Share with the aliens among you

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Lectio Divina is an interesting exercise for me. If I do it regularly, I find a pattern: I start with something that catches my eye - either something I really disagree with or, more often, something that fits well within my prepossessed convictions. But, through the exercise (and through the grace of God), I end up with a broader perspective than when I started, even broader than the selected scripture I seized upon. So I start again.

In this passage, we have one of the earliest articulations of the Hebrew faith - the crystallization of the central narrative core and its most important interpretation: a wandering alien became a great nation, this great nation became slaves, these slaves were freed by God and led to Palestine. Whatever you have belongs firstly to God, and whatever you have left should be shared with the aliens and lowly among you.

Sharing with God and extending hospitality to the strangers among us is part of the identity of those who would incorporate this story into their lives. Social and economic justice is built into the faith declarations of the Hebrews. God showed concern for them when they were a foreigner, when they were slaves, when they were few and poor and oppressed. God looks after these kinds of people. If we would remember that, then we too have to look after these kinds of people - especially when these kinds of people live among us. To forget them is a sin, a transgression of God's law, love and relationship with humanity. And this sharing among all people is an act that renews the people's solidarity with God.

God gives the land as an inheritance - that means it was previously "owned" (by God) and is the perennial inheritance of all. The point is not that it was given, but that it was an inheritance. If we forget the source of our bounty, then we dishonor the inheritance.

I have to think about this some more.