Forty years after the Israelites had been freed from slavery in Egypt they stood on the brink of the Promised Land ready to cross over the River Jordan and live in the land that God had promised to them.
They were a people who had no land of their own. Their ancestors were wandering Arameans who had no land and who took their families to live in Egypt. In Egypt they had no land because they were slaves. Rescued by God, they wandered in the wilderness without a home for forty years before coming to the Promised Land.
The Promised Land was a gift to them from God and because this land which became their home was not actually theirs but God’s, so they were to give back to God out of thankfulness for all that they had been given. Their life and the land – everything that they had and were – was a gift from God and to show this when the arrived in the Promised Land they were to place in a basket the first part of each crop that they harvested and to offer it to God at the place of worship.
In our culture we no longer think like this. In our culture we tend to think that the things we have are ours because we have earned them. We may have bought the freehold on our home with money that we have earned though our own work, time and talents. The salary that we earn is paid into our bank account to do with as we choose because we were the ones who worked to earn that money. We no longer think of land, home, money and possessions as gifted to us because we think of them as earned by us.
This means that we think we can live independently. Our way of life in a market economy is based on quid pro quo, always getting something in exchange for what we give. We are then free to purchase commodities with no strings attached making our market economy impersonal and leaving us thinking we can pursue personal gain in total disregard for the community as a whole.
At the time that the Israelites lived in the Promised Land because they worked the land for a living they knew that their life did not depend solely on their own efforts. It was not enough that they worked to sow their crops in order that those crops grew. They knew that the soil was needed to nurture their seeds, that rain was needed to water those seeds, that sunshine was needed for the growth of those seeds. They knew that their life, their survival was not simply down to them. Life itself was a gift. Today we are disconnected from the land and from the natural cycle of the seasons and it is much harder for us to acknowledge that life is a gift.
When life is viewed as gift, we can give to others without expecting anything in return and this has the opposite effect of establishing and strengthening the relationships between us, connecting us one to the other. This kind of living recognises the delicate balance of interdependence and responsibility. It means an awareness of how we, as individuals, fit into the life of the whole. Living in this way – as part of a gift economy – develops a sense of interdependence, engenders attitudes of compassion and generosity, forces us to reappraise the way in which we think about and measure value, and reminds us of the interconnection of our lives to other human lives, to non-human lives, and to the non-living world.
When Jesus was tempted he too was in the wilderness and the temptations with which he was confronted were the same temptations to which our culture succumbs. Jesus was tempted to provide for his own material needs by turning stones into bread; he was tempted to gain prestige and celebrity for himself by throwing himself from the highest point of the Temple and surviving; and he was tempted to gain all the power and wealth of the world for himself.
In other words, he was tempted to live independently of God and refuse to view life as being God’s gift to him. Jesus rejected these temptations and, like the people of Israel leaving the wilderness for the Promised Land, continued to thank God for the gift of life by living his life as a means of thanking God for all his gifts to us. He did this through humility, service and finally death, not by a devilish seeking after power and status.
David Runcorn says that “the life of God is non-possessive, non-competitive, humbly attentive to the interests of the other, united in love and vision.” To be God-like, he writes, “is not to be grasping” and so “Jesus pours himself out ‘precisely because’ he is God from God.” The Biblical word for this is kenosis, the self-emptying of God. But Runcorn goes on to point out that this self-emptying or kenosis characterises every member of the Trinity and argues that Jesus’ incarnation “offers us a mysterious and astonishing vision”:
“the Holy Trinity as a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped. They live and know each other in the simple ecstasy of giving.”
Today, we have the opportunity to do the same; to reject the temptation to think of all that we have as our own, to view our lives and all that we have as a gift from God, and to participate in the dance of the Holy Trinity. When we do that, we are acting as stewards because stewards have the job of looking after something that belongs to someone else. As Christians, we are stewards of all that God has given to us – our life, our talents, our time, our money, our possessions, our family, our community, and the world in which we live.
The people of Israel gave the first part of their harvest to God. Giving back to God was the first thing on their agenda, their first consideration. We should each give, the Apostle Paul says, as we have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.
As they came to the worship place the Israelites reminded themselves that it was God who had rescued them and God who had given them the land he had promised. We should also remember that God has rescued each of us from sin and gifted us with time, talents, treasure, people and the world in which we live. Let us, as a result, view life as a gift and give back to God generously and joyfully.
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Marvin Gaye - God Is Love.
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