I've committed to a 9 months program at my church focused on integrating faith an work. One of the foundations of this program is to study the role of work in scripture and how it relates to our faith. In our last session we looked at part of a book called Practicing The King's Economy, and specifically on the notion of the importance of work and equity in scripture.
I know that many on the progressive christian side of things have problems with the Old Testament. It's "myth", it's "revenge fantasy", it's too supernatural, there's too much of YHWH directly intervening or whatever. But there seem to be a couple of things that they do tend to pull out of all of that in an attempt to form a political strategy. Those two things are the Gleaning laws, and the Jubilee. There is an attempt to use those two things as some sort of foundation for the social gospel/liberal/governmental social programs. So let's look at them.
The Gleaning laws required everyone on the Hebrew nation/Israel to leave the perimeter of their farmland unharvested, I believe that the requirement was 10% (I know, it's not a rule book, but...). This was then available for those in need to harvest and provide themselves with food. One of the keys to this law was that it required work on the part of those in need. It didn't require that the one who's field it was harvest the crop, process it, and then set aside 10% to deliver to those in need. I required those in need to actually do the work of providing their own food. It certainly didn't involve the government in the process. It was literally people allowing those in their community the ability to harvest their own food.
I've heard people argue that this law (but no rules, right?) justifies the modern welfare state. That this is why we should support programs like SNAP and other cash payments from the government. Yet, as we see with SNAP, those programs provide much more than basic sustenance and the very notion of requiring work to receive those benefits has raised quite a ruckus among the recipients.
The Jubilee was a law that required Israel to do a total reset every 50 years. All of the land reverted back to the original tribal allotments, all slaves were freed, debts were cancelled, and things went back to how they originally were when Israel settled the promised land. It seems germane to note that there is no record of Israel every actually practicing the Jubilee throughout their history as a nation. I've heard people use the notion of the Jubilee as justification for confiscatory tax rates on "the rich", and the like. Yet the reality is that the Jubilee was tied to the land and the people of Israel, and doesn't translate well to 21st century society.
What I think is the most important aspect of both of these laws, was that they were rooted in community. They were some of the laws intended to distinguish YHWH's chosen people from the surrounding nations. They were rooted within the community, and intended to strengthen the community.
If we are going to take anything from these two laws and attempt to apply it to 21st century culture, I'd suggest that we focus on work and community. That maybe a top down, national or international approach to problems isn't always the answer. That removing work from assistance creates dependency and dignity from those who need the help. That simply taking the wealth from those who do work and produce, and giving it to those who don't isn't the best plan.
