Gleaning Hope: Sharing Life with Neighbor and Stranger

``This kind of hope where the first harvesters come along and realize that this is not a zero sum game where there's gonna be a winner, and that means there has to be a loser. That's the way we've been playing the game here, especially in politics in America. There might be another way. Another way to think, no, maybe there's a way we could all win. Maybe there's a way we could share. Maybe there's enough and more besides. We could get all that we want and there'd be plenty left over for others. And what are those who come along to glean those who were bereft of hope? There has to be a sense when you look at that empty field that there's more here than meets the eye. [01:00:08] (47 seconds)  #SharedHarvest

And the second one is like it, Jesus said. He couldn't help himself. And he gets it from just a few verses after Miles stopped reading. It says, do you remember? Love your neighbor as yourself. In Leviticus? Yes. Jesus was the master gleaner, finding light where you'd never think to find it. Even perhaps in my failed life, he finds life and light and hope. And I'm here to tell you that's why I follow him. That's why I'll never stop following him. Why sometimes I do crazy and weird things because that's my sense of what Jesus wants. [00:55:13] (55 seconds)  #LoveYourNeighbor

And then Jesus comes along and appears to create this this this different kind of God. But guess where he founded that understanding on? What we call the Old Testament. He didn't have a New Testament. He was the New Testament. But one of the things that one of the one of the miraculous things, one of the extraordinary things is that he went into this, let's call it a barren field that looked bereft of mercy and and hope and love for anyone but this select group of people. Right? Everyone else be damned, literally. [00:52:29] (40 seconds)  #HopeForEveryone

And and he precisely there at that ground zero, he found hope everywhere he looked. He gleaned hope. Take Leviticus for instance. I don't know if any of you have got PTSD from Leviticus. Some of you may be going Leviticus Leviticus. I don't even know what that is. But some of us know Leviticus is the container of one of the clobber passages. In fact, it's just the chapter before we read that talks about executing anyone who is outside the norm of tribal patriarchy. [00:53:10] (44 seconds)  #GleaningHope

One of the things that I've noticed in the years that I've served particularly as pastor, but this is before I served as a pastor too, is that people seem to think the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are different gods. Have you heard that before? Have you felt that before? You know, in the Old Testament, you get this swashbuckling, take no prisoners. Remember those stories in Joshua? You know, Samuel comes along and he goes, what is what are why'd we leave the children and the and the animals alive? Well, I thought we could sacrifice some of them. Nope. Everybody dies. [00:51:51] (35 seconds)  #OneGodManyStories

And if that means to be an agitator, a burr in someone's side, then that's what I'll do. And that's what you're doing. Because look at after all those years, here I am at Epworth. Oh my God. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means to be in a church where we live the kind of I don't know how many churches say all are welcome. None of it true. But here, it is true. We don't always get it right, but by God and I mean that, we are gleaners here at Epworth. I mean, think about it. Sussex County, Epworth. [01:07:39] (40 seconds)  #GleanersAtEpworth

When I participate in a culture that diminishes other people, I am diminished. And when I see those people lifted up, I am lifted up. It was a celebration I felt like as much for me as it was for Vicky and anybody else, and what a celebration it was. I remember one time shortly after I fell in love with Vicky and I began seeing the world and the academy through her eyes, we were marching in formation. I was marching in a formation of there were a 120 of us, and the they made sure that the covers, the hats that the female midshipmen wore looked different. [01:05:06] (40 seconds)  #LiftEachOther

And this older woman came and approached me, and we worked through how to get to the place I was going, and there was, you know, it's one of those, like that country song, there's a right and a left and a turn around and a left and a right and whatever. And I tried my best to follow it and I turned at one point about fifteen minutes after we'd had that conversation and I felt a tap on my shoulder and she said, it's right here. She was following me to see where I like it. You were foreigners once. God reiterated. [00:59:11] (30 seconds)  #RememberTheForeigner