Sermon Warrensburg Nov. 9, 2020
Leviticus 19, selections and Mark 12:28-34
In March I preached on the entire book of Deuteronomy.
Because few of you are likely to read the whole thing,
I was your “sacrificial reader” of difficult and at first glance, boring, books.
My reason for doing that was that I saw a connection
between the laws in Dt. and the issue of the “rule of law”
in our current national politics.
It proved quite close and relevant.
The purpose of those laws was to establish fairness, responsibility, and justice,
in order to have a good society and good lives.
The purpose of our laws and justice system today is the same.
What has changed in 3,000 years
is that we do not assume the laws come from God.
Today I tackle Leviticus.
The purpose of the laws here are different,
but there is no let up in the political ramifications of the Bible.
The laws and instructions in Leviticus have parallels to our own time
but they are not exactly legal.
Here is the setting and a brief outline of Leviticus:
Moses and the Hebrews are in the desert after Moses
has received the 10 commandments and a tent of meeting has been set up
to house the ark of the covenant.
The Lord, Yahweh, summons Moses, speaks to him from the tent,
and gives orders to him.
These first 7 chapters are shocking and puzzling to us.
We suddenly find ourselves in the midst of instructions
about how to carry out various sacrifices.
These are detailed instructions for butchering cows, sheep, goats,
and dissecting birds;
and how to cook them and how to dispose of the remnants.
And there are a few more relaxing recipes
for baking with grains, for grain offerings.
The detail about these offerings is intense.
Which organs do you burn in offering
and which parts do you burn outside the tent?
What meat is for God, which is for the priests, and which is for the people?
And what do we do with the blood?
We dash it against the altar, we mark the corners of the altar with it,
the priests throw it against the people.
By dealing with blood, life and death become real,
and everyone of us who has seen a crime or a horror film
knows the awe of this.
Blood is the ultimate symbol of life.
In Genesis it was mentioned in passing that
“You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” [Gen 9:4]
In Leviticus we learn that God says “the life of the flesh is in the blood;
and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar;
for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.” [Lev 17:11]
This is repeated throughout Leviticus.
And the fat surrounding the vital organs belongs to the Lord.
The subcutaneous fat is to be discarded.
The organs and their fat are burnt offerings to God,
whom we are told will be pleased with the odor rising to heaven.
It is as if the Hebrews are feeding God, to satisfy his hunger for meat.
The burnt offerings are for various purposes, some for sin, and for guilt.
Some are what we used to read as “peace offerings.”
The new translations call this an offering of “Well-being,” confusing to me.
It is a blessing of any meat which the people will eat for sustenance and life.
Sin here mostly involves touching things that are unclean.
Like body fluids, dead bodies, mold, skin eruptions, and eating unclean animals.
Sin offerings to forgive and to make oneself clean again are complicated:
Did the sinner know that he had sinned?
Was it intentional or unintentional?
Who sinned? Was it a priest? Or a layman? Was it the whole people, the tribe?
Or was it a judge or the ruler?
Different rituals are prescribed for each situation and perpetrator.
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Why is Moses and why are the people asked to make these sacrifices?
What is this about?
Leviticus is ancient. Parts of it were probably written before 1000 BC.
First, There is a deep memory here of Abraham offering his son, Isaac,
to God as a sacrifice because Yahweh commanded it.
We are told the story in Genesis as if it were a test of faith.
But the story of Abraham and Isaac
is itself a deeper memory of a more ancient past
when human sacrifice was common
and accepted as necessary and right.
Moses lived in more humane times, when animals and birds and grains
substitute for humans to satisfy God.
Second, if you have to have sacrifices and offerings,
you need priests, and a special place to conduct these rituals.
We are witnessing here in Leviticus the birth of an institution,
as we saw the legal institution created, or borrowed and expanded, in Dt.
Here a cultus, the sociologists call it, is being created,
or probably borrowed and expanded,
It is a system of religious and political organization and control.
