Today's reading is from Deuteronomy chapter 24,
verses 19 to 22. When you are harvesting in your
field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back
to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless,
and the widow, so that the Lord your God may
bless you in all the work of your hands. When
you beat the olives from your trees, do not go
over the branches a second time. Leave what remains
for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard,
do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains
for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
Remember, you were slaves in Egypt. That is why
I command you to do this. The word of the Lord.
But you know that this summer, this is part of
the Growing Season series because we've been
exploring these agricultural or farming images
and stories that run throughout Scripture. The
videos with Rob's dad and, of course, the sermon
series have been wonderful reminders that God
in the Bible uses farming not just as illustration,
but as a way of teaching people who he is and
how his followers are to live. Now, unlike Rob,
I didn't grow up on a farm. So I've been learning
alongside many of you as we've listened to these
videos, we've reflected on the ways that God
has used ordinary farming practices or stories
and images to teach spiritual values. And I would
say that even though many of us don't spend our
days on farms, the people of Israel certainly
did. Farming wasn't just part of their economy.
It shaped their imagination, it shaped their
culture, their calendar, and even their understanding
of God. And today's Bible passage that J .P.
read takes us into one of those specific practices.
We're going to look at how this ancient farming
principle and the reasons behind it point to
how God's people are to design our lives with
room for others. We'll look at the law. We'll
see it in real life application, and then we'll
bring it forward to the life of Jesus and what
we can learn from there. That's the trajectory
we'll take today. But before we dive in and reflecting
a little bit on what Rob's dad was just talking
about, I want us to think about modern farming.
You know, through these videos, we've seen a
little bit about what farming looked like when
Rob's dad was farming. We even heard, I think
last week, His grandfather, we saw some of the
tools that he used, hand tools, farming back
in the Netherlands. Modern farming is absolutely
extraordinary. It's big business. Increasingly
it's powered by technology, automation, satellites,
sensors, AI and data. Preparing for the sermon
to get some background, I watched a bunch of
video about modern farm equipment. And sometimes
I wasn't quite sure whether I was watching a
documentary or science fiction. I mean, think
about a modern dairy farm like what Rob's dad
has. Years ago, farmers would go in and milk
cows, right? One by one, twice a day. Well, today,
some farms use almost completely robots. Automation.
The cows choose when they want to be milked.
When they're ready, they walk into the robotic
milking station where lasers locate each teat
on each udder. Robotic arms attach the milking
cups and every cow is identified electronically.
The computer tracks milk production, behavior,
health indicators. Well, let's move from cows
to crops because we're going to talk about fields
today. Consider what you could do with some of
the machinery that's available. For example,
this is the pinnacle of farming innovation. This
is a top -of -the -line modern combine harvester,
the John Deere X9 -1100. That's a bad boy. This
is not your grandfather's combine. You know,
Dave, for about $1 .5 million, you could have
one of these in your own backyard if you wanted.
This combine can harvest enormous fields with
astonishing precision. Incredible speed, collecting
almost every kernel of grain. It uses cutting
-edge automation to use precise turns, protecting
yields and reducing crop loss. And maybe even
a little bit scarier, I learned that there's
actually some technologies that may make farmers
themselves less important. There are several
manufacturers that are selling autonomous tractors.
They can work fields with no driver at all. Some
of the tractors can map a field to the centimeter.
They can operate around the clock, avoid obstacles
on their own. And they're designed to leave nothing
behind. Because the goal is obvious with all
of these advances. Don't miss anything. Don't
waste anything. Harvest every acre. Measure every
liter. Use every minute. Now, this approach is
actually pretty good stewardship in some ways.
Greater efficiency means better yields, which
can feed more people. You know, when we look
back in the Bible, we can see that there are
lots of farming instructions. Many practices
that are mentioned there are actually aligned
with some of these goals in modern farming. They
make good agricultural sense. I'm not going to
take time to explore all of them, but just a
few. There are instructions to farmers about
leaving fields to rest, fallow, so that they
improve productivity. There are instructions
in the Bible about caring for animals that are
working to improve their health and their productivity.
