Leave Room for Dessert
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
In my household I am the grocery shopper and head chef. I love to cook, and I love exploring recipes of meals from all over the place. On my journey to the grocery store that I make on Fridays, I have two stops: Trader Joe's in Capitol Hill and the Safeway that is just down the road from the church.
While on my way to Safeway, driving west on 14th St. just sound of West Colfax in Lakewood, I always drive by a local non profit service agency called The Action Center. Many times, especially during the pandemic, I would notice a line of cars extending out into the street, all waiting for boxes of groceries that the Action Center would distribute.
Fun fact: The Action Center began in our parking lot in a small building in the southernmost edge of our property. It was launched by United Methodist Women from multiple congregations in our area, and they have been serving people in need for years here in Lakewood.
“Jeffco Action Center” from Lakewood UMC’s 1989 Picture Directory
This week in worship, we are going to exploring a book in scripture that is challenging to take in. Leviticus is home to one of the "clobber passages" of scripture that contains language that, when translated to english at least, seem to outright prohibit intimate expressions of love between two consenting men or two consenting women. It contains rules that also prohibit the eating of shellfish or the mixing of fabrics. It has problematic statutes about slavery and sexual assault.
It can be easy to feel dismissive of Leviticus, or sometimes the Old Testament in general, but I want to encourage you to reconsider. Because some of the most ethically sound commands are in Leviticus as well.
“When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress them. The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." -Leviticus 19: 33-34
“You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord." - Leviticus 19: 13-14
While there is a lot of dislike in Leviticus--I think we need it as a part of our library of faith. We need to hear that God as far back as Leviticus was commanding just treatment of people stuck in poverty. Leviticus also contains the commandment for those who grow food to not harvest all of it so it can be gleaned. This practice of gleaning is an ancient custom and served as an effective "poverty tax" in a society that wasn't using currency much if at all.
But we don't have a lot of farmers in our congregation, so what does this have to do with us? Well, if the lines at The Action Center tell me anything, it is that we are surrounded by hunger in our neighborhood. Instead of corners and edges of fields where food can be gleaned by hungry people, however, today we have food banks and pantries; we have car lines down 14th where people can pick up boxes of grocery staples.
How can we be a gleaning community that makes sure there is enough food and access to that food to go around? I love that one of our community partners who uses our building is JeffcoEats, a nonprofit who sends kids who are in Title I elementary schools in our neighborhood home with food that their families can use to prepare meals over the weekend. Every tuesday, our parking lot becomes a hub for the Food Bank of the Rockies to distribute food orders to local food pantries in the area. During our growing season we literally grow food on our property and have the possibility to become a food producer that area non profits can use to make sure more people in our neighborhood have access to locally grown produce.
It's easy to dismiss the weird stuff in Leviticus about shellfish and fabrics, but Leviticus also can very directly offer guidance on how we can be good neighbors to one another. And that makes a lot of it still worth reading.