In the years that follow the movable tent will give way to a permanent temple.
A permanent altar will be established, and blood will no longer be shed on it.
In Christian churches the altar will come to symbolize
the death of Jesus as a sacrifice,
And during the Reformation up to our own time
priests with godly powers will become ministers,
and later will include men and women.
And the altar itself will give way to the communion table we know.
around which we share bread and wine as symbols of blood and flesh.
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But there is more to know: if sacrifices are the answer, what is the question?
These sacrificial offerings answer basic questions:
How do we please God, how do we get on the right side of God,
especially when our consciences tell us we have done wrong?
How do we deal with our different needs for blessings
and the different kinds of wrongs that are committed
and which need to be atoned for?
I said earlier that blood was used for atonement,
one of those religious technical terms.
Atonement is first of all reparation or payment for wrongs done.
Atonement is redress, restitution, or redemption.
In atonement we are making amends.
It is reconciliation of God and humankind.
It is “at-one-ment,” the making of different parties to a lawsuit, one.
Or as the signs and billboards in the fields of Minnesota declared fifty years ago,
“Get Right with God!”
These sacrificial offerings were made to achieve blessing and forgiveness
and reintegration of offenders into the community
when they have done wrong.
By following the ritual, appointing the right people to lead it,
who wear the assigned clothing and take the prescribed actions;
when they give the appropriate directions and say the right prayers,
then God will be satisfied and come near to the people again,
and accept them.
We will know that this has been accomplished
because the altar and the priests and the people will be covered with blood.
It will be a fearful experience and sight
that will convince us of the power of God and of the priests.
The ordination of priests requires even more blood. [Chapters 8-10]
Lots of blood. The sacrifice of two rams to ordain the priests.
To ordain Aaron as high priest a bull calf, a sheep, and a goat,
all without blemish, are butchered.
The priests must be better than the people:
So they cannot drink wine or strong drink;
they must avoid the unclean or they will die.
We are only up to chapter 10, but I will move along more quickly.
Chapters 11-15 are about temporary uncleanliness and impurity:
Touching or eating animals and birds that are unclean, touching bodily fluids,
and skin diseases, and the mixing of fabrics make one unclean.
Yes, we are all unclean because of the clothing we wear today.
There are instruction on how to cleanse houses where lepers have lived,
and then more on what to do about bodily fluids.
Chapters 16 and 17 are about the annual Day of Atonement.
Here we learn about ritual and vestments and sacrifices
that will return us to acceptance by God.
Here we learn of “the mercy seat,”
the cover on the ark or box in which the covenant was kept.
Here we learn about the “scapegoat,”
how priests wrote down the sins of the people and who committed them,
and then drove the goat out into the wilderness
to be attacked and killed by wild animals.
Chapters 18-20 are about Moral Purity, holiness, sexual integrity, care for the poor
Here is the text for today.
Leviticus 19, selections:
When you reap the harvest of your land,
you shall not reap to the very edges of your field,
or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
You shall not strip your vineyard bare,
or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard;
you shall leave them for the poor and the alien:
I am the Lord your God.
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely;
and you shall not lie to one another.
And you shall not swear falsely by my name,
profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.
You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and
you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.
You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind;
you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
You shall not render an unjust judgment;
you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great:
with justice you shall judge your neighbor.
You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people,
and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor.
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin;
you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind;
you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed;
nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials.
[We are all guilty of this.
These rules may have sensible reasons, which I will not discuss here.]
If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave,
designated for another man but not ransomed or given her freedom,
an inquiry shall be held.
They shall not be put to death, since she has not been freed;
but he shall bring a guilt offering for himself to the Lord,
at the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram as guilt offering.
[We see here how slavery and rape were handled;
by these rules people at least knew that rape was wrong.]
You shall not eat anything with its blood.
You shall not practice augury or witchcraft.
You shall not round off the hair on your temples
or mar the edges of your beard.
You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead
or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute,
Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out.
You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old.