There are instructions about harvesting at the
right time to prevent loss. And modern agriculture
has used, or maybe even rediscovered, so much
of that wisdom. But then, like today, we open
the book of Deuteronomy and we encounter one
farming practice that makes absolutely no modern
economic sense. So let's listen to one of the
most unusual farming instructions in the whole
Bible. These are known as the gleaning laws.
So I'll just reread it from Deuteronomy. You
see part of it on the screen here. God says to
farmers, when you're harvesting your field and
you overlook a sheaf, do not go back and get
it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless,
and the widow, so that the Lord may bless you
in the work of your hands. It goes on to say
this, when you beat the olives from your trees,
do not go over the branches a second time. Leave
what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless,
and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in
your vineyard, don't go over the vines again.
Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless,
and the widow. Remember, it says, that you were
slaves in Egypt. This is why I command you to
do this. So this unusual command is actually
not isolated. It's a couple other places in the
Bible as well. In Leviticus, for example, they're
almost more explicit. In Leviticus 23, God commands,
when you reap the harvest of your land, do not
reap to the very edges of your field or gather
the gleanings or the leftovers of your harvest.
Leviticus gives us that instruction. Don't go
to the edges of your land. Deuteronomy even goes
further and expands the principle. If you forget
a sheaf, don't go back. If there are olives still
on that tree, don't go back. If there are grapes
still on the vine, leave them. Now, it's important
to remember what God isn't saying here. He's
not telling farmers to abandon their fields.
Farmers still get to harvest. They earn a living.
They enjoy the fruit of their labor. But God
says they aren't to take everything. He gives
them limits. His people are commanded to stop
before... They had taken everything that they
could. I think that's pretty remarkable because
in some ways the instinct is for us to do completely
the opposite. We naturally think, hey, this is
mine. Why wouldn't I collect every last bit?
And yet God says, leave the edges. Of course,
that raises the obvious question, why? Why would
God intentionally make his people less efficient?
Why would he ask them to leave part of the harvest
behind? Well, this morning, as we'll discover
and as we explore, the answer actually has very
little to do with farming and everything to do
with the kind of people that God was forming.
What if God wants us to leave the edges of our
lives, too? So why would God ask his people to
leave part of this harvest behind? Well, the
answer begins in the very last sentence of the
passage that we just read. Remember that you
were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you
to do this. That little sentence changes everything.
God doesn't simply say, be generous. He says,
remember. Remember what it felt like to have
nothing. Remember what it felt like to depend
on someone else's kindness or just on God's provision.
Remember what it was like to be powerless. Remember
God's rescue. God understood something about
the human heart. It doesn't take long for people
who have been blessed to forget what it was like
before that blessing took place. It doesn't take
long for people who have found security to forget
what insecurity feels like. And so every harvest
in Israel was not just about getting food, of
remembering. Every time an Israelite farmer walked
past grain that he could have gathered, he was
reminded, once you had nothing, everything we
have is because God rescued us. It's a theme
that runs throughout the book of Deuteronomy,
actually. Just a few chapters earlier, Moses
says, remember that you were slaves in Egypt
and the Lord your God redeemed you. Memory creates
compassion. I think it's here because people
who have been rescued and remember rescue become
rescuers. But memory is not the only reason.
Other places in the Bible, God says a few things
that completely change the way we think about
our possessions. In Leviticus 25, 23, he says,
the land is mine. He reminds them. And the psalmist
in Psalm 24 echoes that same truth. The earth
is the Lord's and everything in it. That's a
profound shift in perspective. We naturally think
in terms of ownership. God speaks in terms of
stewardship. So gleaning wants us to steward
the gifts of God. Yes, farmers worked hard. They
prepared the soil. They planted the seed. They
gathered the harvest. But these... Principles
remind us that before the farmer's achievement,
it was God's gift. Everything that they possessed
first belonged to God. So if that's true, God
has every right to say, leave some of it behind.
