Another thing with mental health is that when we have space in our lives for other people, we generally feel better. A lot of the blues and the blahs go away when we are not isolated, when we're not lonely, when we make room for other people in our lives. So making room and sharing with others is a way of making ourselves healthier physically and mentally. [00:04:39] (30 seconds) Edit Clip




So we get a verse from Leviticus because do we ever really want to read anything from Leviticus it is a long book of rules and some of them are really not very nice since a bunch of the rules involve stoning people to death so most of us skip Leviticus but today we're reading from Leviticus and we get to this section about gleaning about not harvesting everything that's in your field and saving some for whoever might just be walking by. [00:07:14] (31 seconds) Edit Clip




There's another story in the bible in the book of Ruth where we hear about how gleaning is put into practice Naomi and Ruth travel from Moab back to Naomi's homeland the area we call Israel all of their husbands had died there was no one to care for them and Naomi said if we go back to my family they will take care of us. [00:08:54] (23 seconds) Edit Clip




Now we may not be farmers today but God is still blessing us with resources in our lives, resources that we can still save a bit to share a bit with our neighbors who are in need. These days when we look around the world we realize that the world is terribly lopsided as far as the distribution of resources. [00:09:56] (24 seconds) Edit Clip




The rebels turned off all the electricity and all the water for the entire city of 2 million people. Now my cousins work in international public health and the biggest fear right now is that cholera is going to run rampant because there is no clean water source for the people in Goma. [00:09:35] (22 seconds) Edit Clip




But this is one of those situations where this is a huge resource-rich country which is why the rebels are taking over. It's where our cobalt comes from that's powering every one of the phones that every one of us has. Virtually all the cobalt in the world comes from Congo. People are fighting over Congo but the people who live in Congo are not getting the benefit of this wealth. [00:10:00] (25 seconds) Edit Clip




We still have to struggle with the fact that God created a pie big enough to make sure that everyone has enough in the world, but we have decided how to divvy up the pie. And we get to argue over how we're going to divvy up that pie. [00:14:38] (19 seconds) Edit Clip




My guess is, I don't know how many, 40, 45 people in the room, we probably have 70 different opinions on how the federal government should spend its money. And we can debate this until kingdom comes, but I think when we look at Leviticus, what God is saying is, I made enough for everyone. [00:15:56] (21 seconds) Edit Clip




as our land here in illinois and wisconsin and minnesota for whatever reason some places have more stuff than other places do and god said i have a system for this i have a sense of economics and when you read through all of leviticus when you read through all of the old testament god has an economic plan and the economic plan is is to take 10 of what you have and give it away every year his economic plan is don't harvest everything in your field leave some for people who are low income it says that there is a jubilee year every seven years all debts are cancelled so you can't make a loan that goes more than seven years because at the end of seven years anything unpaid is forgiven you cannot charge any interest on any loans even if you only give them for seven years there's no interest at all if you have a slave that jubilee thing it applies to slavery too every seven years all the slaves are set free that's god's economics in leviticus this is not how the world operates right now it's a little bit weird to think through the implications of some of these economic plans and what the world would look like if none of us could have a 30 -year mortgage on our house but these are the ideas that god has god knows that the world is unfair and unequal and these economic ideas in the book of leviticus were god's way of leveling the playing field making sure that everyone got a piece of the pie now my family loves to play board games and there's a game called katan it's one of the most famous popular board games in the world and and you end up with a bunch of resources. You need wool, you need timber, you need iron, you need wheat. There are different things, and depending on where your pieces are on the board, you get different amounts of resources. So the whole game is trying to share resources with each other. [00:16:31] (132 seconds) Edit Clip




When God says, just make sure you take part of what you have to share with the community. If every person does that, then every person in the community has enough. Leviticus is a book about ethics. What are the rules for how we love each other as we live in community? [00:19:48] (25 seconds) Edit Clip




And this gets us to the end of our reading today. Where it talks about how we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And this again, just like Ruth ties us to Jesus, Leviticus ties us to Jesus because this is what Jesus quotes. This is what Jesus lives. This is what Jesus thinks is important from Leviticus. [00:20:03] (24 seconds) Edit Clip

Let us forget our pain and mimic the wrath of your master. My problems, to be foolish, is a path to be a privacy for people of faith. So you shall bear my responsibility. Without that, it's libel worth delaying another one.

