A Different Kind of Fiscal Cliff

Last week, I wrote about some of the surprising ways in which Leviticus calls us to love our neighbor. Leviticus 25 is another one of those somewhat surprising ways. Israel has already been commanded to keep a Sabbath rest every seventh day. Now God declares that the land is to have a Sabbath as well - every seventh year. In that year, the people of Israel were to leave the land uncultivated, allowing it to grow wild. It is easy to see how this would have been a remarkable practice of trust in Yahweh for the people of Israel - just imagine taking a whole year off of work and trusting God to provide in that year. God promised that if Israel kept this command that the land would produce enough surplus in the sixth year in order to provide throughout the scarcity of the seventh year. Israel was to trust God in the promised land just as they had to trust Yahweh to provide during their wilderness wandering.

But the commandment becomes even more exceptional. In addition to leaving the ground fallow every seventh year, Israel was also to celebrate Jubilee every 50th year. As a part of this celebration, Israel was commanded to proclaim liberty throughout the land; slaves were released from their slavery and property was returned to its original owner. It seems the year of Jubilee was a way of maintaining some level of economic equality within Israel. In other words, it was acknowledged that some Israelites might grow wealthier and others poorer and that in itself is not condemned. However, it seems there was also an acknowledgement that if left unchecked this disparity of wealth could become to great and therefore unjust. As a result, every 50th year was to serve as a "leveling of the playing field". If someone had grown so poor that they had to sell their property or sell themselves or a family member into slavery, then on the 50th year they or their family member or their land were to be released. God specifically states that land was not to be sold into perpetuity because the land ultimately belonged to God (v. 23). As such, God would not allow the land to be used to accumulate a wealth so great that it was crushing one's neighbor. There had to be limit on how much one could profit while another suffered.

This had to be one of the most radical of all of Israel's laws (so radical, in fact, that many scholars question whether or not it was ever actually practiced in Israel). If it is hard to imagine on an individual level what would happen if one intentionally went without work for a year trusting God to provide then it is even more difficult to imagine the kind of large scale economic restructuring that would take place in a society where every land-debt was forgiven and every slave released on one day. How would our own society be transformed if every debt was forgiven every 50 years? (To his credit, Pope John Paul II called for the year 2000 to be a year of Jubilee, a call which went largely unanswered by the corporations and nations of the world. However, there has been some discussion since then about the wealthier nations of the world forgiving the overwhelming debts owed by poorer nations.)

Isaiah 61 uses this radical language to describe Israel's own return from exile. The prophet declares:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor ; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor..."

 "To proclaim liberty" is language lifted right out of Leviticus 25. In his commentary on Isaiah, Walter Brueggemann argues that "the year of the Lord's favor" is also an allusion to the year of Jubilee. Isaiah uses this language of Jubilee to proclaim God's deliverance of Israel. The poor, brokenhearted captives described in this passage are God's own people who have been exiled from their homes by the nation of Babylon. God is, in effect, declaring a year of Jubilee through the prophet Isaiah for Israel itself by proclaiming that the debt of Israel's sins have been canceled, that they will be released from their captivity, and that they will return to the land God gave them. The God who commanded Israel to practice Jubilee is now enacting Jubilee on their behalf.

Jesus quotes these words from Isaiah in Luke 4. In fact, they are programmatic for the way Luke will go about portraying Jesus in his gospel. Bringing good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, and proclaiming liberty to those held captive by disease, disability, ritual impurity, and prejudice are precisely the kind of things we see Jesus doing in the gospel of Luke. After reading from the scroll in the synagogue, Jesus hands its back to the attendant and sits down - the position from which someone would typically expound on the Scripture just read. Jesus' only words are "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Initially, the people marvel at Jesus' words. When Jesus read this, the people of Israel lived in their own land so they were not in exile in the traditional sense. However, they lived in their land under the rule of Rome. As such, many Jews considered themselves to be living in exile and looked for God to deliver them from that exile again just as God had in the days of Isaiah. So the synagogue audience is excited because Jesus has just proclaimed that Israel's return from exile is close at hand. Furthermore, Jesus' makes this proclamation in his hometown of Nazareth. Surely, the people assume, if the messiah who accomplishes the return from exile is from their very own town then they stand to find themselves at the head of the victory parade.