And that leaves us to a third reason. Gleaning
tells us to intentionally build generosity into
our lives. So again, thinking about generosity,
notice what God doesn't say. He doesn't say if
you happen to notice somebody in need. He doesn't
say if you're feeling especially generous this
year. He doesn't even say if there's enough left
over. Instead, before the harvest begins, God
has already set aside part of it for someone
else. The decision we learn here to be generous
isn't made after the harvest. It's made before
the harvest. Gleaning turns generosity from an
occasional decision into a permanent design feature
of our lives. God doesn't want us to leave generosity
just to impulse, even though the impulse can
be good. He wants us to build it into the architecture
of his people's lives. I found it so telling
when I read where we see these gleaning commands.
If you look at the book of Leviticus 19, where
we see the Leviticus pieces of these gleaning
laws, it's actually set at the beginning of a
long set of paragraphs. So it starts by telling
farmers, don't go to the edges when you harvest.
Then it moves on to specific commands around
honesty, justice, fair treatment of workers,
caring for others. And then, right in the middle
of this chapter, we find words that Jesus would
later identify as one of the greatest commandments
of all of Scripture. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Gleaning, loving your neighbor, are connected.
So leaving the edges of the field for gleaning,
it wasn't simply an agricultural regulation.
It was one practical expression of loving your
neighbor. Long before Jesus quoted these words,
God had already meant to weave these principles
into the ordinary rhythms of his followers' lives.
Love wasn't meant to just be something that we
felt. It was something that we intentionally
designed into the way we lived. Now, I want to
suggest that there's at least one more reason
as well. Notice who benefits from this law. We
repeated it a few times, right? The foreigner,
the fatherless, or the orphan, and the widow.
Those groups often appear together throughout
the Old Testament. It's like the triad of these
three people, a trio. They represent the people
with the least amount of security, the least
influence, and the fewest opportunities. We know
from Deuteronomy 10 that God himself defends
the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and
he loves the foreigner. And in the very next
verse, Israel is once again commanded to remember,
and you are to love those who are foreigners,
for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
God's people are called to treat others the way
God has treated them. So that's one more beautiful
feature of gleaning, I think, that should point
us to even rethink what charity can look like.
Because gleaning preserved dignity. The poor
didn't simply wait for someone to hand them food.
They walked into the fields. They were invited
there. They worked. They gathered what had been
intentionally left for them. This wasn't simply
a handout. It was a hand up. It created opportunity
while preserving dignity. In my time at World
Vision, I learned that having vulnerable people
participate in their own development and support
became a game changer in engagement and results.
So can you begin to see what God is getting at
and doing through these gleaning laws? Yes, he's
feeding hungry people, but he's actually doing
much more than that. He's forming a different
kind of community. A community where generosity
isn't just an occasional act. It's part of a
design. A design where people remember grace.
Where possessions are held in trust. Where neighbors
are loved in practical ways. And where even the
most vulnerable are treated with dignity. Well,
these laws and the principles behind them, you
know, they were never... meant just to remain
words on a page. It was meant to shape the life
of a community. And perhaps nowhere do we see
that more beautifully than in the biblical story
of Ruth. Deuteronomy and Leviticus give us the
law, and Ruth gives us a face. Now, we didn't
read the whole story of Ruth. I encourage you
to go and look at the book of Ruth, particularly
in chapter 2. But let me summarize it for you.
I'll take you back to Sunday school with me this
morning. The story that we're focused on begins
with a tragedy. Naomi is an Israelite woman.
She lives in Bethlehem. And during a famine,
she and her family, her husband and two sons,
move and settle in the neighboring country of
Moab. There, unfortunately, her husband dies.
Both of her sons have married a Moabite wife,
but then they both die as well, leaving Noah...
Naomi and her two daughters -in -law widowed
and without any means of support. And so Naomi
decides to return home to Bethlehem. And one
of her daughters -in -law, Ruth, refuses to leave
her. You probably know this, the famous word
she says, where you go, I will go. Where you
stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people,
and your God, my God. So with that remarkable
commitment to loyalty, they leave together and
return to Bethlehem. And they arrive there just
at the beginning of the barley harvest. Now,
Ruth is poor. She's a widow. She's also a foreigner.
