When I was a pastoral intern in Elon, NC, and so many of the church members had gardens, I was so impressed with how much everyone shared with everyone else.  Every Sunday (and many days in between) there was an exchange that took place.  Someone had squash come in and there was more than they knew what to do with, so they brought a few sacksful to share.  Someone else brought okra.  Someone else brought tomatoes.  One person grew flowers in her garden and arranged them for the altar each week.  Seeds were exchanged, canned goods were traded.  How lovely!

Sharing seems so easy there, in that world of abundance, where the soil is rich, the crops a bit of a luxury.  Gardening is a normal part of life for the people of that community, but none of them absolutely depended on the food they grew, nor did their livelihoods depend on the sale of their produce.  Why is it so hard in so many other aspects of life?I’ve been thinking about the biblical mandates around sharing the harvest of one’s garden, primarily the command to present the first fruits as an offering to the priest and the command to leave the edges of the field unharvested so that the poor, the widow, and the alien might glean from it. (Here’s one example.) I like very much that there is a form of sharing that is built into the practice of faith. And I wonder, often, what might constitute the modern day equivalent of these practices.  Tithing, certainly, is a form of first fruits offering.  But what about our leaving the gleanings.  I think about my own life, and how I’ve managed to figure out how to tithe, but then I live pretty much to the edges of my paycheck.  Many of us, in some form or another, find it very difficult to both give first fruits and leave some left over to share around the edges.

And as much as I like that the first fruits and gleanings are part of my faith heritage, I know that I’ve needed the concepts to be there in writing, held up for me over the years, asked of me, demanded of me, encouraged of me, preached at me, taught to me, exampled for me, over and over and over, before I have actually begun to practice them consistently and to do so with any joy.

I wonder what it was like for the Hebrew people to whom these laws were first written.  We kind of romanticize it, or at least I do, but I imagine they struggled too, like we do, at least the ones for whom generosity didn’t come naturally.  I imagine that they grumbled about bringing their first fruits to the priest, rather than being able to sell it or use it for themselves.  I imagine that they had moments of resentment that they didn’t get to keep their whole crop over which they had labored for themselves. And I imagine that this was much harder in those leaner, drought-, disease-stricken years.

The trouble with sharing is that we don’t seem to be very natural at it. We don’t seem to do it unless we are told.  And when we are told, we resist, resent, and try to find ways to keep more for ourselves.

That is, unless we can see that it’s not really ours to begin with.  Or unless we can see that my well being, and wholeness,  and even my salvation depends on the well being of others.  Or unless we can see that sharing impacts actual lives, has local and global consequences, and that there are real people on the other end of our giving. Or unless we discover that part of what it is to be made in the image of God is to share. Or unless we become aware how much God has shared with us – all that is God’s is ours. Or unless we discover that we really can live joyfully with less.  Or unless we discover that generosity is one of the Fruits of the Spirit, evidence of the Holy Spirit working in us.

The trouble with sharing is that, for many of us, we have to practice it until it becomes part of us.  And for many of us, it starts out rather reluctantly, if it starts at all.  It’s understandable.  We don’t live in a culture which encourages sharing. It’s not natural.  And we need people who have learned its joys to teach us.  Who are your teachers in sharing?

I saw the movie In Time the other day, which involves a very interesting concept in which time (as in, time left to live) is also the currency.  The movie is a Robin Hood sort of story.  And I should share more of my thoughts about it here. But I’ve already written too long.  For now, I will say that it’s also made me think quite a bit about sharing, wondering why, for some of us, it’s easier to share when we have little in the first place. I encourage you to watch it, and see what it says to you about the concept of sharing (and about time and money, communal living and commodity, life and death, haves and have-nots, etc.)

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