Thou Shalt Not Glean Thy Vineyard

One of the instructions that the Lord gave to the Israelites was this: “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the 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.” I love the principle behind this instruction: don’t hoard everything you have for yourself and your family alone. Share what you have with others and leave leftovers that can be given away. Last night my wife told my children of a time where she was growing up and living in a camping trailer on the property where her dad was building a house for their family in southern Idaho. He was doing most of the work himself as they tried to save money, and it was a challenging time with not a lot of extra food to go around for their six children. One neighbor noticed their struggles and asked them if they wanted to glean his potato field for food—just as this scripture invites us to do. They did that and it was a blessing for their family as they finished the house. Most of us aren’t farmers to be able to literally offer our fields to be gleaned by the poor, but certainly we all have extra that we can spare to help others in need around us. The overriding principle that we should live by was declared to the children of Israel this way in this same chapter: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:9-10, 18).

                Nephi described our day in these words: “Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up. They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and they persecute the meek and the poor in heart, because in their pride they are puffed up” (2 Nephi 28:12-13). I believe what he was saying is not that the rich literally rob the poor by taking money from them; rather, the Lord considers it robbing from the poor when we have fine sanctuaries and fine clothing and don’t share what we have with the poor. When we use all our wealth to bless only ourselves, then we are condemned before Him and it is as if we have stolen from the poor. Isaiah put it this way: “Ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses” (Isaiah 3:14). If we eat up all of our own vineyard and share not with the poor, it is as if we have stolen from them and hoarded it in our own houses. The prophet Amos warned the Israelites with these words: “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion…. That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amos 6:4-6). In other words, if we are at ease in our homes upon our ivory beds and couches with plenty of food and are not concerned about the “affliction” of those around us, we are condemned before the Lord. As Sidney Sperry described it, Amos was pronouncing condemnation on “the careless and reckless rich of Israel, on those who are at ease, on the self-satisfied and the arrogant—in short, on those who, having plenty, take no thought of the sad social and religious state of their country.” The message from Leviticus and these ancient prophets is that we must learn to give what we have to those in need or the Lord may accuse us as well of filling our houses with stolen goods which should have gone to bless others.