when you reap the harvest...

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:9,10)

​I love this painting, The Gleaners, by Millet from 1857. In it he depicts three rural peasant women collecting the leftoversfrom the harvest. In the distance, you can see the sheaves of corn ready to be transported, and an overseersitting proudly on horseback. But in the centre of the picture are the three women, working hard, collecting what they can. When it was painted, the wealthier parts of French society disliked it because it threatened one of the narratives of wealth and poverty that we still hear today - namely the myth of the hardworking wealthy and the undeserving, lazy poor. The painting though has obvious biblical overtones. The passage from Leviticus 19 makesits instruction clear, and it is a reminder that extracting every bit of profit is not what we should be about. This is what is meant by a Sabbath Economics. While a pure capitalist economics mightsay that profit maximization is the only game in town, a sabbath economics encourages usto pursue an economy of enough and an economy of redistribution. Leaving the gleanings may not be the kindest or most appropriate way to redistribute, but it is at least one way, and as a symbol it challenges the profit only mindset that characterises far too much of our present society. The question for each of us is in what way are we redistributing our wealth to others who need it more