More than symmetry

Sunday October 23rd, Leviticus 19: 9 When you harvest your grain, always leave some of it standing along the edges of your fields and don't pick up what falls on the ground. 10Don't strip your grapevines clean or gather the grapes that fall off the vines. Leave them for the poor and for those foreigners who live among you. I am the LORD your God. God does not want you to be a good farmer or a good business person. God would prefer that you were generous. The purpose of being an inefficient farmer was so the poor could come and glean from the fields and get enough to eat. I will close with a quote from A Passion for the Possible by William Sloane Coffin. “It is very hard to convert the heart, mind, and purse. It is very hard to have possessions and not become possessive, to be completely dependent upon God and independent of everything else. So, a prophetic concern for the poor should be matched by a pastoral concern for the rich. As I read the Bible, judgment against the rich spells mercy not only for the poor, but finally for the rich as well. It suggests that just as the poor should not be left at the mercy of their poverty, so the rich should not be left at the mercy of their wealth. If a minimum wage is just, there’s more than symmetry to commend a maximum wage. After all, the primary reward for a job well done is not a higher salary but greater responsibilities.”