Let us pray.

Show us your ways, Lord. Teach us your paths. Guide us in your truth, for you are God, our Savior, and our hope is in you all day long. Amen.

I love leaving my house every day because I don't feel at home alone. Mothers and aunts had some really fine desserts that it was worth saving room for. Now, I've been on one cruise in my life. I went to Alaska with my husband's family, and what I learned there was that the dinner in the dining room at 5:30 was amazing. Every part—the appetizers, the entrée, the dessert—the whole thing was worth saving room for.

I discovered that this meant I couldn't go to the buffet in the afternoon. I couldn't go to all of those wonderful little nooks and crannies with food that are all over the cruise ship. I could eat brunch or I could eat a light breakfast and a light lunch, and I couldn't eat anything else if I was gonna have room for the amazing supper. And then I was so full I couldn't eat anything after that. I ended up losing five pounds on that cruise. It was the best thing ever.

I have found a niche on YouTube of videos for traveling—the best ways to pack. I don't know, you know, we all get caught into different rabbit holes on YouTube, but this one is, is it better to have those compression packs or is it better to roll your clothes? Or is it, you know, all these different ideas on the best way to pack? But the number one most important thing to remember when you're going on vacation is to leave room for your souvenirs. You can't fill your suitcase leaving—you can't find anything like my husband, who loves to eat, bring a rock back from every trip we go on. You can't fill the suitcase if you gotta have room for a rock to come back from Norway—a rock of granite. We'll talk about that some other time.

There is advice about not filling everything up, and when we think about our bodies and how we work, I think we've all had those moments when we have really loved something and eaten and eaten and eaten until, you know, we don't actually feel very good. If we actually fill ourselves full, we feel a little bloated, we feel a little tired. We all have to go take a nap after a big meal, right? It's clearly not the best thing for our body. We need to have some room that we leave, that we don't fill everything in.

When we think about mental health, cramming ourselves full, well, that's kind of binging, isn't it? And that's not a good place to be. Another thing with mental health is that when we have space in our lives for other people, we generally feel better. A lot of the blues and the blahs go away when we are not isolated, when we're not lonely, when we make room for other people in our lives. So making room and sharing with others is a way of making ourselves healthier physically and mentally.

So today we are reading from Leviticus. Now, I know some of you have noticed since I came that we've been doing worship series, and your previous pastors used to do lectionaries and read through parts of the Bible you didn't necessarily want to read through. And it's like, oh yeah, Annalisa, we can skip all that stuff because, you know, she just makes up something.

Well, this is actually a lectionary-based worship series that we're doing right now. We are actually working our way through the lectionary. We just managed to package it together in a way that brings us some hope and some comfort for those of us who are struggling with darkness this time of the year.

So we get a verse from Leviticus because do we ever really want to read anything from Leviticus? It is a long book of rules, and some of them are really not very nice since a bunch of the rules involve stoning people to death. So most of us skip Leviticus.

But today we're reading from Leviticus, and we get to this section about gleaning—about not harvesting everything that's in your field and saving some for whoever might just be walking by. Now, it used to be that lots of us were farmers. As we said with the kids, lots of us had pretty small farms—manageable farms that could support a family. When we're talking about gleaning, we're talking about these family farms where you are leaving some that you would normally give to your kids and your family for your neighbors who might be in need.

There's another story in the Bible in the book of Ruth where we hear about how gleaning is put into practice. Naomi and Ruth travel from Moab back to Naomi's homeland, the area we call Israel. All of their husbands had died; there was no one to care for them. Naomi said, "If we go back to my family, they will take care of us."

Well, when they first get back, you know, no one remembers Naomi. No one remembers what's going on. These are foreigner, refugee women—migrants from another country who've come in. And Ruth goes to the field, and she gleans. She walks through the field and picks up the extra harvest that Boaz had left behind when his workers had gone to the field. And she gleaned that, kept Ruth and Naomi alive.