In fact, Jesus sums up those assumptions well when he says:

"Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Physician heal yourself.' What we have heard you did in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well."

 But Jesus then undercuts those assumptions when he says:

And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

Not only does Jesus remind them that no prophet is ever accepted in his own town. Jesus also cites two instances of prophetic ministry in which gentiles receive God's deliverance while Israel does not. In other words, Jesus declares that his promise of Jubilee and return from exile is not for Israel alone but for non-Jews as well. The audience which first responded to Jesus' message so favorably now becomes so angry that they try to push him off a cliff.

I find it fascinating that Luke chooses to portray Jesus' proclamation of salvation in the economic language of Jubilee - to say that the salvation Jesus brings is akin to an emancipation proclamation and a nation-wide mortgage burning ceremony all rolled into one. Like the audience in that synagogue, our response to such a revolutionary message will probably be largely determined by where we stand. So long as we think we are the ones having our debts canceled then we welcome the word of liberation. When we find out that some one else might receive the same grace, we question this message or perhaps even become angry. Or to put it in terms of the wealthiest Christians who have ever inhabited the face of the earth, so long as Jesus' message of liberation is about canceling our spiritual debts we are happy to accept it. But what if Jesus' proclamation of Jubilee is also a call to restructure the economic systems which benefit us but lead to the oppression of others? What if praying for the forgiveness of our own spiritual debts entails our forgiving of all kinds of debts on behalf of others?

Will we find the nearest cliff?

Charity Is No Substitute

What do you think of when you hear Jesus' command to "love your neighbor"?  What does it mean to fulfill that command?

I preached a sermon on this topic several years ago and I was somewhat surprised afterward when someone said to me "You know pastor, you're right!  I really need to do a better job of loving my neighbor." - by which this person quite literally meant their actual next door neighbor. It was a pleasant surprise though. This is the kind of epiphany we could all have and our communities and churches would be all the better for it. I know I could do a much better job of loving my actual next door neighbor.

However, I imagine that most of us understand this command a bit less literally. We realize that our neighbor can actually be anyone we encounter. In fact, by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus communicates to us that the question for us should not be "Who is my neighbor?" but "Am I being a neighbor to everyone I encounter?" And I would guess that when we think of being "neighborly" to the people we encounter in our daily routines that we usually think of being kind, courteous, and lending a helping hand when its needed. Again, these are good things and we could do a lot worse as the Church.

But I think many of us would probably be surprised to know that when Jesus says that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, he is quoting a verse from Leviticus. We might be even more surprised to hear the kind of things that our associated with loving our neighbor in that passage. Here is a sampling:

"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard, You shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner: I am the Lord your God." 19:9-10

"You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him.  The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning." 19:13

"You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor." 19:15

This isn't exactly smiling-at-your-grocery-store-cashier or giving-a-few-bucks-to-a-stranger kind of stuff. In fact, this isn't the language of individual charity at all. We're talking about harvest and wages and courts. This is the language of business and law we are dealing with here. In other words, when Leviticus speaks of "loving our neighbor" this is not something that is merely a private or individual matter. Love of neighbor extended even into God's expectation for Israel's businesses and legal systems.

Of course, this is not to say that we can simply pick up these commands and implement them unchanged in our own corporations and justice system. The verses I quoted above are ones that might cohere more readily with our modern sensibilities but they are surrounded by verses which we ignore entirely; verses that prohibit garments made of two kinds of material or that condone slavery or that forbid certain haircuts, not to mention the entirety of the sacrificial system. No, a good biblical ethic must consist of more than merely a series of verses that give us a list of do's and don'ts. Furthermore, we live in a democracy very unlike Israel's theocracy and we find ourselves in the midst of a complex global economy where it can be extremely difficult to discern what is most loving for our American neighbors, much less our neighbors half way around the world.

