity and mission. This is a recognition of who is our God, a recognition of our identities as those who bear God's image and do his work in the world, and of how we view the identity of others. 

I am forming ideas of how to do this in my own life more intentionally. I think there is beauty to generosity being unplanned. In fact, I think most of it is. But I think intentionality plays a role in forming us so that we become the kind of people who do what we do because we are compelled by compassion.