Now eventually, Boaz finds out that Naomi is part of his family. Boaz marries Ruth; they have children who have children who have children who have children until you get to Mary, who has a baby named Jesus. So Jesus is here because Ruth could eat because Boaz followed the rules of Leviticus and left extra food in his field.

Now we may not be farmers today, but God is still blessing us with resources in our lives—resources that we can still save a bit to share a bit with our neighbors who are in need. These days when we look around the world, we realize that the world is terribly lopsided as far as the distribution of resources. Some people, some families, some countries have a lot more than others.

This week I got an email from a couple of my cousins. They had been living in Congo in the area near Goma. And some of you may have heard in the news there's been a coup in Goma. Some rebels have taken over the entire city. A bunch of people were worried about my cousins. Turns out, I did not know this either. My cousins have moved back to Minneapolis, and they are safe and sound, although probably covered in snow like we are in Minneapolis.

But they are still working with the same refugee aid agency, which is not associated with the U.S. government, and their aid agency is called MedAir. They are still working in Goma, and they gave us an update on the situation there. Goma is a small town of 2 million people. The rebels turned off all the electricity and all the water for the entire city of 2 million people.

Now my cousins work in international public health, and the biggest fear right now is that cholera is going to run rampant because there is no clean water source for the people in Goma. Now my guess is most of you didn't even hear about the rebels taking over Goma in the Congo. It's not been a big news item here in the U.S.

But this is one of those situations where this is a huge resource-rich country, which is why the rebels are taking over. It's where our cobalt comes from that's powering every one of the phones that every one of us has. Virtually all the cobalt in the world comes from Congo. People are fighting over Congo, but the people who live in Congo are not getting the benefit of this wealth. It is being mined, and almost all of it is being sent to China.

We had a few government officials in Congo working with the miners directly themselves to try and send some of it here to the United States. There are some of the government officials that just lost their jobs in the last two weeks, so now most likely 100% of the cobalt will be going to China. But it just tells us how uneven the world is right now. Here is a land full of great natural resources; the people themselves are desperately poor.

How do we share? How do we distribute what God has given us around the world?

Let's go to the next slide. I tried to figure out just exactly, you know, everyone talks about the one percenters, and I was like, you know, just what is that? So if you are in the top one percent of income in the United States, you make $788,000. That's not me, and I'm guessing—correct me if I'm wrong—it's none of us.

Next slide. But the top ten percent in the U.S., ten percent household income is $130,000. Okay, I'm there, and my guess is there's some of us in this room that have this income. We're in the top ten percent in the United States.

Next slide. $610,000 is the top one percent for the state of Wisconsin. Evidently, we're not quite as wealthy as the United States as a whole, so I just throw that one in there just for fun.

Okay, next slide. Income is one thing, but wealth is something else. Like, what's the value of your house, your cars, your pension fund? What's all of your assets minus your debts? What's your total household wealth? If you're going to be in the one percent in the United States, it's $5.8 million. I'm not going to guess if any of us are there or not.

Next slide. To be in the top one percent globally is $871,000. I'm guessing between our home and our retirement funds, we have people in the room right now that might be in the one percent of worldwide wealth.

Next slide. So this is the top ten percent. Ninety percent of the world is below this in wealth. You are in the top 10% if you have wealth, house, investment assets of $93,000.

Next slide. You are in the top 50% if you have $4,210. So if we've got teenagers who have a car, they're in the top 50% worldwide.

This is really hard to look at. The global 10% own 85% of all the wealth in the world today.

Now we can look at all this, and we are sitting here going, but it is really expensive to live in the U.S. Yes, our cost of living is much higher than a lot of countries. I know someone who just sold everything in the U.S. and moved to Costa Rica and is living a fantastic life with what they had that was very modest here, but they are doing great in Costa Rica.

The world is lopsided. Things are not distributed evenly. Some people have more. Some people have more through no fault of their own, through no effort of their own. Some people were born into families that have more. Some people are just living in states, in countries that have more.

So where does this tie in to Leviticus?