In spite of all of that, Leviticus challenges us to see that Jesus' command to love our neighbor extends well beyond individual acts of charity. Loving our neighbor in this world means being informed about the products we buy and how they impact those who make them. It means thinking about how the laws of our land will impact the disadvantaged and defenseless.

St. Augustine, probably the most influential theologian in the history of the Church, is often quoted as having said "Charity is no substitute for justice withheld." Helping those in need is not a substitute for remedying the unjust systems which lead to their need in the first place. We are a people called to love our neighbor. Caring for our literal neighbors, our co-workers, those we encounter day to day is a good first step but we must also love the neighbor we may never meet by witnessing to a kingdom in which justice and mercy prevail.

Day of Atonement

Leviticus 16 describes the Day of Atonement, an offering carried out once a year by Aaron and his priestly descendants. The ritual began with the priest removing his ornate priestly garments, washing himself with water, and putting on plain linen garments. The sacrifice itself actually involved three animals: a bull and two goats.

The bull was slaughtered as a sin offering for the priest himself and his household. The priest then entered behind the inner curtain of the tabernacle, the most holy place, bringing with him fine incense and the blood of the slaughtered bull. This was the only time each year that the priest ever entered this inner most part of the tabernacle, the place which represented the very presence of God. The incense was apparently for the priest's own protection (16:13, perhaps the cloud of smoke serving as some kind of barrier even as the priest stands in the very presence of God?) and the blood was to be sprinkled on and in front of the mercy seat as a way of cleansing this most holy place from the priest's sins accumulated throughout the year.

The two goats served as a sin offering for the people of Israel. The priest would cast lots over the two goats to see which would be designated for God and which for Azazel (more on that in a minute). The goat designated for God was slaughtered and its blood was brought into the most holy place and placed on and in front of the mercy seat just as the bull's blood and was meant to cleanse the inner sanctuary of the people's sin accumulated over the course of the year. The priest would then use both the bull's blood and the goat's blood to cleanse the altar at the front of the tabernacle as well.

The priest would then lay his hands on the second goat, the one designated for Azazel, and confess over it all the sins of the people of Israel. This goat was then sent off into the wilderness to "bear all their iniquities on itself into a remote area." There is much debate about what "Azazel" means. Some think it may be the name of a demon roaming in the wilderness while others think it may be a name for the wilderness itself. The simplest explanation is probably that the word is a combination of the Hebrew words for "goat" and "to go away". It is the goat that is sent away carrying Israel's sins; or as many English translations term it, the scapegoat.

Although the meaning of the sacrifices and rituals in Leviticus can often be opaque to us, this one actually seems to be relatively clear. Much like the regular sin offerings, the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement were meant to purge the tabernacle of Israel's sins both through the cleansing agent of blood and now also by being carried away on the scapegoat. Unlike other sin offerings, this was the only day each year when the priest entered the most holy place behind the second curtain of the tabernacle. The presence of God was so holy and tremendous that one could not simply enter the most holy place on a whim. But even this most holy place had to be cleansed of Israel's sin from time to time so as not to drive God away. So the priest entered by the blood of bulls and goats this one day a year to cleanse the inner sanctuary.

It is specifically this Day of Atonement ritual on which the Epistle to the Hebrews builds much of its portrayal of Christ as our high priest. When the priest entered the earthly tabernacle, Hebrews argues, he is entering only a copy and shadow of the real tabernacle of heaven where God's presence truly dwells. Christ, on the other hand, has entered the true most holy place in heaven. Much as the blood of bulls and goats allowed the high priest to enter into the inner sanctuary, so Christ's own blood has allowed him to ascend into heaven and be seated at the right hand of the Father. Since Christ perpetually dwells in the presence of God he does not have to make this sacrifice year after year but is able to intercede for us continually. Furthermore, by accomplishing all this in our own human flesh, Christ has also cleansed us and opened the way for us into the very presence of God.

This ritual and the argument which Hebrews builds on it surely seem foreign to us for a number of reasons. Perhaps not least of these reasons is that we don't really regard the presence of God as all that holy or tremendous - at least not in the way these ancient Israelites did. We walk casually into our churches, take our seat, and expect God to show up in a mighty way after only a few worship choruses. We pray and expect that God will listen and grant our requests. Come to think of it, isn't God present everywhere? So what's all the fuss about with the curtains and the incense and the blood of bulls and goats?

