Leviticus 19: 1-19
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Disciple Series: 7 of 15; September 30th, 2012
What does a Christian do with the book
of Leviticus?
A.J. Jacobs wrote a recent and popular book
entitled the “The Year of Living
Biblically” where he attempted, with great difficulty, to live the Bible
exactly as the Bible commands. When you
read his book you will quickly see that most of Bible difficulty came out of Leviticus---
a book which most of us Christians pay little attention, and for good reason.
·
When was the last
time you offered the Lord one of your livestock as a burnt offering (1.3)?
·
When did you last
present a grain offering of choice flour (2.1ff).
·
Have you ever
slaughtered a lamb with blemish (3.1ff)?
·
And whenever have
you offered a sin sacrifice for accidently sinning (4.1ff)? Did you even realize that you could sin by
unintentionally by accident?
·
Also did you know
that if you want to do what all that the Lord God has commanded, that you
shouldn’t eat pork (11.7), shellfish (11.9), ostrich (11.16), or duck (11.18)?’
Closer to and within our Bible text from
Leviticus, there are even more “strange” requirements such as “not eating meat with the blood still in it”
(17.2), not “sacrificing your children
to Molech (18.2), “not crossbreeding
cattle”, “not planting one field with hybrid seeds” or “not mixing two kinds of cloth material into one garment”
(19:19). These demands were being
placed on God’s people so that they would “be
holy as God is holy” (19:1). When
one reads such commands, one can’t help but wonder: Is this
the kind of holiness we still need? Most people read such a text, will laugh a
moment, and then not find any sense or meaning for faith at all. A strange few will try to live it as it is written.
When I first moved back into this area,
a man saw me working on the house, having a big scrape pile in the driveway. He stopped and asked what I was going to do
with it. During our conversation, he told
me he went to a church that slaughtered and ate a lamb for their Passover. It was Easter time, and he invited me to come
to their service where they would actually kill the lamb, cleaned it, and then
cooked and eat it together. This was
their way having a “holy” worship service to God. I told him thanks, but of course I had to
work on Sunday. But I was amazed that
right our area, there are still people who not only talk about following the Bible,
but who actually follow these “laws” as if they were written for them.
Now, come back to our opening question, what
does a Christian do with these very strange commands from Leviticus? We could discard them altogether, saying they
are do not matter for our lives today?
Or we could, as most Christians do, write them off as “fulfilled” (Matthew 5.17), since
through Jesus God has given us “grace
through faith” (Ephesians 2.8-9) instead of salvation through the “law” (Romans 3.28). Or, there
is this strange possibility of taking these levitical rules and codes as
literal commands for our own lives today?
Though there is some truth in
each way of following the law for today, I would like to suggest another
approach. Instead of rushing into what
these “laws” do or don’t mean, I would like for us reflect about what laws
about “holiness” meant then. Instead of
treating the matter of law or legalism flippantly (without any concern) or
literally (with too much concern), I want us to take this matter of holiness
very seriously in its own right. What
does the Bible means by “be holy”?
BEING
HOLY MEANS BEING LIKE THE GOD WHO SAVES
The main reason we should try to
understand Leviticus is the very important command that stands right at the
beginning of our text, where Moses spoke God’s words to God’s people saying: “'You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God
am holy. (Lev 19:2 NAS). Even though the New Testament does put an end to
the legalistic, ritual, and ceremonial demands for holiness we find in the Old
Testament, the word and the need “holiness” does carry over to us. We still need to know, understand and relate
to this “holy” God who calls his people to be “holy.” Or does he?
Let’s go back to square one and try to grasp just what it meant then and
what it means now to be a holy people and let’s try to answer just what kind of
holiness we may or may not need.
Instead of defining the word “holy,” let’s
go back in the Bible to the very first time when the word “holy” began to be
used to describe God. The first time
the word “holy” is used is when God appears to Moses in the Burning Bush. It was there that God told Moses, “Take your shoes off. You are standing on holy ground” (Exodus
3.5). This is the first, but not the
last time we encounter this word. In
fact, it is in the book of Exodus and Leviticus that this word ‘holy’ enters
the Bible’s vocabulary and is used with great frequency.