Next slide. We still have to struggle with the fact that God created a pie big enough to make sure that everyone has enough in the world, but we have decided how to divvy up the pie. And we get to argue over how we're going to divvy up that pie.

And one of the things that I heard this week—I did my taxes, and I was like, you know what? I would love a tax cut. I would love not to have to spend this much money on taxes. But then I heard in the news that one of the proposals that our country is debating right now is to be able to offer tax cuts to middle income and higher income people and corporations, and they're going to cut a couple trillion dollars out of Medicaid.

Now here in Wisconsin, I looked this up this morning. This year, these are the income limits. If you are a household of one, you have to be below $15,160 to get Medicaid. If you are a household of three, a mother with two kids, $26,650.

People, I have to say I feel uncomfortable wanting a tax cut for myself if it means that people at this income level no longer have access to health care.

Now that's a debate for our country to have. My guess is, I don't know how many, 40, 45 people in the room, we probably have 70 different opinions on how the federal government should spend its money. And we can debate this until kingdom comes, but I think when we look at Leviticus, what God is saying is, I made enough for everyone.

But God also said, for reasons unknown, some people end up with more than others. Some people live in Israel; there's not a lot of water in Israel. The land there does not grow as many crops as our land here in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. For whatever reason, some places have more stuff than other places do, and God said, I have a system for this. I have a sense of economics.

When you read through all of Leviticus, when you read through all of the Old Testament, God has an economic plan. And the economic plan is to take 10% of what you have and give it away every year. His economic plan is don't harvest everything in your field; leave some for people who are low income. It says that there is a jubilee year every seven years; all debts are cancelled. So you can't make a loan that goes more than seven years because at the end of seven years, anything unpaid is forgiven. You cannot charge any interest on any loans, even if you only give them for seven years. There's no interest at all. If you have a slave, that jubilee thing applies to slavery too. Every seven years, all the slaves are set free.

That's God's economics in Leviticus. This is not how the world operates right now. It's a little bit weird to think through the implications of some of these economic plans and what the world would look like if none of us could have a 30-year mortgage on our house. But these are the ideas that God has. God knows that the world is unfair and unequal, and these economic ideas in the book of Leviticus were God's way of leveling the playing field, making sure that everyone got a piece of the pie.

Now my family loves to play board games, and there's a game called Catan. It's one of the most famous, popular board games in the world, and you end up with a bunch of resources. You need wool, you need timber, you need iron, you need wheat. There are different things, and depending on where your pieces are on the board, you get different amounts of resources. So the whole game is trying to share resources with each other.

But there is this great piece. It is an ugly piece. It's called the robber. And if you roll a seven, the robber gets moved. And if you have more than seven resources in your hand, you have to get rid of the extras. And the robber could get moved to land on top of your resources so you can't get more of it. I hate the robber. I hate the robber. I was playing with my nephews once, and they kept putting it on me. I was like, stop giving it to me.

But you know why the robber is in the game? So that no one gets too much. The robber is the leveling piece. The robber makes sure no one gets too much and no one has too little. God's not the robber, but God's economics play the same sort of role in our lives that the robber plays in Catan.

When God says, just make sure you take part of what you have to share with the community, if every person does that, then every person in the community has enough.

Leviticus is a book about ethics. What are the rules for how we love each other as we live in community? And this gets us to the end of our reading today, where it talks about how we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And this again, just like Ruth ties us to Jesus, Leviticus ties us to Jesus because this is what Jesus quotes. This is what Jesus lives. This is what Jesus thinks is important from Leviticus.

Next slide. God has given us a certain amount of resources. We have our own pie that we get to budget, and we get to make choices. And clearly, I didn't budget enough oil for the oil lamp because it has now gone out. There are things that I am learning all the time, like you have to check the oil in the lamp. I think there's a parable about the virgins and their lamps having enough oil in it. Clearly, I just lost the whole point of that one.

But Jesus quotes Leviticus in his answer to the question of what is the most important commandment. First, he quotes Deuteronomy chapter 6: love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then he quotes Leviticus 19: love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So what Jesus is saying is we need to plan our budgets to include a giving percentage—that there is a certain amount of our resources that we give away to others every year. Some of us were already doing this. My husband and I, when we got married at 25, we made the agreement that we were always going to tithe. So our entire life, while we were having babies, while we're raising kids, while Park was in seminary, we have always set 10% aside and given it away to church.

