How Not to Love Your Neighbor - Amy Lively

After a twenty year hiatus, I returned to Jesus wholeheartedly. After two decades walking without Him, I was all into The Greatest Commandment.

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.” Matthew 22:37-38

The Second Greatest Commandment took me a little while longer.

“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:39

Jesus was being quizzed about the most important aspects of a life of faith, and he quoted from Leviticus 19:18 in response. To be honest, I’m usually tempted to skim over Leviticus. This chapter seems to be a bunch of random rules about sacrifice, justice, livestock, sewing, and farming. What’s in it for us today? I don’t have a grapevine or hired worker, I don’t raise my own cattle or make my own clothes. But then I saw verse 10 –

And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:10

This verse instructs the Israelites not to strip their grapevines bare when they gathered the harvest, and to leave the grapes that fell on the ground instead of picking them all up for themselves. By leaving the leftovers, the poor and needy people living around the Israelites could be welcomed into the field to glean what remained so they didn’t go hungry.

A closer look at this ancient agricultural rule reveals plenty of advice for us. I may not have a grapevine, but this verse reminds me that God abundantly supplies my needs so that I can supply the needs of others. This chapter that tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves also tells us how not to love our neighbor by hoarding everything for ourselves!