LIBERATION LECTIONARY ~ NATIVE HERITAGE MONTH

“The only thing better than hindsight is foresight.” Jermaine Fowler, Humanity Archive

Love and the Lawgiver

The most famous verse in Leviticus might be the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). This imperative is so crucial that both Jesus and the ancient teachers regarded it as one of the two “great” commandments, the other being the Shema, in Deuteronomy “Hear, O people: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength”. And, in quoting Leviticus 19:18, the Apostle Paul wrote that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). 

Love is so centralized in God’s commandments, we might imagine that God’s whole law is connected to love. 

The book of Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament, reads like a long list of regulations for worship, honoring God and atoning for mistakes. This book might be the first proof that the old evangelical assumption of “the Bible can be understood by everybody on their own!” is entirely false. Scripture is not a self-help book or an advice column. The Bible is an invitation to ask and imagine. It contains tools to equip us, stories to teach us and shields to protect us. Reading and studying the Bible is about knowing the essentials of our faith, learning from ancient stories, and maintaining a humbly imaginative approach to the questions we bring to it which feel unresolved.  The Bible is not a stand alone fix for various problems. It is one part of a spiritual health routine. Sacred practices in most faiths mean meditating with God, then connecting and learning in community. Our scriptures show us the same. 

Scriptures narratives and historical dramas can connect us to our ancestors by faith. And they instruct us to stay true to God and to our own humanity. God made humans to live in connection to The Divine, to the earth and to one another. We are creative, created beings in need of direction from our Creator as we steward relationships with our fellow created things. 

While we would need weeks on end to engage in a full course on understanding the book of Leviticus, the primary commandments connecting us with God and neighbors do point to an essential truth. God’s lawgiving is an act of love. It follows then, that human government in its best and highest form, should be a reflection of God’s purposeful law giving. 

Imagination Exercise: Take a few minutes and read some of the scriptures for this week. Try to describe the roots of mutual care and godly love that these laws evidence. Name some of the ways that God’s lawgiving in the time and place of the Exodus connects to global issues today. 

Cultural Connection: The Humanity Archive

Jermaine Fowler is a storyteller and self-proclaimed intellectual adventurer. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky and spent his youth seeking knowledge on the shelves of his local free public library. Between research and lecturing, he is the host of the top-rated history podcast, The Humanity Archive, praised as a must-listen. And his book of the same name is praised as a must-read. A self-taught historian challenging dominant perspectives, Fowler goes outside textbooks to find recognizably human stories. Connecting current issues with the heroic struggles of those who've come before us, he brings hidden history to light and makes it powerfully relevant. Fowler sees historical storytelling and the sharing of knowledge as a vocation and a means of fostering empathy and understanding between cultures.

One of the ancient ways of describing history’s continuing connection is the practice of Sankofa.

As an indigenous African thought, Sankofa is based on the belief that human beings are part of the past and that learning from the past shapes the present, which also greatly influences the future. Sankofa the word means “go back and bring forward”. Sankofa as a learning tool means we cannot know where we are, and where we are going, unless we study where we are coming from. This idea makes our history meaningful. When confusion, conflict, hardship and heaviness unfolds in the present, we pull from our understanding to try to make sense of things; to try to make things better; to try to maintain good growth into the future. 

Group Activity: Sankofa & Sudan

Take a few minutes for this group share exercise to pool your knowledge and practice Sankofa through scripture, and from shared imagining of what a flourishing future could be. 

First, our group think: What knowledge do we already have of the Sudan conflict? 

What info did you bring into the room? 

Next, read the overview below and draw connections and contrast between different stories of conflict in scripture and through human history.

Godly Foresight for Global Solidarity

Sudan is in Northern Africa bordering the Red Sea. Sudan is generally flat with mountains in the east and west and annual flooding in the south due to the Nile River system. The landscape diversity is astonishing. The northern region is largely desert, broken only by the Nile River corridor. The south has grassland, swamps, tropical forests, and oil. Fully 85% of Sudan’s oil is in the south. Sudan also has vast gold and copper fields.

Sudan is the third-largest country in Africa, behind Algeria and Congo. Cotton is the principal export crop and an integral part of the country's economy. Sudan also is in the world's top five largest producers of sesame, peanuts, dates, citrus fruits, mangoes, coffee, tomatoes and tobacco. There are several political regions in Sudan. North Sudan essentially controls the rest of the country. Darfur is a three-state area in western Sudan.

For decades Sudan’s people have experienced civil war, genocide, drought, theft of the country’s natural resources, and autocratic governments.

Behind the tragic events in Darfur lies a complex history of deeply entrenched social inequalities, an environmental crisis and competition over natural resources, conflicting notions of identity, the militarization of rural societies, and a chronic problem of bad governance that has plagued the Sudan for decades. This massacre is between people whose kin have long lived in the same country. The influence of capitalism as a force which equates power with wealth feels undefeatable. There is no goodness in the land which goes unexploited. No value of human life outside of enslavement and producing the items for export. When conflict brings about so many complications, how can we make sense of things? How do we know our role in learning and taking action?

Discussion 

The sheer biological importance of Sudan, one country on earth, is so clear from this lesson. What spiritual questions and reflections come up for you as you read about all the natural treasures in Sudan? How are you connecting with natural resources in your life?

Some scholars and theologians say that “love your neighbor” and most of Leviticus only refers to Jewish people sharing love for other Jewish people - and no one else. How would you converse with someone who feels convinced of this? Who is your neighbor? 

Studying the current issues going on across the globe is a good time to remember this history of all humanity - and God’s very first command - in the book of Genesis. After God had created everything, They gave a promise and a blessing, and a law. God told us to fill the earth, care for it, protect nature and make use of the seeds God gave us inside the fruit of the earth. Share what lessons we can apply from the story of creation, the law of love and the practice of Sankofa teaching us about this conflict, competing over the land, and bringing fatality rather than flourishing. 

Scripture Readings from Leviticus

Leviticus 19

9 “‘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. 10 Do not harvest your vineyard more than once, and do not go back for the fruits that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners. I am the Lord your God.

11 “‘Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.

12 “‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

13 “‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

14 “‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

15 “‘Do not distort justice; do not show partiality to one group or favoritism to another, but judge among one another fairly.

16 “‘Do not go about spreading slander among the people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.

17 “‘Do not hate a fellow kinsman in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor candidly but do not judge them, lest you become just as guilty.

18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

33 “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 35 “‘Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. 36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. 37 “‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord.’”

Leviticus 25:23-24  “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”