Helping neighbors in need

Deuteronomy 15:4-11; Matthew 25:42-45

Deuteronomy 15 includes a set of sabbatical laws. Just as people are commanded to rest on the Sabbath, the land and all who live on it are to be set free every seventh year. It points to God who is fundamentally about redeeming life from oppression. The call to release claims on land and debtors is a reminder that God is the source of life and blessings. People are called to release whatever debts others owe them as God releases the debts people owe to God. This freedom allows people to faithfully live out the Sabbath. No one who carries a heavy burden can truly rest or focus on what makes life meaningful.

This land is your land

Exodus 23 introduces the command for sabbatical years. Land that is normally tended and harvested must lie fallow every seventh year. From an agricultural perspective, this practice allows nutrients in the soil to be replenished. From a larger perspective, it also allows animals to freely graze and for those who are sojourners to have access to what grows on its own.

These commandments are part of the landscape of Deuteronomy 15. Including the first three verses of the chapter, neighbors are restored to a place of equality with one another. Even so, there is a distinction between those who are insiders and those who remain outside of the community. Strangers in the land still owe whatever debts they have incurred.

Today, we are challenged to care for the land and to care for all who live on it, but issues of indebtedness are just as present as they were in biblical times.

This land is my land

During the 2022 Church of the Brethren Annual Conference, Ted Swartz and Michelle Milne of Ted & Company performed the play We Own This Now. Created by Allison Casella Brookins, it asks the question, “What if the land you love was stolen?”

Weaving multiple family stories of connection to land and loss, it challenges the Doctrine of Discovery. The policy usurped land that had been home for Indigenous Peoples and gave it to settlers who may have had no idea that other peoples had lived there. The play explores what it means to own something and take ownership for actions.

As a member of the audience, I was both drawn into the story and disturbed by my own complicity in living without consideration of who had lived where I stood or what had become of their rights to live peaceably. I wonder about the Israelites who entered Promised Land that was already occupied. Both the play and the commandments in Deuteronomy challenge people of faith to pay attention to what is just and to be mindful of the needs and rights of people in whose footsteps we walk.

The Deuteronomist is confident that with trust in God and faithful observance of the commandments, no one will experience need. For a people who had spent 40 years in the wilderness, that affirmation continued the promise of care they had received with manna and quail—but in a new land, they would need to actively tend the land and nurture growth. They longed to settle in a land that promised stability and safety.

The fact that they would be given land currently occupied by others did not seem to be a source of discussion or conflict. The command only addresses those who had been part of this journey from slavery to freedom. With God’s blessing, they would have the luxury to be generous, to loan and not have to worry about needing to borrow.

Embodied care

In the commandments to care for those in need, a faithful response requires more than offering prayer or even a donation. In the Believer’s Church Bible Commentary on Deuteronomy, Gerald Gerbrandt names hand, heart, and eye as components of active care.

While the NRSVue names hand twice in these verses, in Hebrew, it is used five times: verse 2 (the loan of your hand), verse 3 (your hand shall release), verse 7 (tightfisted), and verses 8 and 11 (open your hand). Gerbrandt writes, “the hand reflects and represents the power the wealthy have over the poor” (p. 289).

Additionally, the heart is named three times: verse 7 (do not be hardhearted), verse 9 (do not hold a base thought in your heart), and verse 10 (your heart shall not be grudging when you give). It is not enough to give. The intention of the heart matters in faithful response to God’s commandments. Finally, to respond to the needs of a neighbor, we must see them with love.

Verse 9 (do not view your neighbor with hostility) is a call to not refrain from doing what is right by focusing on the nearness of the year of sabbath and holding back needed help. If we see someone in need, we cannot pretend to be blind to the need or focus on our own gains, using the proximity of the coming sabbath year as an excuse.

Sometimes is it about you

Deuteronomy includes multiple laws, contextualized by language that is personal and points to relationships. Those in need are neighbors, family, and members of the community. This set of laws is a personal directive to individuals and the wider community. In these verses, the word “you” is included 21 times. The ones who need help are not apart from familiar social circles.

Faithful discipleship continually asks the question of how far these circles expand. In its original context and in our discernment today, how far are we willing to stretch ourselves to see the needs of our neighbors? How far does it reach into our past, and how far does it extend into the future?

Matthew 25:31-46 is commonly called the “parable of the sheep and goats” or “the judgment of the nations.” In the verses quoted for this lesson, the king condemns the goats for failing to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcome to the stranger, clothing to the naked, and company for those who are sick or in prison. They, like the sheep, do not realize that caring for any of these is the same as caring for the Lord. The difference between the two groups is that the sheep provide care without consideration of any reward, while the goats neglect the call to care for the benefit of all in the community.

We are challenged to engage and expand our understanding of neighbor. The parable of the good Samaritan is one part of this discernment, but an understanding of economic justice expands to an understanding of community that includes fair use of resources. The term “reparations” refers to making amends for a wrong that has been done. Following times of war, countries make payments from one to another, recognizing undue hardships imposed on a people and a country’s resources.

In the US, reparations have been part of discussions for a complicated history of treatment of Indigenous persons, African Americans, and others who have been marginalized or dehumanized as a result of colonialism. Recognizing how practices have led to multi-generational imbalances, specific initiatives attempt to even the playing field, restoring land to those who were pushed away and who were prevented from having property of their own.

We are called to share what we have with equity, restoring what has been taken away, including people’s sense of honor and dignity.