By Beth Bontrager, Mennonite Historical Library administrative assistant
Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (NRSV)
King Kasper’s Box is his security on the long trip to find the new king in Giancarlo Mennoti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. Kasper clings to his magic stones of healing, his strands of beads which bring him joy. And licorice, black sweet licorice.
Security amidst the unknown. Deuteronomy 26 speaks to the “Wandering Aramaean” ancestor of the Hebrews, remembering the security God gave them through manna, quail, water, the pillar of cloud to guide them. In the Promised Land, the Hebrews gathered their harvest gifts together, their heritage, their possessions and clung to them for security.
Now the prophet commands them to bring to God the “first of all the fruit of the ground” forcing them to step out of the box of secure plenty, and share generously the best of all.
Through COVID we have defined our security boxes, whether at home, wearing masks, social distancing — out of health necessity. But this also leads to the security of isolation, physically, emotionally and spiritually. We shut people out of our boxes so we don’t get hurt. We become paralyzed by fear.
Yet God’s gifts and safety are not those of isolation. We live in “the shelter of the Most High,” but we must also live as “Light-Bearers” [Madeleine L’Engle]. We must “together with the aliens who reside among you” build relationships and share with all God’s children. We can shine with God’s love, compassion and gifts. We can reach out of our boxes with generosity, being vulnerable despite fear, through phone calls, texts, letters, cards, distance visits, small gifts — sharing of ourselves with openness. God is with us all as we move from security to generosity.
For as King Kasper says to Amahl of his security box of treasures, “Black sweet licorice, black sweet licorice — Have Some!”
Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (NRSV)
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.