Monday, March 16

Scripture: The inheritance of the tribe of Simeon formed part of the territory of Judah; because the portion of the tribe of Judah was too large for them, the tribe of Simeon obtained an inheritance within their inheritance. (Joshua 19:9).

Observation: The land allotted to the tribe of Simeon was originally designated to Judah. Judah was one of the first tribes to receive their inheritance of land (see Joshua 15); it was a huge swath of territory and included multiple cities. Judah’s inheritance was vast and valuable to the point of being problematic. The Book of Joshua says Judah’s portion was “too large.” The Hebrew word here is rab, which means abundant or exceedingly great. It could be that “too large” is the best translation here, meaning Judah didn’t have the sufficient population to manage so much land and so many cities and had to offload territory for Judah’s own benefit. Or rab could be translated as “more than they needed” (as the NIV translation does), meaning Judah simply didn’t need so great an inheritance and could afford to give a portion of their land to another tribe. Either or both translations of rab are accurate. What’s stunning is that Judah willingly gives a portion of their land to another tribe in perpetuity without a fight or a squabble substantial enough to be remembered by Joshua. Judah had more property than they could manage or more than they needed, and when the opportunity arose for them to share out of their abundance, Judah was willing to do it. Maybe they grumbled, maybe not. The point is, they did shared.

Application: Here’s a lovely example in the Bible of a group of people that has a lot of stuff, and when they understand that there’s another group of people that doesn’t have enough stuff, the first group willingly shares with the second group so that everyone has enough stuff. It’s so simple and honest, like the plot of a children’s book: people blessed with abundance blessing others from their abundance so that everyone is blessed with abundance. Of course, anyone with any exposure to actual humans knows our species doesn’t always know how to share as the children’s books taught us, but the virtue of sharing prevails. Honoring the virtue of sharing means holding possessions lightly, as gifts to be enjoyed and never hoarded, and surrendering our possessions graciously when other people would benefit from our possessions more than we would. May we put the virtue of sharing into daily practice.

Prayer:

Abundance, that is Your heart. Galaxies need not exist. Stars and gasses and water molecules and mitochondria and gravitational pull and photosynthesis need not exist. Being need not be. You were not satisfied to allow nothing to be the perpetual definition of enough, and so you created creation when creation need not be, which yields a pretty neat definition of what abundance is: more than enough when more than enough need not be. Abundance, You know better than me the gaps between enough and not-enough in the lives of the delightful humans within love’s reach of my current location. You know the number of hairs on the heads of the children who open the refrigerator looking for healthy food, only to find… nothing. You know the despair of the loneliness of the grieving widower. The frenzy of the rush of the mother who can’t find the time to go to the doctor for herself, You know; the panic of the parent who must choose between the car payment and the medicine payment, You know; the dark-eyed worry of one who, for too long, has not heard from their beloved who is deployed to war ,You know. In all these people and more, You know the not-enough of food, friendship, companionship, peace, money, and tangible expressions of care, and You know the gap between those who have all of these in abundance and those who do not, and You have woven human lives together so that where one lacks, one who does not lack should provide; and so: come down and lead me to hold my possessions lightly, as gifts to be enjoyed and never hoarded, and to surrender my possessions graciously when I meet people who would benefit from my stuff more than I would, so I would be who a taste of You are for the universe. Onward we go: amen.