Some of us have not had that tradition. Some of us are looking at this going, oh my goodness, this is a lot. And so there are a lot of people who started small and over 10 or 15 years have made adjustments in their budget to grow into this. It is part of our Methodist tradition. John Wesley said, "Do all the good you can in all the ways you can, in all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, for as long as you ever can."

He even went so far to stop cutting his hair so he could take the money he spent on haircuts to save and give to someone in need. So Leviticus is challenging us: what does our pie look like, and what piece of our pie are we gonna set aside? Are we going to leave so that someone else can glean it and have something in their lives?

I think the end of all of this comes to this love your neighbor business. Now it's Valentine's Day, and there's all sorts of candy hearts that have all sorts of nice things to say about love. And at Valentine's Day, it seems like love is mostly a noun. Love is the box of candies, and love is the bouquet of flowers, and love is the dinner we're going out to. Love is not the movie that my husband and I decided to go see. I do not recommend that one.

But we think of it as a noun this time of year. But what Jesus is talking about, what Leviticus is talking about, is an action that is hard work—an action that is a challenge—an action that, as Jesus showed us how it goes, love is sacrifice. Jesus loved us so much. First of all, God loved us so much he sent us his only son, Jesus. Jesus loved us so much that he went to the garden and said, "Do I really have to go to the cross? Please, is there any other way that we could show love to these people without my having to die on the cross?" And God's like, "That's the plan." She's like, "Okay."

Jesus was willing to sacrifice for the people he loved, and loving our neighbors means we sacrifice something in our lives to be able to show our love—the love of God to the people in need who are around us.

There's a number of ways that this church does that. I've always been really impressed with what this church does. We have a number of service projects. Just last month, we packed 9,120 meals. For all I know, they're going to end up in Goma, Congo. But we also have small groups that are forming, and I love the groups that we've got going so far. We know the church continues to expand their experiences with the people of Canada. We know Sénéchal de la Tal, hoping our midweek Bible group that's starting this week on Thursdays will find a way to be able to do this.

So often it is easier when we are in a group, and that is part of God's light in our lives—that God has given us community to help us through the dark times. Taking time to serve others is one of the ways that we bring God's light out through our lives and into the lives of others.

So I encourage you to either join one of these groups or talk to me about getting a new group going. We do have another group that was meeting over Mexican food for a while, and that's reorganizing itself right now. You know, eating out at a restaurant is expensive on a regular basis these days, so stay tuned. That group is getting reorganized.

But build relationships of belonging. Spend time becoming like Jesus and bless like Jesus through food and faith. It can give us time to do more than we would otherwise not take. And I wanted to encourage you to do more.

That's been a couple of weeks ago too. Become part of doing more than one thing. Just connect with others and connect with people and do more than one thing. Be a good friend to them. Connect with other people and help them and make them your own.

Here, we'll talk about how to take time and get into the group and how to build relationships. And that can be a lot of different ways in your life to share with those around us.

We may be in the 1%, we may be in the 10%, we may be in the 50%, but Jesus asks each one of us to share a piece of our pie with those around us. Amen.

Subject: Making Room: Generosity and Community in Action



Dear Suamico United Methodist Church,



I hope my email finds you reflecting on the importance of making room for others in our lives and communities.



This past Sunday, we explored the concept of gleaning from Leviticus and how it calls us to leave room in our lives for those in need. Just as Ruth gleaned from Boaz's fields, we are reminded that God has blessed us with resources that we can share with our neighbors. In a world where wealth is unevenly distributed, we are challenged to consider how we can actively participate in God's economic plan by making space for generosity and community in our daily lives.



As we move forward, I encourage each of you to reflect on your own "pie" and consider what piece you can set aside for those around you. Whether it's through service projects, small groups, or simply reaching out to someone in need, let’s commit to sharing our resources and love in tangible ways. Together, we can embody the love of Christ and make a real difference in our community.



Blessings,

Suamico United Methodist Church Team