This is exactly the kind of person that these
Deuteronomy laws imagined. By every measure,
she belongs to the very group that God told the
people of Israel not to forget. So with no land,
with no future, no income. Ruth does the only
thing that she can during this time. She cleans.
In the book of Ruth, chapter 2, she says to her
mother -in -law, hey, let me go out into the
harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain
left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let
me do it. So she goes into the fields, trusting
that she'll find someone who's actually following
God's laws and who is leaving enough grain. for
someone like her. Now, the story goes on. We
learn that through God's providence, Ruth picks
the field of a man named Boaz. And what follows
is remarkable, because Boaz is not only somebody
who's obeying the gleaning laws, but he does
more than is required. First, he offers protection
to Ruth as she gleans. She's given access to
water. She's even invited to eat with his And
meanwhile, Boaz quietly orders his harvesters,
let her, Ruth, gather grain right among the sheaves
without stopping her. Hey, and pull out some
handfuls of barley from the bundles and drop
them on purpose for her. Let them pick them up
and don't rebuke her. So here we have a situation
where Boaz doesn't just leave the edges of his
field, he widens them. He doesn't ask, what's
the minimum I have to do? But he asks, how can
I bless this person in need? He goes beyond the
letter of the law to the spirit that God put
behind it and turns obligation into abundant,
intentional generosity. The law made provision
for vulnerable people, but grace made them welcome.
And you know what? This act of generosity changes
everything. Ruth and Boaz eventually marry. And
their family line leads to King David and generations
later to Jesus himself. The story that we just
heard about begins with a forgotten foreign widow
gleaning scraps in a field. And it ends with
that same woman becoming part of God's great
story of redemption. And I think that's exactly
what Deuteronomy was aiming at. Not merely obedience
to a rule, but a community that has been shaped
by the generous heart of God. Where people on
the margins discover that there is room for them
in the harvest and ultimately a place in God's
family. The law and justice says leave the edges,
but grace says leave handfuls on purpose. I've
kind of emphasized that a bit because Christians
over the years have long seen in Boaz, that compassionate
farmer, an echo of Jesus himself. Because like
Ruth, we come with nothing that we can claim
as our own. We come as people in need of grace.
Scripture says that once we were separated from
Christ, outsiders to God's promises and without
hope in the world, but in Jesus, those who were
far away have been brought near. Boaz welcomed
Ruth, the foreigner, into his field. Jesus welcomes
us into God's family. Boaz left grain. Jesus
gave himself. At the cross, Jesus leaves nothing
back. He takes upon himself our sin, our brokenness,
our separation with God, and he opens up the
way for us to receive forgiveness, reconciliation,
and new life. This law made provision for the
outsider. Boaz in the story made the outsider
welcome. Jesus brings the outsider home. And
that matters for everything that follows. Christian
generosity doesn't just begin with guilt or obligation.
It begins by remembering, remembering grace.
We leave room for others because Jesus made room
for us. We give because Christ first gave himself
for us. We welcome because we have been welcomed.
And of course, when we look to the life of Jesus,
someone that we have to emulate, we see that
grace, this grace, shaped not only his death,
but the way that he lived every day. So as Christians,
the call to leave room at the edges is not simply
another demand that's placed upon us. It's an
invitation to let the grace that we've received
reshape the design of our lives. Jesus has made
room for us. And the question is, will our lives
make room for others? So let's turn to just a
few practical ways to think about what this might
mean for us. Now, I'm sure that among you here,
there are some farmers, maybe there are some
winemakers. Most of us, I don't think, own fields.
We don't typically harvest barley or olives or
gather grapes. However... Every one of us does
have something that God has entrusted to us.
We have money, time, home, abilities, relationships.
We have influence and opportunities. And every
one of those, I think, could be considered one
of the fields that God has given to us to steward.
So the question then is not simply whether we
occasionally give some of those things away.