As a result, perhaps we miss out on just how good the good news of Hebrews is. If Leviticus as a whole, and the Day of Atonement ritual in particular, teach us anything it is that the presence of a holy God is not something to be taken lightly. While Hebrews proclaims the good news that Christ has opened the way for us into the presence of God, the Levitical roots of Hebrews' argument reminds us of what an enormous gift that is. After all, it took not the merely the blood of bulls and goats but the blood of the Son of God to make it happen.

Honestly, I'm not exactly sure where Leviticus and Hebrews are leading me this week.  I have a lot of thinking to do about these passages between now and Sunday. But I do know that this theme of just how precious God's presence is seems to keep coming up as I've been preaching through Exodus and Leviticus. In Exodus, Moses knows that it is only the presence of God which distinguishes Israel from all the other peoples of the earth and as such it is worth wrestling for. In Leviticus, the whole purpose of the tabernacle and sacrificial system seems to be about providing an appropriate place for God's presence to dwell in the midst of Israel's camp. It seems to me that the Church also should recognize that the only thing which sets us apart is the presence of God transforming us and as such we should do whatever we have to in order to provide an appropriate place for God's presence to dwell in our midst.

No Worship Without Justice

The fifth sacrifice described in the opening chapters of Leviticus is the guilt offering or restitution offering. Leviticus 5:14 - 6:7 gives three reasons why this sacrifice might be offered. 5:15 states the first reason: "If anyone commits a breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord...". Its not exactly clear what "a breach of faith" or "the holy things of the Lord" might mean. Many scholars guess that this has to do with the sacred items set apart for worship in the tabernacle. The second reason given in 5:17 is nearly as vague with the very general statement "If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done...". In contrast to this pattern, the third reason given in 6:1-5 is quite detailed.

"If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, of if he has oppressed his neighbor or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely - in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby - if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt." 

We have here the first indication in Leviticus that right worship of God is bound up with our relationships with other human beings. The first four offerings have all been directed toward God and even some of the reasons for this offering has to do with "the holy things of the Lord." But now we also see that an offering is to be made to God even when another person has been wronged, the unspoken reasoning being that taking advantage of our neighbor is an offense to God. In fact, God takes this mistreatment of our fellow human beings so seriously that merely making an offering to God is not enough.  The offending party must make full restitution and add a fifth to what was taken. Additionally, this is the only sacrifice described in these first six chapters which does not offer a sliding scale where wealthier individuals brought larger, more costly animals while less prosperous individuals could bring smaller ones. The only proscription for the guilt offering is a ram; an animal which was probably second in cost only to a bull. Given the demand for a ram and the command to make a 120% restitution, this was one costly sacrifice which was needed to atone for the sin involved in taking advantage of one's neighbor.

Although this may be the first indication in Leviticus of the connection between worship of God and care for others, it comes as no surprise following closely on the heels of Exodus. We have already seen in the destruction of Pharaoh and the liberation of the people of Israel from their slavery how seriously God takes the oppression and injustice that human beings inflict upon one another. Likewise, we see in the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai that more than half the ten commandments regard our treatment of each other. Of course, the Hebrew prophets are well known for their calls to practice justice and mercy and to remind Israel that offering sacrifices is no substitute for respecting basic human dignity and caring for the vulnerable.

Standing in this same prophetic tradition, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for taking so much care in following their religious obligations that they tithe even a tenth of their spices but simultaneously neglect the weightier matters of the law, namely, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Similarly, Jesus says that if someone is offering a sacrifice and they remember that they have wronged a brother they should leave the sacrifice and go set things right before completing that act of worship.

I know this is sort of basic Christianity. Anyone who has spent much time in church is probably familiar with the passages I mentioned in the previous paragraph not to mention the fact that Jesus says the two greatest commandments are to love God and your neighbor. 1 John tells us that anyone who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar. James says we must show our faith by caring for others. Acts portrays the early Church as a community in which everyone's needs were met. This is a theme that is all over the Bible.

