True Religion

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. Leviticus 19:9–10

Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers . . . . Ruth 2:2–3

Two women, two widows, broken and poor (and in the case of Ruth, an alien) returned to Bethlehem knowing only that the chance of starvation, attack or worse was less there than where they traveled from. All appears hopeless, bitter. That is how the book of Ruth begins. But before the hopelessness can fully sink in, Chapter 2 of Ruth crashes into Chapter 19 of Leviticus and Ruth who is literally grasping at straws in an attempt to survive experiences the grace of God through the actions of a follower of God -- Boaz. Through Boaz and to Ruth, we see God’s love and care for the foreigner, the outcast and the disenfranchised. “

To paraphrase the passage in Leviticus, “I am God. I am merciful. I provide you with all you have. So, you need to be merciful to those who don’t have. So when I give you a harvest, don’t think it is all yours, because it is all mine. But, you can have most of it. Just leave enough so the people who don’t have, can have some of my stuff too. ‘Cause it’s all mine, remember? I am the Lord your God, this is what I’m about, this is the way I roll.”

God has a heart for the poor and the needy. And to the extent that we become like him, we will have a heart for the poor and the needy too. And when we see that need, and when we begin to meet that need, we not only are in line with God’s heart, we are actually allowing his Kingdom to break into the darkness of a fallen and broken world. Light breaks into the darkness of the world and into the darkness of our hearts.