Leviticus 19:9-10

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap tht corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger; I am the Lord your God." Lev 19:9-10

Here is a marvellous distinction of classes. That distinction is carefully preserved throughout the whole record of Scripture. At first sight, it is not only a marvellous but an incredible thing that one man should be rich and another poor. Poverty is more than a merely incidental condition of life. There is a moral mystery about poverty, relating alike to the poor man and to the rich man. It may seem heartless to speak in this way, and it would be heartless but for the consistent record of time and testimony of experience. Here is a distinct recognition of the right of property. We read of "thy field," and "thy vineyard," and "thy harvest." Yet though property is distinctly recognised, beneficence is also made matter of law. The command is "thou shalt not" in every case. This shows that the harvest is God's before it is man's, and that it is only man's that it may be used according to the law of God. Something was to be left in the field and in the vineyard for the poor and stranger. The poor and stranger are ministers of God, when rightly viewed. They are not to be used as butts or objects of scorning and contempt; but as opportunities for the exercise, not of sentimental, but of lawful and divinely-regulated charity. Nor are the poor and the stranger to consider themselves as ill-used on account of their position. There is a poverty that is wealth. Only the mean in spirit, or the imperfectly trained, or the ridiculously vain, can object to receive the assistance or the comfort of the stronger classes of society. If some men are poor and strangers, they must remember that they are exempt from many of the responsibilities which attach to higher station. Besides, riches and poverty are simply relative terms. What is wealth to one man is poverty to another; and what is poverty to one man is wealth to another. There is no line at which contentment is absolutely and certainly reached, and apart from which contentment is an impossibility. It is a profound mistake to imagine that the rich are exempt from pain, sorrow, loss, and that there is no serpent in their paradise. Nor must the rich man imagine that he is exceedingly good and generous because he leaves something for the gleaner, or because here and there he has left a grape upon the vine. He is bound to do this. It is one of the divine taxations of property. What is left may be comparatively small as to its bulk and value, but the very fact of its being left establishes a divine claim and begins what may, under proper conditions, develop into a splendid scheme of social philanthropy. To be compelled to think about the poor even to the extent of leaving a few gleanings in the field or a grape or two in the vineyard is a part of human education which can hardly be too highly valued. In various ways God draws the attention of rich men to the presence and the need of the poor; and he is indeed a man who has wasted his larger opportunities who has not eaten his own bread with fuller content and tenderer piety because of his endeavours to elevate the lot of the poor. All these doctrines may be abused, or misunderstood, or even turned into ridicule; nevertheless, the wise in heart will so use them as to minister to the solid development of the best forms of character. The Bible is the book of the poor. From no other book in the world could so many injunctions be culled as bearing upon the rich in relation to the claims of poverty. These grand philanthropic lines running from end to end of the Bible will always secure for the Bible a place in the highest thinking and best affections of all lands.