Most of the time, when people think of
the word ‘holy’, they come up with mental word pictures of “holier than thou,” images of rigidness or inflexibility, or even
ideas of distance and distance.’ I came
across an article about a couple that was invited to have lunch with the king
and queen of Sweden. Their invitation
made it very clear that they were to be in the royal dining hall and seated
fifteen minutes before the king and queen were to arrive. Furthermore, the invitation informed couple
how they were to conduct themselves during the meal. Among other things, the husband and wife were
told not to put out their hand to the royal couple, unless the king or queen
first extended their hand. And they were told not to start up a conversation
with the king or queen. Instead, they
were only to speak if spoken to (Quoted in “On
Being Wholly Holy” by Ed Bowen, at www.sermons.com).
When I read about this invitation, I
could not help but recall the controversy stirred up in April 2009, when on
their first trip to England, First lady Michelle Obama hugged the queen. Woops!
Americans are just not used to such understanding the concept of “your
highness” and she was excused. Most
of us know that with human royalty a certain kind of behavior is expected. But what does it mean when we apply this term
of “highness” or “holiness” to God? What is most important to grasp about this
word “holy” is that it was not used about God by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or
Joseph. This doesn’t mean that God
wasn’t “holy” then, but it does means something very important.
If you have trouble putting God’s saving
power and God’s holy presence together, just use your concordance to do a word
study on how the word “holy” is most often used after the Exodus. It was after God’s saving action that God
came to the wilderness to reveal himself as holy so that Israel could keep
living out that salvation in their future existence. When God told Moses he was on ‘holy ground,’ he was preparing Moses
for his saving mission to set God’s people free (Ex. 3.5). When God made Israel his ‘holy assembly’, he wanted them to make his holy, sacred and saving
presence as the main power source for their lives (Ex. 12.6). When God called them to be “priests and a holy nation,” God wanted
Israel to join this saving mission in the world
(Ex. 19:19). Now, when God calls his people to “be holy, as he is holy”, God wants
“all” his people to become a “community” of “holiness” who continue to grow,
develop, and experience God’s blessings and purposes which can continue to
bless them and make them a blessing in the world.
BE
HOLY MEANS OVERCOMING THE DESTESTABLE
But if being “holy as God is holy” is part of God’s saving action in our lives,
what does this it mean for us to be holy now?
Maybe this is what people like A.J. Jacobs are trying to figure
out. Are we, who desire and need God’s
saving power today, expected to carry out these same commands or can those
commands interpreted differently for us, than it was for them?
Interpreting the Old Testament is
exactly what we find Jesus doing in the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus came saying “He came to fulfill the law, but not to abolish it” (Matt. 5.17),
Jesus is not changing the law, but challenging how it should be read for his
own time. In Jesus’ day, the Old
Testament law was being read superficially, but less seriously and not taken to
heart. Jesus commanded a deeper reading
of the law, when he said, “You heard it
said, ‘Do not murder”, but I say to
you do not even “hate” your brother.”
Jesus reads the law with new light when he goes on to say things like, “You’ve heard it said, don’t commit
adultery, but I say to you, don’t lust--- don’t even think about it! The
new interpretation is not less, it is more.
Jesus reads the Mosaic law with less literalism, but he takes the law
much more seriously. Again, Jesus said, ‘You heard it said to handle the evil doer
eye for eye or tooth for tooth, but I say to you don’t resist them at all,
“offer them the other cheek”, “give them the clothes off your back”, or
‘go the extra distance” with them (My translation, read for yourself Matthew
5:2—48). Jesus does not take the law
for granted, but neither does he simply take the law for what it says, but
Jesus applies the law for the salvation of his people now. He follows, not the “letter”, but the “spirit”. Could we learn to read God’s law like
this?
