Rules, Rules, Rules (Leviticus 19-20, Psalm 23-24)

Today’s post will focus on Leviticus 19. There’s a lot to unpack in this chapter, so I’m just going to be talk about each aspect individually, rather than try too hard to link it all.

The first part of this chapter that struck me were the rules about harvesting the land:

^“9 When you harvest your land’s produce, you must not harvest all the way to the edge of your field; and don’t gather up every remaining bit of your harvest. ¹⁰ Also do not pick your vineyard clean or gather up all the grapes that have fallen there. Leave these items for the poor and the immigrant; I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19: 9-10)

I breathe a sigh of relief as I continue to find tidbits in the Old Testament that are about kindness, caring and other things that might fall under the general heading of social justice, something I believe in a lot. With the way the conservative right is ranting and raving against government spending and social safety nets, it’s nice to see that, no, actually, God cares about the poor and wants everyone to do so, too. I also like the Fourth Church Youth video that goes with these particular verses. They posted it around the time of the “Souper Bowl of Caring” (when they collect food and money during Super Bowl weekend) and chose to focus on the topic of food insecurity. Food insecurity is generally thought of at an international scale, particularly in areas in the Global South, but there are serious issues with food insecurity in our backyard, as well, so I was glad to see them link also to food desserts. I recently attended an event about eating mercifully (more on that in a future post) and the idea of only taking from the land what we need and leaving the rest for the poor, immigrants, animals, etc. is important on so many levels.

So on the one hand, you’ve got rules like the one above and the golden rule:

^“18 You must not take revenge nor hold a grudge against any of your people; instead, you must love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD .” (Leviticus 19: 18)

But then, there are rules like these:

^“19 You must keep my rules. Do not crossbreed your livestock, do not plant your field with two kinds of seed, and do not wear clothes made from two kinds of material.” (Leviticus 19: 19)

So, obviously, if you were to arbitrarily pick and choose which ones you follow today and which ones not, that wouldn’t be a very faithful reading. So then how are you supposed to pick through these rules and figure out what applies and what doesn’t? Historical context seems to help. Alas, I don’t know very much, so I won’t be of much help.

Luckily, there are a few more good ones in here:

^“33 When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. ³⁴ Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. ³⁵ You must not act unjustly in a legal case involving measures of length, weight, or volume. ³⁶ You must have accurate scales and accurate weights, an accurate ephah^e and an accurate hin.” (Leviticus 19: 33-36)

Treating immigrants like humans! What a concept. Not cheating! Again, sometimes you have to wonder how bad the Israelites were that they had to be told things like this. But then you look at today’s society and you realize, oh, yes, people do need reminders like these.

I’ll leave you with one more random thought, a question really. This is from Leviticus 20. What’s the deal with “Molech?” Is this another name for the devil or something? Sometimes as I read this, I feel like I’m jumping into a tv series in the second season and I missed out on the introduction of all these characters (see later, Balaam).

Take That, Old Testament (Leviticus 17-18, Acts 10)

Leviticus 18 begins similarly to something I posted about previously, where it seems that all these rules are God’s way of separating the Jews out from everyone else as a deliberate establishment of a new religion.

“The LORD said to Moses, ² Speak to the Israelites and say to them: I am the LORD your God. ³ You must not do things like they are done in the land of Egypt, where you used to live. And you must not do things like they are done in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You must not follow the practices^q of those places. ⁴ No, my regulations and my rules are the ones you must keep by following them: I am the LORD your God. ⁵ You must keep my rules and my regulations; by doing them one will live; I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 18: 1-5)

But then it takes a turn for the awkward and unsettling–discussions about sexual practices. While for the most part, it covers incest, adultery and bestiality, it also has a problematic verse that many have taken to mean something broader than what it sounds like:

²² You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice. (Leviticus 18: 22)

