“Biting the hand that feeds you?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, February 20, 2023
Deuteronomy 6:10-15 (Forward, p. 22) CEV p. 174
This old English expression has the sense of acting badly towards someone who has or is helping you. As far as we can tell it goes back to the 18th century at least when the political writer Edmund Burke suggested that the public, with its ingrained sense of entitlement, sometimes turns against the government, ‘biting the hand that feeds them’, even after the government had helped them in so many ways. The expression denotes a sense of ungratefulness and ingratitude, and a lack of appreciation and thankfulness. Burke used the expression to describe how people sometimes act towards their governments, but it can equally be used to describe us and God.
That is what today’s passage is about. Moses begins it by describing all that God intends to do for Israel. He will bring them into a new land, the land that He promised their ancestors. What is more is that they will inherit buildings and cities that they did not build, possessions that they did not work for, wells that they did not have to dig, and vineyards and olive orchards that they did not plant. But when they are full and are enjoying all this bounty, they must be careful not ‘to bite the hand that has fed them.’
So, what then is to be their response? Firstly, they are to remember from whence all of this came, the Lord their God. They are to worship, serve and obey God with ‘fear and trembling’, with the reverence and respect that is His due. They are to be loyal to Him no matter what and not invoke the name of any other god. Indeed, they are not to follow or worship any of the gods of the nations round about them. If they do indeed follow or worship them, thus ‘biting the hand that has fed them’, they will be destroyed, wiped off from the face of the earth.
So then, what about us? What then, might be the gods of the ‘nations round about us’? I would suggest, as just a start, the gods of materialism, of success, or of power, or of comfort, or of public esteem. Aren’t these things the things that we often strive for and work for with such a relentless zeal and ambition? Isn’t it far too easy, far too natural, to esteem and value these things on a day to day basis, far more than we honour or obey God?
I would suggest that the warning that Moses gave to Israel is just as appropriate to our world today—to each one of us. Amen.
Forward notes: “Take care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (verse 12).
“I was a Girl Scout. I had a sash of badges and a little green beret. I pledged to live by the Girl Scout law, to be ‘considerate, caring, courageous, and a sister to every Girl Scout.’ I still have a sympathy card my troop wrote me when I suffered a horrible family loss. The director’s daughter was especially kind.
“Thirty-five years later, I was living in Connecticut, and my life was unstable again. It was the first Christmas since my divorce. The director’s daughter was now an interior designer in New York. She must have felt the Girl Scout sister’s pain, as she announced, ‘I’m taking an entire day off, and we are going to see Christmas in the city.’
“I found out later the Girl Scouts weren’t her choice; her mother pushed her into joining. But she nevertheless lived by the Girl Scout law, echoes of the profound promises and commitments we make in baptism. She brought me out of the first tragedy and remembered to do it again later.”
Moving Forward: “Reread the service of Holy Baptism in the Book of Common Prayer [American], starting on page 298, or the Book of Alternative Services [Canadian], on page 150. How do you help others to ‘grow into the full stature of Christ?’”