My wife and I have closets and drawers that stockpile garments we don’t wear and stuff we don’t use anymore. Once a year or so we sort through this opulence and pull things out to give away. Why not pass along our no longer loved clothes to someone who might enjoy them?

From the very beginning of Israel the Lord commanded his people to give thought to the poor, and leave them a way to survive:

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. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord you God.

Before church networks and government agencies, the Lord set a plan in place for the less fortunate. Sharing took precedence over hoarding. We help the poor and the immigrant today, based on this philosophy of caring set in place thousands of years ago among a wandering people.

The poor we will always have among us, and we should not forget to help them. If gleaning from my closet is a tiny step in that direction, then it’s worth giving away that cozy sweater ignored on my shelf.

Leviticus 23 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Annie Spratt