Not sure what to say about that. In the context of the rest of the chapter, it’s not as harsh as it sounds. I’ve heard an explanation that the rules in Leviticus just have to do with things God doesn’t want the Israelites to do, so as to make them different. And if you are to look later in similar chapters, you’ll see long lists of things that today are not considered bad, like in Leviticus 19 (wearing clothes of two materials, eating things with blood, mixing plants on a field, crossbreeding livestock). Also, I’ve heard the explanation that men treated women as property, even in intimate relations, so it could be saying that when two men have sex, the one shouldn’t treat the other like property. Then there’s the explanation that all these rules are purity laws about being “unclean” and not fit for worship time specifically, not necessarily everyday life. There’s also the explanation that many of the rules found in the Old Testament have more to do with the propagation of a brand new nation (and not wasting procreation opportunities), than with actual delineations of right versus wrong.

But then, the beauty of reading the Old and New Testaments in parallel becomes apparent, as does the beauty of Jesus and the New Testament, in Acts 10. It tells the story of Peter learning what exactly Jesus’ message was about love, and basically it’s a direct rejection of the concepts of “cleanliness” and favoritism found in the Old Testament, particularly in this day’s Leviticus chapters. The Fourth Church Youth video describes it a bit, but I’ll let the text speak for itself:

⁹ At noon on the following day, as their journey brought them close to the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰ He became hungry and wanted to eat. While others were preparing the meal, he had a visionary experience. ¹¹ He saw heaven opened up and something like a large linen sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. ¹² Inside the sheet were all kinds of four-legged animals, reptiles, and wild birds.^b13 A voice told him, “ Get up, Peter! Kill and eat! ”

¹⁴ Peter exclaimed, “ Absolutely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean. ”

¹⁵ The voice spoke a second time, “ Never consider unclean what God has made pure. ” ¹⁶ This happened three times, then the object was suddenly pulled back into heaven.

…

²⁷ As they continued to talk, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. ²⁸ He said to them, “ You all realize that it is forbidden for a Jew to associate or visit with outsiders. However, God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean. ²⁹ For this reason, when you sent for me, I came without objection. I want to know, then, why you sent for me. ”

³⁰ Cornelius answered, “ Four days ago at this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon, I was praying at home. Suddenly a man in radiant clothing stood before me. ³¹ He said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayers, and your compassionate acts are like a memorial offering to him. ³² Therefore, send someone to Joppa and summon Simon, who is known as Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, located near the seacoast.’ ³³ I sent for you right away, and you were kind enough to come. Now, here we are, gathered in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has directed you to say. ”

³⁴ Peter said, “ I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. ³⁵ Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶ This is the message of peace he sent to the Israelites by proclaiming the good news through Jesus Christ: He is Lord of all! (Acts 10: 9-16, 27-36) (emphasis mine)

How awesome is that? Right there in the New Testament, it explains that we’re not supposed to be following the rules from the Old Testament. I never realized that it said it this directly, and oh, how it changes everything!

God as Dictator? (Leviticus 15-16, Acts 9)

Leviticus 15 is pretty awkward. Regulations on sexual emissions! The February 20th Daily Devotion for this reading tries to make the argument that passages like this prove that God isn’t a dictator. Basically, Sarah Bennett is saying that the ridiculousness of these laws prove that we need to examine our laws regularly in a two-sided relationship with God. She uses A.J. Jacob’ The Year of Living Biblically to support that argument, and further states that,

“Israel’s laws were given by God to provide structure to an ever-changing community on a journey. But they were meant to be revised, changed, or even thrown out. Change can be difficult to handle, but it is important to remember that just because something is a law does not mean it is or should be permanent.” (Sarah Bennett, Feb. 20th)

I’d say that with a passage like this, that view of the laws seems strengthened when you consider context and history, as I mentioned in my post about laws regarding skin disease. At the time, they didn’t understand bodily fluids, their purposes, their origins, etc., and well, if you don’t understand it, it’s pretty scary and distressing (as everyone probably remembers from puberty), so it’s no wonder that they would make such strict rules about this thing they didn’t understand.