But sometimes...no, often... we need to be reminded of the basics.

Worship of God is not a substitute for loving our neighbor. Piety is not a substitute for justice and mercy. 

One of the stories I find most revealing in this regard is that of Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers in the temple. At first glance, this story is often read as a condemnation of business transactions taking place in this religious space but those who were selling and exchanging money in the temple-courts weren't just selling any old product. They were selling the animals necessary for sacrifice and they were exchanging Romans coins with images of the emperor on them for coins without an image so that faithful Jews could make an offering without bringing an idolatrous image into the temple. In other words, they were enabling Jews to carry out proper worship. But Jesus' words in this story tell us why this was a problem. He says:

Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers."

That first line is a quotation from Isaiah 56:7, a chapter in Isaiah which describes the temple as a place of prayer not only for Jews but for the people of every nation on the earth who turn to God. In fact, there was a specific place in the Temple called the Court of the Gentiles which was to be a place of prayer for non-Jews. As you might have guessed, this is where the sellers and money-changers set up shop and by doing so they effectively eliminated the one space where non-Jews, foreigners, that is, religious outsiders could worship the God of Israel. The piety of the religious was preventing the prayers of those seen as less religious. 

The second line of Jesus' words are a quotation from Jeremiah 7:11, a chapter which describes the people of Israel as practicing every kind of injustice and oppression only to run back to the temple for protection. The thinking was that as along as the temple stood in Jerusalem it meant that the presence of God was still with Israel and they would be safe. In other words, they were literally treating the temple like a robber's den, a hideout, a lair to which they could return and offer a prayer for protection after committing their evil acts. By quoting Jeremiah, Jesus declares that the kind of worship which went on in the temple, a worship that paid attention to every pious detail while turning a blind eye to the oppression and injustice of the world, made the temple less a place a worship and more a place for thieves to hide from their obligation to their fellow human being behind a veneer of religion and piety. 

And to think that this was the one thing in all the gospels which really got Jesus' blood boiling. This is the one episode of outright anger that we ever see from Jesus. Think of all the sin Jesus encountered in the gospels, the demon possessions, the often clueless disciples, the complete misunderstanding of who he was, even the threats of death and ultimately his crucifixion! But in the midst of all those things Jesus is calm, steady, patient, gracious, and forgiving. But this temple turned den of robbers, this worship without justice, is the one thing that turns that calm and patient Jesus into a raving mad man. 

If ever there was a word of warning to the Church today, I believe this is it. There is no bigger danger for "good, religious folk" like myself and the people who attend our church than that we will become a people so caught up in the details of our worship that we will neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness, that we will become so enamored with points of piety that we will take what should be a house of prayer for all the nations and turn it into nothing more than a place where religious people can hide from the neighbor we are called to love. May the Spirit of Jesus come and overturn our tables as well if that is what it takes for us to be rescued from becoming such a place and such a people.

Sin Excluding Love

Last week I introduced Leviticus and described the practice of sacrifice in general terms. Having made that introduction, I think it is now important to point out that not all sacrifice in Leviticus is the same. There are actually five kinds of sacrifice described in the first 6 chapters of Leviticus. The first three are the whole burnt offering (1:1-17), the grain offering (2:1-16), and the peace offering (3:1-17). Each of these had different purposes and different procedures but one thing they all had in common is that they were all free-will offerings. There is no stipulation in Leviticus for when these sacrifices were to be made. Instead, they could be brought freely and willingly at almost any time by anyone in Israel.  Presumably this was done merely out of joy or thankfulness. These sacrifices were intended solely as acts of worship, as a response to the grace and salvation that God had provided for Israel. This is significant because I'm pretty sure that when most Christians think of sacrifice we almost always think of it in terms of something being offered because of sin.  At most, however, only half the sacrifices described in Leviticus are about sin (the sin offering and guilt offering in ch. 4-5 and the Day of Atonement offering in 16). Sacrifices could also be offered as a sign of deliverance (the Passover meal signifying the Exodus from Egypt) and provision (sacrifice at the Feast of Firstfruits and Feast of Weeks in relation to harvest). Sacrifice does not always signify sin.

