“For the Poor”

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.” (Ruth 2.5-7)

Sometimes it’s assumed that Ruth is hiring out her labor to Boaz’s crew.  But that’s not the case.  Rather, she has asked to glean, and that is something different entirely.  She’s not getting paid for this work, because she’s not performing a valued service to the owner of the field.  No, whatever she gathers, she’s allowed to take home and use for herself.  Why is Boaz so cheerful about the prospect of this newly-arrived Gentile woman making off with grain that he laboriously cultivated?  Because he respects the Law of Moses.

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19.9-10)

God included several other, similar notes at various points in his Law; for example, one in Deuteronomy specifies that these privileges belong to “the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow,” a recurring theme throughout that book (24.19).  Ruth fits into each category—she is poor; she’s a Gentile just arrived from her former home in Moab; she’s bereft of her father-in-law, whose family she had joined by marriage, and to top it all off, her own husband has also died, making her a widow, too.  She and her mother-in-law Naomi have only each other; they are alone and destitute.  God’s Law allowed them to gather enough grain to feed themselves, but not enough to exploit it for profit.  God demonstrated his foresight and love through these commandments, as well as his desire to shape his people’s habits and mold their character, so that they would learn to have a generous heart like he has.  Indeed, the list of related laws In Leviticus 19, which began with the right of the poor to glean, is capped off with the oft-quoted, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Le 19.18b).

Compare this to the modern approach—the welfare state.  It’s obvious that there are still people in need, and whether they brought their troubles on themselves or not, it’s good to make sure they aren’t simply ignored—that their suffering is alleviated and their basic needs are met.  But the similarities end there.  In the system God designed for Israel, family bore the responsibility before anyone else.  Jesus tore into the Pharisees for eroding this expectation:

“But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down…” (Mark 7.11-13)

In cases where there is no family member available to help, there’s no reason for the unfortunate soul to starve; he’s allowed to simply take his food from the farms that spread across the land.  The farmer is in no way required to gather grain, thresh, mill, leaven, and bake it, then deliver a quota of freshly-baked bread to the poor.  The poor  have to work for it themselves, albeit far less than the farmer himself already has.  Rather than an entitlement to food, it’s a right to gather, requiring deliberate exercise—both literally and metaphorically!

Similarly, the farmer’s responsibility is rather small—simply to allow the poor to feed themselves on the standing grain in his field.  But there’s no standard in the law for how close to the edge they’re allowed to reap, or how many grapes to leave on the vine for the poor—leaving it to each individual’s own judgment, forcing him to decide how much he will leave.  Surely many took this as an excuse to be stingy; but how many others developed an attitude more like that of Boaz? He told his employees,

“Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.” (Ruth 2.15b-16)

This goes above and beyond the Law, to be clear.  But it’s exactly the sort of outcome God was aiming for, in giving them such a Law, with such room for their own discretion.  It left room for Boaz to be impressed with Ruth’s work ethic.  It left room for Ruth to be incredibly grateful to the individual whose food she was being allowed to take and eat.  It left room for them to love each other, and from that love, unending blessings flowed.

In contrast, our centrally-planned, wasteful, and routinely abused system of entitlements has encouraged the poor to hate the rich, who pay the taxes that feed them, but rarely stoop to recognize their individual humanity.  It has encouraged the rich to despise the poor, who show them no gratitude and only seem to require more and more as time goes on.  It’s more complex than just that, of course, but in basic terms, while no system will be the Paradise for which we all yearn, it’s clear that no one is happy with man’s attempts to solve the problem of the poor.  But as Jesus told his disciples, “you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them” (Mk 14.7).  He still encourages us to help them.  His system is better.  It’s one that starts, not in the halls of power, but in the heart.

Jeremy Nettles

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