The Friday Greenhouse: Tending the Soil of Empathy
Subject: What we cultivate when we stop “counting”
In my main post this week, we looked at the cold, hard data of SNAP and the specific Greek exegesis of Paul’s letters. But in the “greenhouse” of our own hearts, there’s a softer question we have to tend to: Why is our first instinct often to gatekeep grace?
As a doctoral student, I spend a lot of time in the weeds of ancient syntax. But the “weeds” in our modern discourse are often the stereotypes we allow to grow unchecked—the idea that a person in poverty must “earn” the right to a moment of joy, like a birthday cake or a cold soda.
When we look at the Old Testament mandate for gleaning, we see a God who commanded farmers to leave the edges of their fields messy. He didn’t ask the farmers to vet the people walking behind them. He didn’t ask for a work history or a drug test. He simply commanded that the abundance of the land be accessible to those who needed it.