Of course, there are times when it does. Leviticus 4:2-3 reads "If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about things not to be done, and does anyone of them... then he shall offer a bull from the heard without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering." Leviticus 4:1-5:13 goes on to describe the proper procedure for the sin offering to be brought by various people (for the sins of priests, leaders, the whole of Israel, etc.) whenever they have failed to keep God's law. However, even when a sacrifice does signify sin, I wonder if we still often miss much of what is going on here.

In a good portion of evangelicalism the reasoning for sacrifice often goes something like this:

God is a perfectly just God whose righteousness can not be impugned. Therefore, when God's perfect law is broken the offending party must be punished in order to keep God's justice and honor intact. God graciously provided the sacrificial system so that God's justice might be satisfied and his wrath averted by the blood of an animal. This, in turn, explains Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The Son absorbed the wrath of the Father so that we would not have to bear punishment for our sin.

 Aside from all the theological problems one might have with such a characterization of God (Why is this God so vengeful and blood-thirsty? Is Christ's death an instance of divine child abuse?), there is also the fact that this reasoning for sacrifice is never given in Scripture itself. It is a reading imposed upon the text by a certain idea of God and God's justice which is not necessarily in line with the character of God as it is revealed in much of the rest of Scripture. In fact, there is very little, if any, explanation or reasoning given for the sacrifices proscribed in Leviticus. They are simply proscribed. This means, of course, that any attempt to explain the "theology of sacrifice" in Leviticus will have to go beyond what Scripture says since it gives no explanation. However, in attempting such an explanation we can pay careful attention to the details of the rituals themselves and how they fit into the larger story of God revealed in Scripture.

First, we must take note of the only statements in this chapter which come close to an explicitly stated theology. After the ritual of the sin offering is described the text says "So the priest shall make atonement for his sin and he shall be forgiven." (4:26, 31, 35; 5:6, 10. 13) There is no mention here of God's wrath being appeased or justice being satisfied. Instead, the Hebrew word for atonement indicates the idea of covering over the sin that has been committed. The Greek equivalent of this same word in the Septuagint carries the idea of purging obstacles that might stand between the person and God. Even our English word itself, at-one-ment, speaks to the idea of being at one with God. The emphasis here is on maintaining the relationship between God and the people.

We find this same idea highlighted in the practice of the ritual itself, especially in the use of blood, which acts as a kind of cleansing agent in the sanctuary. In contrast to the whole burnt offering where the blood of the animal is merely splattered against the sides of the altar and then poured out at the base of the alter, here the blood is placed on the horns of the altar and, in the case of the priests and the congregation of Israel, sprinkled seven times in front of the curtain leading into the most holy place. Much as the Hebrew and Greek words communicate, the animal's blood is used to cover over and purge the effects of one's sin from the tabernacle. (So much so that many scholars believe this should be referred to as the purification offering rather than the sin offering.) To be sure, the individual receives forgiveness in accordance with the sacrifice but forgiveness is really only part of the problem. The bigger problem is that the stench of sin threatens to drive God out of the Israelite camp. When someone sins, it threatens to pollute God's house. In the case of priests and communal sins of the whole people, it seems the stink is so pungent that it reaches right up to the inner curtain, threatening to enter into God's very dwelling. The concern of Leviticus is less for God's justice and more for God's holiness; that God's wholly otherness, God's sacredness will be profaned by the common and impure. The biggest problem with sin isn't that it might invite God's punishment but that it might drive God away entirely.

This understanding of sacrifice and sin is also in keeping with the picture of God we are given in the rest of Scripture. There are certainly times when God sends wrath and punishment but often it serves the purpose of rehabilitation more so than retribution. God exhibits his wrath to get Israel's attention and to call the people of Israel back to God. Likewise, we've just seen in the book of Exodus that it is God's presence with the people which is the number one concern of Israel. Indeed, Moses says it is the one thing which distinguishes them from all the other people on the earth.

