Leviticus meditation: Gleaning

Hi folks. I'll be thinking and talking a lot about the Book of Leviticus for the next month or so. So if you're struggling with insomnia, check out my blog and that should do the trick! Here's the first installment.

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. Lev. 19:9-10

I don't know about you, but I don't have a field. My "harvest," such as it is, comes in the form of a directly deposited paycheck and a portion of that is set aside for the church and other charities. So does that cover the instructions about gleaning? I don't think so. It seems to me that gleaning is about sacrificing some of your own economic efficiency to help people support themselves. Part of the tithe is also set aside for widows and orphans -- that's about directly supporting people who cannot support themselves. They're both important, but they're not the same.

The tithe translates relatively easily to a market-based economy. Giving is giving. But what are we to do with these gleaning commands? Isn't the market all about enabling people to support themselves?

Well, IMHO, a market-based system is better than the alternatives but we still need to be deliberate about making the system work for people rather than seeing people as cogs in the great machine that is the system. The market is all about efficiency. In commanding his people to allow for gleaning, God tells us that we need to sacrifice some efficiency to enable people to provide for themselves.Which leads me (at long last!) to a point. Buying fair trade products seems to me to be a modern day equivalent of gleaning. These markets are designed to enable artisans in the developing world to support themselves and their families. Consumers do pay a premium to buy fairly traded coffees rather than the standard cans of Folgers or Maxwell House, but maybe that's the economic efficiency we're supposed to sacrifice.

Many grocery stores stock fairly traded coffees and some other fairly traded products as well. A friend of mine works for www.tradeasone.com. Ten Thousand Villages, run by the Mennonite Central Committee, has stores in Coolidge Corner and Central Square. Maybe shopping at these places rather than Target, and accepting that the prices will be somewhat higher, is the modern day equivalent of leaving the gleanings for the poor and alien.