This weekend we looked at the next installment of our Culture Encounter Summer Sermon Series. The sermon title was ENCOUNTER REFUGEES.
One of the passages we used was an obscure couple of verse from Leviticus
9 “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. 10 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. Leviticus 19:9-10
I love these verses for their practicality! Since the days of Moses, God’s people were told to harvest their fields in a peculiar manner. While their fields we rectangles God’s command was to harvest in an oval. This left the corners of the fields with tall stalks of grain that were to be free for the poor and refugees in their midst.
Can you imagine the power of the tall corners of the fields? People in trouble would see those tall stalks as monuments to love and concern for neighbor. Many people who might have starved would have been filled with wonder and awe that a whole culture thought of poor they had not yet even met.
The question for us is this – What can our “corners” be in our culture today. How can we communicate to people we haven’t even met yet that we love them, that we care about them, that our relationship with God makes their lives better?
Something to think about!
RECAPPING LAST WEEK
Last week, Pastor Jeff Browning of Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Garden City New York led us through the book of Jonah and the topic ENCOUNTERING ENEMIES. It was great to have him here, and a huge thanks to our friends in New York for loaning him to us for the weekend!