They have almost made it. After almost 40 years of in the wilderness, the Israelites are gathered on the plains of Moab, on the verge of entering the land that has been promised to them so long ago.
After almost four decades of feeling lost, unsure, discouraged, and tired the Promised Land is within reach. God has kept God’s promise to the people. Their gratitude to God and their anticipation are high.
Moses, who will not live to see the Promised Land, is giving the people instructions on how they are to live when they finally get there.
Once they possess the land, and are settled there, they are to take the fruits from their first harvest and offer it to God with thanksgiving, remembering all that God has done for them from the time they were slaves in Egypt, how God delivered them from slavery and sustained them in the wilderness until they reached the long-promised land.
The offering of the first fruits is an acknowledgement that the land and all its rich benefits come from God as a gift, undeserved and unearned.
We often hear the Promised Land called a land of milk and honey, which has always seemed an odd way of describing a land. But having milk and honey are important symbols for the people of Israel.
To have milk means that there are pastures suitable for grazing animals. No more desert land.
And to have honey means that the people are in a land where they can plant fruits and flowers, giving the bees the food they need to produce honey.
To the Israelites milk and honey symbolize a settledness, a permanence in the land, a clear sign that their days of wandering in the wilderness are over.
My guess is that Moses knows that once the Israelites are settled in the land of milk and honey, once the harvests begin producing in abundance, that they will be tempted to forget about the God who liberated them from slavery and sustained them in the wilderness.
They will be tempted to pat themselves on the back, to congratulate themselves on all their hard work that has produced this abundance. They will be tempted to look at others who don’t have as much and think that they are somehow less deserving.
“God helps those who help themselves,” they, and we, might be tempted to say.
The truth is that nowhere in scripture does it say that God helps those who help themselves.
What it does say – time and time and time again – is that those who have received much – like the Israelites in the promised land, like us in affluent north Atlanta – have a responsibility to help those who have less.
That admonition is directed to nations as well as individuals. From a biblical perspective there is no debate over whether a nation should provide things like quality preschool or health care or food and housing to those who cannot afford them. It is our biblical imperative to do so.
From a biblical perspective there is no debate over whether a nation should be welcoming of immigrants. It is our biblical imperative to do so.
Writer Megan McKenna says that it is significant that the first scripture reading on the first Sunday in Lent is about giving.
“The beginning of Lent is a good time to examine how we give individually and and as a family, a community, a parish, a nation,” she writes. “It is also the time to look at what we give: time, money, resources, service, care for others.
“This kind of giving is a privilege, an honor, and a blessing that is characterized by joy, because this is how God gives to all of us.
“Traditionally in this season we are to give to the poor as graciously as our God has given to us,” McKenna says, then wryly adds, “This can take some practice.”
Giving really begins with gratitude – to recognize the many ways in which we have been blessed, and then to find ways to pass those blessings on to others. It may be a
financial donation; it may be the gift of time volunteering or helping someone else; it may be something as simple as truly listening to someone in need.
In recent weeks I have watched in awe as this congregation has given so much to the Kombete family, refugees from Cameroon who are six weeks into their new lives in this country.
I’ve watched as our core refugee team — Suzanne Johnson, Steven and Susan Hauser, Jessica Peoples, Mimi Gold, Peg Maloney, and Deborah Silver — have spent countless hours setting up the apartments, teaching English, looking for jobs, working to get the children enrolled in school, explaining to them about banks and helping them set up accounts, and many other tasks.
And I’ve seen others working in the background — finding an obstetricians who would care for the pregnant Leila — who gave birth to a daughter Sarah this week. Making sure that all the needs of the baby are covered. Moving furniture. Giving money.
What I’ve seen this congregation do is live out Moses’ instructions to the Israelites — to welcome the stranger, to share God’s love, to share our abundance with those who have less, to use the blessings we have received to help bless the lives of others.
Refugees have a different status from immigrants in this country. Usually refugees are part of a mass exodus from their homes because of war or other dangers. They usually spend years in a refugee camp — 17 years for the Kombetes. They don’t know where they will end up. Those who end up coming here have been thoroughly vetted by our government.
For years throughout Republican and Democratic administrations the government has provided assistance to refugee families to help them begin new lives in a country very different from the ones they have fled.
They are to receive a grant of $1025 a person, and assistance with rent, food stamps, and Medicaid for six months. The government also gives grants to refugee resettlement agencies so that there are people who help with the transition.
All of those benefits are now things of the past. Among the many evils of the past six weeks is the curtailment of aid to refugees.
We now have leaders who scoff at the idea that a nation is blessed in order to share that blessing with others. Who scoff at the idea that those who have abundance should share with those who don’t. Who scoff at the idea that the “least of these,” as Jesus described them are first in the eyes of God.
But in this church we believe all of those things. We have already given so much to these families, but it is time for us to give more. We have the moral and biblical imperative to step in where our government has failed.
We have already received financial donations to support this work. But we’re going to need more. So the vestry has voted that our Lenten project this year will be to raise an additional $20,000 to support our ministry and commitments to the Kombete family.
If we end up with more than we actually need, any surplus will go to help others in need. I invite all of us to give as we can from our abundance, to share the blessings we have received, to continue to offer hospitality to the stranger.
Catholic nun and author Megan McKenna offers this prayer for the first Sunday of Lent, that it may be a season of generosity and gratitude.
“Gracious God, you gave us your best gift, Jesus Christ your Son, to be our savior, brother, and strength in food and drink and word. Let us trust in you and imitate Jesus’ wholehearted giving of himself. Accept our gifts this Lent, accept us, all of us, and transform us into your body, the church in the world.”
Amen.