Sin is a troublesome word these days. To speak it is to almost guarantee that you will be misunderstood. But before we go blaming our "relativistic, amoral culture," we as the Church need to realize that sin is our word. It is uniquely a part of our faith vocabulary. If others misunderstand the meaning of a word that is uniquely ours to define, perhaps the problem is that our speech and our lives have not served as trustworthy dictionaries.

I believe that the sin offering described in Leviticus shows us that sin is a deadly serious thing and as such it is a word worth reclaiming. Perhaps Leviticus can also help us take the first step in knowing how to reclaim it - by reminding us that the real tragedy of sin is not the failure to keep what can sometimes seem an arbitrary moral code. The real tragedy of sin is that it threatens to drive the presence of God out of our lives. And conversely, if we can't say that something really threatens to distance us from God then maybe we should think twice about calling it sin. Sometimes Christians can become so absorbed with fleeing sin that we forget we should be running toward God.

It is not the narrative of an angry God which under-girds the notion of sin but the story of a God who is holy love; who will go to any length - even taking on our own flesh - in order to dwell among us. Sin is the name given to the things which keep this loving God out of our lives. On a blog to which I subscribed just earlier today, I happened across these words.

The man who keenly longs to escape his sin
Has first to forget about escaping sin.
What he requires instead
Is a role in a Larger, Better Story.
A Good Story.
A God Story.
And when he finds it, he will realize,
There is no escaping sin.
There is only learning Love.

Embodied Worship

This Sunday I begin a series from the book of Leviticus. If your first inclination after reading that sentence is to stop reading the rest of this post, you probably aren't alone. In fact, I thought a story from one of the commentaries on Leviticus I've been reading in preparation for preaching from Leviticus summed it up well. The writer said that he discovered that his children were working on reading through the entire Bible on their own. When he found out that his son was about to begin Leviticus he encouraged him to merely skim it rather than actually try to read it for fear that he would get bogged down and never make it past Leviticus. It is a pretty strong statement as to our general aversion to this book of the Bible when even someone who has himself written a commentary on Leviticus discourages his own child from spending too much time in the book. Surely Leviticus has to make the (very) short list for the most neglected books in all of the Christian canon.

I think it is helpful to begin by considering what it is we actually have in front of us in a book like Leviticus. It is essentially an instruction book. I know Christians sometimes characterize the whole Bible as God's instruction book on the Christian life but that's really not quite right, at least not in the way Leviticus is; not in terms of categories of literature. Much of Scripture is story (and a number of other genres too, of course) and while we may indeed gather instruction from those stories, the stories themselves do not come in the form of instructions. They, in fact, serve a much larger and more complete purpose than that.

But Leviticus is not like that. There are a handful of stories in it but the vast majority of this book is very detailed and specific instruction regarding things like sacrifice, purity, festivals, and harvest. In short, most of the book is an instruction manual for worship. A parallel today might be the Revised Common Lectionary which outlines passages of Scripture for each Sunday's worship or the Book of Common Prayer which provides prayers and orders of worship for certain occasions like weddings or funerals. In our denomination, we have the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene. It is a small book that outlines our church government, certain moral expectations, and even some rituals for certain parts of worship like communion, baptism, or the reception of new church members. Although the Manual is not exactly the same kind of literature as Leviticus, it is probably the closest modern parallel we have in our tradition.

Notice that none of the examples I mentioned above are books that you would read from cover to cover. This isn't out of laziness or the irrelevancy of the books themselves. Its just not what those books are designed for. Likewise, there is a certain sense in which Leviticus probably wasn't meant to be read like other parts of Scripture. The point of reading an instruction manual is not to become an expert on the instructions but to have successfully carried out what the manual describes. When we read Leviticus, we are reading something that ultimately was not meant to be read but practiced. In some ways, reading Leviticus is somewhat akin to reading a really detailed order of worship that might be written out for a worship leader or praise team. Obviously, reading the order of worship is not nearly as meaningful as having actually participated in the worship service it describes. I think this is part of the reason even faithful readers of Scripture often flounder on the shores of Leviticus.