We not only can learn to read the law
this way, we must. The law of God does
not change, but times do, needs do, issues do, and the world does. In First Peter, the author is writing to his
readers about the Christian life. Peter
addresses these readers as “those who
reside as immigrants, scattered throughout… (many lands), but who are also still
“chosen” by God the Father for the “sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit”. In the original language of the Bible, the
word “sanctify” is a form of the
word “holy.” It could be read “holify”
if we had a word like that in English. We
don’t, but you get the message. As we
move on in his letter, the concept of “holiness”
is introduced as the “outcome of faith”
(1.9 NRSV) and the “salvation of your
souls” (1.9), and ways of holiness are dramatically introduced as the kind
of “things into which angels long to
look” (1.12). We can’t look into
everything being addressed here, but we can only look beyond Peter’s call for “preparing minds for action” “to discipline oneself” and “setting you mind on your hope in Jesus”
and notice especially what Peter says in verse 14: “Like obedient children, DO NOT CONFORM TO THE DESIRES THAT YOU FORMERLY
HAD IN IGNORANCE….instead, as he who called you is holy, BE HOLY YOURSELVES IN
ALL YOUR CONDUCT.” With this Peter quotes
from Leviticus 19: 2, “You shall be
holy, for I am holy”.
If you follow Peter’s logic, he is not
only saying that holiness means to be different, but he is also saying that
holiness means to act and live differently.
Peter and Leviticus both are saying one essential thing about holiness. Holiness means: Don’t be like everyone
else; Don’t be like you have been; and especially, Don’t keep doing
those things that were destroying you in the past or are destroying people in
the present.” Do things
differently. More specifically, back in Leviticus
we find some of these “former things” people were “not doing” now being implied
by the things people should be doing, as Leviticus (19: 3-19) says things like:
Respect your parents…. Honor the Sabbath…
Don’t fall for idols… Take God’s rules seriously… Don’t rape the land and damage it… Give some for the poor… Don’t steal.. Don’t
be dishonest… Tell the truth… Help the helpless.… Don’t slander people….Have
respect for life’s diversity and so on… (Leviticus 19: 3-19). When
you consider these things God asked his people to do, we can immediately understand
that God’s call to holiness was a set of action that would save people from
their own self-centered “desires” which ruined individuals, families, and
communities. When God called his people to be “holy”, he was
not trying to make life hard on them, but he was trying to give Israel a way of
life that “saved” them from destructive behavior.
A few words that occur over and over in
Leviticus are words like “to defile”
or to “make unclean” or to become “impure”. The conclusion of Leviticus 18, just before
our text, makes it very clear that to be “holy” was to be a different people
with a different outcome. God explains
that before Israel came to the land “the
land was “defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its
inhabitants…”(18.25). But now God challenges his own people; “But you must keep my decrees and my laws.
The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these
detestable things, for all these things
were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became
defiled. And if you defile the land,
it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you…. Keep
my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were
practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD
your God. '(Lev 18:25-30 NIV).
What we must see here is that the
holiness which God requires of his people is for their preservation, and the
preservation of God’s own community. To act
like a holy people was the way to continue being a people. God’s demands, commands and rules were given to
give them “life” and “hope” for the future.
It was to change their desires from their lower nature that could
destroy them and point them to their best nature in God, which could keep them
alive, well, and flourishing in the new land.
HOLY
MEANS LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
Can we specially say what kind of behavior
preserves a people? I think we can. At the center of this holy way of life was
not simply a desire for self-preservation, but it was a greater, holy way of
living that could bring God’s saving purposes to all people. We can know what this behavior is, because
right in the middle of this text we find a command that was at the core of
Jesus’ own interpretation what makes people holy. Here is the passage Jesus quotes, the second
of the greatest commandment (Mark 12: 33): “But you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD (Lev
19:18 NRS).
The message of what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself” is
written all over the levitical laws. For
instance, right here in this passage we find all kinds of concern for “neighbor”. We find the command to not to reap the “edges of the field” (vs. 9), but to
leave it for the “poor” and the “alien” (vs. 10). We also see a law about not “defrauding your neighbor” or “withholding wages” (v.13). The concern for the hurting and helpless
appears as God’s people are not to “revile
the deaf” or put a “stumbling block
before the blind” (v. 14). Other “neighbor”
concerns are listed in the most practical ways, as serving “justice” to both “poor”
and “great” (vs. 15) and not “slanderering”
nor “profiting” upon the pain of
your neighbor, not taking “vengeance”
or “bearing a grudge”. With
this very word, the law reminds us again: “Love
your neighbor as yourself.” To make
this more serious the law adds God’s own signature; “I am the LORD.” (19:18).