That's a good thing. But the deeper question
and the broader challenge for all of us is whether,
as we follow the principles behind the idea of
gleaning, whether we have designed our lives
to leave room for someone else. And that's the
difference I'm kind of getting at. Occasional
generosity asks, is there anything left? But
generosity by design asks, what will I intentionally
leave? So what are the edges of our lives? Where
can we leave room? Well, the most obvious way,
maybe, begin, as we think about generosity, is
to begin with money. You know, the Apostle Paul
in 2 Corinthians says, each of you should give
what you've decided in your heart to give. Notice
that word, decided. Paul assumes that generosity
has already been planned. It's not simply a reaction.
It's been built into the life of the believer.
Remember that point about gleaning before? The
margin wasn't created after the harvest. It was
created before the harvest took place. Now, lots
of us follow a familiar pattern. We earn, we
spend, we save, and then if there's something
remaining, we think about giving. But God challenges
us to reverse the order. He asks us to decide
first. Not because he needs our money, but because
he knows that generosity does something even
more. It reshapes our hearts. So the question
shouldn't just be, how much do I give? It's,
is generosity built into the architecture of
the way we live our lives? Now don't worry, this
is not just a stewardship talk about giving more
money to the church or something like that. In
fact, money isn't the only field that we can
harvest. Many of us harvest our calendars with
the same determination as some of those modern
farmers. I don't know about you, but every hour
can feel spoken for. Every opening is filled.
We think about that as being productive. But
sometimes the downside is that it leaves us unavailable
to the people that God places in our lives. Again,
we look to the life of Jesus. Jesus certainly
had a mission, and he was moving with urgency.
And yet... he repeatedly made room for others
who other people thought were interruptions.
He noticed the woman who quietly touched his
cloak. He welcomed children when his disciples
wanted to shoo them away. He was willing to stop
and look up in the tree and see Zacchaeus and
invite himself to dinner. He never seemed to
be in such a hurry that people became interruptions
instead of neighbors. So maybe that's one of
the edges that God wants us to leave. It doesn't
mean endless availability. We need to have healthy
margins in our lives, healthy boundaries, but
enough margin to notice someone, maybe to take
a little extra time, listen a little longer,
or respond when somebody places someone unexpectedly
in our path. We can leave room in our attention.
This may be one of the scarcest resources in
our culture. We can be surrounded by people and
still fail to notice them because our minds are
somewhere else. I am so guilty of this. We hurry
from one commitment to another. We're distracted
by our phones, our responsibilities, and our
own concerns. And yet throughout the Gospels,
one of the remarkable things about Jesus is that
he simply noticed people. He saw other people
that others overlooked. He listened to those
who others ignored. He treated every single person
as if they did bear the image of God. Paul writes
in Philippians 2 that we should not look only
to our own interests, but to consider the interests
of others. I have a good friend. His name is
Tim. His spiritual gift, I think, is attention.
Because when you are with him, even though during
this season he carries his own deep burdens,
You feel like you are the only person in his
world. It is a blessing to me when I'm with him.
He's living that and leaving room in his attention.
So it may be as simple as putting the phone away,
maybe asking one more question or lingering long
enough, even at coffee hour, for someone to know
that they have been truly seen and heard. Beyond
finances, time, attention, we all have other
gifts that we can share too. Peter reminds Christians,
each of you should use whatever gift you've received
to serve others as faithful stewards of God's
grace. See that echo of stewardship. Some of
us have accumulated years of experience, wisdom,
practical knowledge. Other people, and I can
look around some of you who live this out, you
have the gifts of encouragement or hospitality,
administration. teaching, skills, or leadership.
Those gifts are also some of the harvest that
God has entrusted to us. So who's benefiting
from what God has given you? Who are you mentoring?
Who are you encouraging? Who is learning because
you've taken the time to invest in them? We can
keep our gifts to ourselves, or we can intentionally
leave room for others to glean from what God
has taught us over the years. I'm excited certainly
as we even think about the role of leadership
development and sharing in the good way plan
that Trinity is implementing now. And that actually
leads me to the last point, which is this. What
would it look like if Trinity Streetsville intentionally
left even more room at the edges as a church?
