The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten. Leviticus 25: 1-7 NIV
This was a year when men did not sew nor did they reap. What came up from the ground was not harvested, but rather eaten from hand to mouth. The poor were not restrained from the field or the fruit of the tree. Naturally this allows for nature to recoup, for her to receive the decaying fruit and the fall of leaves. It allows for the beasts to free range and return what they have digested, back to the ground. The weeds, the clover and the alfalfa can grow and then be tilled under on the returning year. We bypass these old practices of alternating fields and letting the land lay fallow for the more "modern" practice of over fertilization. We destroy massive bodies of water with our run off and take no thought of stewardship. Red tide, brown tide, sludge, dead fish and grasses, and we can't seem to turn it off.
This was a year when men did not sew nor did they reap. What came up from the ground was not harvested, but rather eaten from hand to mouth. The poor were not restrained from the field or the fruit of the tree. Naturally this allows for nature to recoup, for her to receive the decaying fruit and the fall of leaves. It allows for the beasts to free range and return what they have digested, back to the ground. The weeds, the clover and the alfalfa can grow and then be tilled under on the returning year. We bypass these old practices of alternating fields and letting the land lay fallow for the more "modern" practice of over fertilization. We destroy massive bodies of water with our run off and take no thought of stewardship. Red tide, brown tide, sludge, dead fish and grasses, and we can't seem to turn it off.
3 Mary therefore took a pound[a] of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said,5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii[b] and given to the poor?” 6 He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it. 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it[c] for the day of my burial. John 12:3-7
Men are quick to judge even what does not belong to them, what they have not made nor earned.
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