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.
The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you;
you shall love the alien as yourself,
for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity.
You shall have honest balances, honest weights:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them:
I am the Lord.
Back to sermon:
Many of these laws are repeated from Deuteronomy.
It is likely that the writers of Dt. Inserted some of this into Leviticus.
But these laws are placed here for a different reason:
It isn’t to set up a legal code, a justice system, and a legal institution
to create a rule of law, in which abstract laws
are above the rule of a king who also must obey them.
as it was in Deuteronomy.
Instead they are rules of moral and religious behavior.
These rules are here not first of all because of the desire
for a well functioning society,
but because God is seen and experienced as holy,
and therefore the people must be holy.
The core of this book is called the Holiness Code.
For the Christian who has been shaken by all the blood and the rules in this book,
the statement “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” jumps off the page
like the rabbit jumps out from under my deck when I come outside.
All the rules here are given because God is holy,
and therefore the people must be holy.
The priests and the people will be holy, set apart from all their neighbors,
by the different and righteous ways they live.
The core of Leviticus is called the holiness code [17-26] for this reason.
To be Holy is to be perfect in goodness and righteousness.
I thought of having us sing Holy Holy Holy this morning.
It was sung frequently in church when I was a child.
I thought it was both scary and glorious. That is what holiness is meant to be.
Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinfulness Thy glory may not see
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love and purity.
You shall be holy, Leviticus says, for I the Lord your God am holy.
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But I am always asking, “What are the values inherent in this description
of these sacrifices and the institution of this priesthood?”
A few years ago I preached on Jonathan Haidt’s book on values,
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Haidt is a social scientist and has identified six sets of values
Care as opposed to Harm.
This includes security over lack of safety and fear.
Liberty from Oppression
Fairness without Cheating
In a general sort of way Deuteronomy is about these values and problems.
The next sets of values are:
Loyalty not Betrayal
Authority not Subversion
Sanctity or holiness or purity not Degradation and sin over uncleanness
These are the values and troubles Leviticus is concerned with.
They are conservative values which are needed by every society.
Loyalty is about maintaining community.
Authority is about living within social and political norms and rules.
At the extreme authority is demanded by a hierarchy,
so that we are supposed to give deference to those above us.
In our time it is respecting institutions because of the good they give to us:
Not only religious institutions, yes,
but also educational, medical, economic, and social institutions.
Sanctity is about perfection of purity.
At the end of Leviticus we read about God’s blessings on those who obey
and curses on the faithless who are hostile to God.
Fortunately, and unfortunately, depending on your point of view,
God will not strike us dead
and our legal system will not allow priests or dictators to do so.
Marcus Borg in a great little book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time [1994],
explained the purity system and why Jesus opposed it:
These rules are NOT just about religion or social customs
This is a political system.
A way of dividing and separating and controlling people.
One of the easiest ways to control people,
is to declare some people as impure and unclean –
The sick, the poor, the immigrant, and the homeless.
We can see the good side to rules about cleanliness.
It prevents sickness, but such rules can control people in cruel ways;
We are suspicious of Puritans, who want to fit us into boxes.
Here is the fight between those of us who wear masks
so that we and those we come in contact with do not get the coronavirus,
and those who see masks as an infringement on their freedom
and interference is business.
But it is a false freedom to choose a sickness we do not fully understand,
Jesus challenged the laws governing pollution and purity
so that the people would be free to love their neighbors.
This is very different than being willing to sacrifice
our neighbors and our loved ones.
The basic problem with Leviticus is obvious: We cannot be perfect in holiness.
The good news is that ancient Israel never lived strictly under these laws anyway.
They were the ideal, and the model for a religious way of life under law
that would allow Israel to live by it’s covenant with God
even when there was no land or temple or king.
It was written when they were losing it all,
but they remained a people, who gave to us both law and liberty
because they never forgot and they never forget
that their ancestors had been slaves in Egypt.
May we not forget their creation of social norms and the rule of law. Amen.