How can we translate these words of love
for “neighbor” into our own world today?
How is holy love for neighbor realized in our lives and right here in
our community of faith? We can see it
in a story Fred Craddock told about a congregation he once served where people did
not love their neighbor and the alien among them. This little church was like us, out in the
country, where it is very easy to become cliquish and clannish. The area was experiencing a population boom
because of the start-up of the Atomic Energy Commission. Seemingly overnight, the village became a
city. Suddenly there were tents and
house trailers everywhere you looked.
Construction workers began arriving from most every state in the union. Fred Craddock’s church was pretty small and
just seated about eighty people. It had
hand-carved pews and a little organ over in a corner that you had to pump. A beautiful little building – and very aristocratic!
Dr. Craddock called his board together
and told them what a great evangelistic opportunity they had, to reach out and
evangelize all these thousands of folks who had recently moved in. He wanted to make them welcome and new
neighbors and bring them into the church. But the board chairman said: “No way!”
“Why?” “They’re not our kind.” “What do you mean, they’re not our kind? And the board chairman said: “Well, they’re just living in tents and
trailers and everything. They’re
laborers. They follow construction. No roots.
They’re not our kind! They
wouldn’t fit in!” Pastor Craddock and
the board chairman debated this back and forth and finally they called for a
meeting after church the very next Sunday. There was a motion immediately on the floor. “I move that anybody seeking membership in
this church must own property in this county.”
“Second,” someone said quickly.
The board chairman reminded Fred Craddock that since he was the minister,
he didn’t have a vote. So it was voted
and passed unanimously: Nobody can be a
member of this church unless they own property in the county.
Years later, Fred Craddock and his wife
returned to that area. They actually had
a hard time finding the church because of a new interstate highway. But finally they found the little road that
led up to his former church and suddenly there it was sitting in the pine
trees, beautiful and pristine. As they
drove up in the
church parking lot, the place was
crowded with trucks and cars everywhere.
Fred Craddock said, “My goodness, they must be having a revival or
something.” Then he saw it, a sign stuck
on the front of the church which said:
“Bar-B-Q, All You Can Eat $4.99.”
They went inside and the place was full
of folks. The pews had been pushed back
against the walls, Formica tables and chairs were set up, the little organ was still
there over in the corner, but it had dishes stacked on it. Suddenly, it dawned on Fred Craddock what had
happened. The church had died, closed
down, sold out, and had become a restaurant.
As Fred Craddock recalls the story, he says:
“There were some of the most gosh-awful
looking people in there that you’ve ever seem.
Motorcycles out front and pickup trucks…..you’ve never seen such a crowd. Blue-collar workers, white-collar
workers. People of all ages and colors and
backgrounds.”
Fred Craddock turned to his wife and
said, “It’s a good thing this place is a restaurant because if it were still
the kind of church it used to be, some of these folks sure wouldn’t fit in!” That day of discovery broke the heart of that
former pastor. Isn’t that sad? And what could be more ironic than for people
who would once be denied the Bread of Life in that place being invited later to
come and have “all the Bar-B-Q you can eat!”
When I share a story like this, I’m
reminded again of what Mark Twain once said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me, but
it’s the part I do understand.”
There are lots of ancient practices of holiness in the book of Leviticus
that are still hard to understand. But
what we do understand, especially when it comes to holiness, is that holiness
means some very specific things. It
means being like the God who saves us.
It means leaving detestable things behind. It means loving our neighbor as we love
ourselves. These are not at all things
that are hard to understand, but they are still very hard to do in real life. But if we don’t do these kinds of things,
the witness of Leviticus is this: that the new territory we’ve all come to experience
God’s goodness and blessing will be the place we are no more. Being holy, as God is holy is not an option.
it is a matter of life and death. Amen.
No comments :
Post a Comment