Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Commentary

Deuteronomy is a beautiful and unique book of the Pentateuch.  Whereas the preceding four books can be read as a kind of biography of the people of God, Deuteronomy is fashioned more like the people’s memoir.  No biography is complete, of course. Certain elements are left out or glossed over but, by and large, you can trust a well-written biography to give you a series of facts, in chronological order.  Some biographies are more compelling than others (side eye to you, book of Numbers) but, with the exception of something like the Joseph novella at the end of Genesis, everything from the introduction of Abram and the covenant of Genesis 12 progresses forward as a fairly straightforward history of the people.

Deuteronomy, however, reads more like memoir.  It is a compilation of greatest hits, each chosen not simply because they are a truthful rendering of the actual events but also because these events will shape and form the people of God moving forward.  Take note that this scene assumes the people will be settled in the land, so settled that they have tilled, plowed, seeded, tended and harvested their crops.  As yet the people of Israel are wanders in the wilderness rather than farmers in the land. So we see the anticipatory elements of the text.  Here in chapter 16, beginning in verse 3, we read the liturgy of God’s people.  Robert Alter explains that “these verses and the next group of verses in the chapter offer an actual liturgy, the first full-fledged liturgy of the Torah, to be recited by each Israelite farmer.” So let’s imagine this as though we are blocking out a scene in the tabernacle or, later, the Temple.

The farmer arrives with a basket of first-fruits. Which means that the liturgy precedes what happens in the Temple as the one coming to worship has to prepare in advance.  Worship, for the farmer, begins in the fields. Worship begins at work. Arriving at the space of worship, the worker addresses the priest.  And the liturgy can be scripted out something like this:

I declare today to the Lord your God

that I have come to the land

the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.

(the priest receives the offering and places it in front of the altar)

My father was a wandering Aramean,

And he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there

And became a great nation, powerful and numerous.

But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor.

Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors,

And the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression.

So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,

with great terror and with signs and wonders.

He brought us to this place and gave us this land,

A land flowing with milk and honey;

And now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.

(the worshiper places the basket on the altar; bowing in reverence)

As Robert Alter reminds us, “the prosperous farmer, even as he brings to the sanctuary specimens of the first yield of his crop, recalls how his forefathers were close to dying from famine and were obliged to go down to Egypt, where in due course they were enslaved.”  In this way, the liturgy becomes a rehearsal of the people’s story.  What we notice here is the way that worship re-calls us to God’s story, it re-members us as part of God’s family.

What we do today — last week and in the week to come — participates in a larger story of what God is doing on behalf of and through God’s people.  We might well adopt the story this farmer tells in worship, for we are grafted in among God’s people. It might also be a good exercise for members of our congregations today to re-write this story to include the more proximate details of the way that the first fruits of their work demonstrate the goodness of God in the preceding generations.

In their book, Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory Willson address this text of Scripture and apply it to our lives today. Responding to the question of why Hebrew Scripture presents so many variations of liturgies like this one, they suggest it is “Because they believed that their deity actually cared about the little things they were working on that day.” Kaemingk and Willson ask us to consider a child eagerly lifting up a picture to show mom or dad what she has accomplished.  Likely those parents have provided the crayons, the paper and even life itself for that child — and yet — the parent is eager to share the delight of what their child has created. What if God considers our work similarly?

So, in a sense, worship is God’s invitation for us to show what we’ve been up to.  It is an opportunity to share in God’s delight in us and our praise and wonderment in God who allows our activity in this world.  But our worship is not only for God.  It is certainly not only for us.  This section of Scripture concludes by demonstrating the way that worship widens the circle. Perhaps, you might say, that worship does not only play on a vertical axis: the interaction of God and worshipper but also on a horizontal axis: worship draws others in. The worshipper, the priests and, even (surprisingly!) “The foreigners residing among you” will join in worship, in praising God for the good things we have been given.

Worship Idea

A song that enacts this worship is James Weldon Johnson’s poem set to music. Lift Every Voice and Sing. Also known as the Black National Anthem, the song tells the difficult story of a people who have emerged from oppression in the manifest blessing of God. It rehearses the past in order to celebrate the goodness of God in the present.  Then, I suppose, inasmuch as those of us who do not primarily identify with this history still know, respect and sing this song, we watch the final verse of our text come alive. Though we are foreigners to this story (or perhaps have our own complicity in it) we join in worship, praising God for the goodness of hope amidst the struggle for liberation.

[Note: In addition to these weekly sermon commentaries on the CEP website, we also have a resource page for Lent and Easter with more preaching and worship ideas as well as sample sermons on the Year C Lectionary texts.]