I think we do this pretty well, but not just
simply in our budget, but in our life together.
If we did that, would newcomers feel even...
Find it easier to belong? Would lonely people
find deeper friendship? Could families in crisis
provide support and discover that? Would those
who are uncertain about faith find a safe place
to ask questions? Would someone who feels like
an outsider discover that there is room for them
here? Even the best churches can become remarkably
efficient at caring for people who already are
part of the community. But when we apply the
gleaning laws and the principles, it reminds
us that God intentionally designed his people
so that those on the margins would not be forgotten.
That's still God's calling to the church. So
let's continue to prioritize welcome as a church
community here at Trinity. Well, as we come to
the end, maybe the question this morning isn't
simply, am I a generous person? Most of us, I
think, should do and would like to answer yes.
The deeper question I want to leave you with
is, what have I intentionally built into the
design of my life? Or have I harvested everything?
God asks each one of us to leave something, something
unclaimed, something available, or something
that in God's hand can become grace for someone
else. As I close, there's one particular memory
from my years at World Vision that keep coming
back to me. I was in northern Mali on the edge
of the Sahara Desert. This is the village of
Menaka. It's surrounded by sand dunes. The homes
are all built by mud and sand. People survive
there by raising a few camels, maybe coaxing
enough food from tiny plots of land to keep their
families alive. Everyone was vulnerable, but
during that visit, the rains had largely failed.
And so it was a real crisis. But one family that
I met during that visit lived even further out
on the margins. Just beyond the edge of town,
I met a grandmother caring for her young grandson.
She and her son, you see him there, had built
this crude lean -to out of fabric. There was
scorching heat, sand blowing through the air,
wind, relentless. It didn't offer a lot of protection.
She told me that they had had to leave their
settlement farther out in the Sahel because they
simply couldn't survive there any longer. But
life for them near the town wasn't that much
easier. Food was desperately scarce. And then
she described how she fed her grandson. Each
day, she would sift through the sand, searching
for individual kernels of grain that had blown
from other people's storehouses. grain that had
been scattered by the wind, grain almost too
small to notice, grain that even for other vulnerable
people, they would almost never miss. She was
literally gleaning in the sand. Whenever I read
the story of Ruth, I think about that grandmother.
Like Ruth, she was doing everything that she
could to care for someone she loved. Like Ruth,
she was living on the edge of survival, dependent
on what others had left behind. Now, this story
actually has a happy, hopeful ending. At the
time, through World Vision, we were able to connect
her family to an emergency food program. And
through the generosity of people in Canada, supported
by both individual donors and the government,
grain, oil, and powdered milk found their way
to that little shelter in the desert. By the
way, that included grain from the Canadian Foods
Grains Banks that Rob's dad had mentioned. In
a sense, in this moment, the field... was in
Canada. But the gleaning happened in Mali. People
here had intentionally left room in their harvest
so that someone else on the other side of the
world could live. And that's what this passage
is teaching us all along. We all have a field.
For some, it's a business. For others, it's a
profession, a pension, a home, a kitchen table,
a network of relationships, years of experience,
or simply the people that God has entrusted to
our care. God doesn't ask each of us to leave
the same thing. Our fields are different. Our
seasons are different. But he does ask each one
of us to leave something, to leave room, room
in our budgets, Room in our calendars. Room in
our homes. Room in our attention and our influence.
Room in our lives. And imagine what would it
look like if every follower of Jesus lived that
way. Homes with room around the table. Calendars
with room for interruptions. Churches like this
one with room for strangers. Lives where no one
at the edges is forgotten. Remember that simple
command in Deuteronomy? Don't go back. Don't
go back to every forgotten sheaf. Don't go back
to every last olive. Don't go back for every
grape. Leave room. And when we apply it here,
that's important because sometimes that the space
God asks us to leave at the edges of our lives
can become the grace that someone else has been
praying for. Amen. Thank you.