Of course, saying that Leviticus is a book concerned with practices doesn't entirely let us off the hook from reading it because there is another sense in which it is a book that is meant to be read. By saying that Leviticus is Scripture, we are claiming that God speaks through the reading of this book. In fact, it has ceased to be an instruction manual, a book of practice for us as Christians since we carry out virtually none of its admonitions. How does a book written as an instruction manual, the instructions of which we don't follow, become Scripture for us? Does this book have anything to say to us or does it fully deserve the neglect it often receives?

Perhaps we can return to our earlier examples for help here. Let's say that one did sit down and read the Revised Common Lectionary from cover to cover. Although this is not the purpose for which the book is designed, one could still learn an enormous amount about the worship of a church which used it. For example, it would become obvious that a church which utilized the RCL thought that hearing Scripture was an important part of worship and also that it was important to hear from all parts of Scripture, not just favorite passages. It would probably also be a church that thought the seasons of the church year were a good way to keep the life of Christ at the center of its worship. Similarly, one could learn a lot about our beliefs concerning marriage, baptism, and church membership in the Church of the Nazarene simply by reading those written rituals in the Manual.

Likewise, we can learn something meaningful about ancient Israel's worship of Yahweh simply by reading Leviticus. One of the very first things you notice about the worship described in the book of Leviticus is that it is active, its demanding, its overwhelmingly physical, even costly. Worship in Leviticus is not passive listening, it is not merely attendance, and it is not primarily a mental or emotional thing. The vision of worship in Leviticus says there is work to be done here. The act of worship we hear described in most of Leviticus 1 involves bringing a farm animal (read: stinky, dirty, and I am going to assume not always cooperative), laying your hands on its head, shedding its blood, the priest splattering that blood on the altar, dissecting the animal so as to throw out the inappropriate body parts, putting the other parts on the altar, washing them to make sure they are free of excrement or undigested food, and finally offering what is on the altar by fire. 

Sounds exhausting, doesn't it? At the very least, it sounds like a lot more than is usually demanded of us in most of our worship services. So much so that for many of us our first reaction is probably something along the lines of "Thank God Jesus died for me so that I don't have to do all that." But I want to suggest that such a statement is at best only half right. 

To be sure, we believe that Jesus' death means that the kind of animal sacrifice described above is not the kind of response that Jesus demands of us. But let's be clear that Jesus still demands a response. And that response is not merely "belief." There is work to be done in the Christian faith, in Christian worship, as well. 

Often when we in the protestant tradition hear that word "work" in relation to our faith we automatically assume that someone is talking about earning their salvation. In fact, we often accuse the Jewish people of this; that their failure was that they thought they had to earn their salvation by following the Law. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people of Israel knew they were not earning their salvation by offering the sacrifices prescribed in Leviticus. God had already provided salvation for them in their exodus from Egypt before any law was ever given. The laws of sacrifice were an opportunity to respond to what God had already done and to continue to participate in the covenant which God had so graciously provided for the people of Israel. 

In the same way, the work we are called to is not to earn our salvation but to respond to the salvation Jesus has already provided and to continue to participate in the new covenant which Jesus has inaugurated. But just because it is a new covenant without animal sacrifice does not mean there is not costly, sacrificial, very physical work to be done. In fact, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the very book which so carefully articulates why animal sacrifice is not a part of the new covenant Jesus has made for us, is also the book which so painstakingly defines "faith" as a work that must be lived. Hebrews 10:23-25 reads 

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

Our faith is something we must work to hold fast to. It involves stirring up one another to love and good works. It means choosing to meet together and encouraging each other. And this is only the beginning for from here the author will go on in Hebrews 11 to describe those who lived "by faith" as those who did the work of faithful living: enduring persecution, actively trusting God, pursuing justice, righteousness, and peace.

Christian faith and Christian worship may not be as grotesquely physical as animal sacrifice but it is no less of an embodied faith. We are a people called into a covenant which requires the response of our whole selves. What if we showed up to our worship services with the expectation that the pastor wasn't the only one doing work that day? Or if instead of focusing on "being fed" we were focused on how we can actively contribute to the worship of the Church, our own spiritual growth, and the growth of those around us? Or if we left our church building knowing that our spiritual work week had only just begun?