On the one hand, I feel like it’s a stretch to use a passage like this to make an argument for God not being a dictator, but on the other hand, I ultimately agree and I do think that to take passages like this literally goes against the spirit of the message of the bible and Jesus.

Universal Health Care (Leviticus 13-14)

Leviticus 13-14 tells us everything there is to know about what to do with people with skin diseases. That is, everything there was to know at the time. I don’t know enough to know what the medical situation was back then, but it seems that it was probably fairly unsophisticated. And these chapters are probably the extent of what they knew as medical advice at the time (I don’t actually know whether any of that is true, I’m just speculating). An interesting thing, though, is that in these chapters, as there have been in a few other Leviticus chapters, there is a specific mention of what happens if you’re too poor to to be able to afford the “proper,” prescribed treatment methods. Even as strangely harsh and specific the rules were back then about how to treat people with disease, they still showed flexibility and compassion toward the less fortunate.

21 Now if the person is poor and cannot afford these things, they can bring one male sheep as a compensation offering, to be lifted up in order to make reconciliation for them; a grain offering of one-tenth of an ephah of choice flour mixed with oil; a log of oil; 22 and two turtledoves or two pigeons, whatever they can afford—one as a purification offering and the other as an entirely burned offering. (Leviticus 14: 21-22) [emphasis mine]

My mind, when I originally read it, stopped there, but the Fourth Church Youth video on this focuses on the need for universal health care in the United States. How right this is. Though the Leviticus means for treating and separating people with disease is primitive, they still had the wherewithal to make sure that even the poor were treated. Their motivation might have been just so they could prevent the general population from getting sick by the poor person spreading disease, but in that, as we should be now, they at least recognized that the health of the whole community depends on the health of the least.

No Drinking in Church (Leviticus 10)

Leviticus 10 contains a lot of rules for the priests, but one that struck me as kind of funny is this one:

^“8 The LORD said to Aaron: ⁹ Both you and your sons must not drink wine or beer when you enter the meeting tent so that you don’t die—this is a permanent rule throughout your future generations— ¹⁰ so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, ¹¹and so that you can teach the Israelites all the rules that the LORD spoke to them through Moses.” (Leviticus 10: 8-11)

So, no drinking wine in the tent/temple/church? Interesting that Christians serve wine in church. Though, I suppose if you’re Catholic, you don’t think it’s “wine,” it’s actually Jesus’ blood. But still…you’ll be unclean and you’ll die. Harsh.

Compassion for Others and for Ourselves (Leviticus 6-7, Acts 6)

The first part of the assigned reading was Leviticus 6-7. When I read through this, all I could think of was “more boring rules.” It wasn’t until I watched the Fourth Church Youth video that I noticed what a big deal the first part is:

^“2 If you sin: 

by acting unfaithfully against the LORD ; 

by deceiving a fellow citizen concerning a deposit or pledged property;

by cheating a fellow citizen through robbery;

³ or, though you’ve found lost property, you lie about it;

or by swearing falsely about anything that someone might do and so sin,

⁴ at that point, once you have sinned and become guilty of sin, you must return the property you took by robbery or fraud, or the deposit that was left with you for safekeeping, or the lost property that you found, ⁵ or whatever it was that you swore falsely about. You must make amends for the principal amount and add one-fifth to it. You must give it to the owner on the day you become guilty. ⁶ You must bring to the priest as your compensation to the LORD a flawless ram from the flock at the standard value as a compensation offering. ⁷ The priest will make reconciliation for you before the LORD , and you will be forgiven for anything you may have done that made you guilty.” (Leviticus 6: 2-7)

So, basically, even though Leviticus is just a huge list of all the things you’re not supposed to do and the rituals you are supposed to do, even if you screw up, if you make amends, you will be forgiven. And that amends is generally directly related to the crime. None of this vindictive, punitive incarceration perpetuation industry discussed in a recent New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik that this all makes me think of.

And to continue the theme of compassion, the second half of the assigned reading was Acts 6. Again, I didn’t think a lot of the reading until after I read the daily devotion by John Boyle (Feb. 16) and then noticed the very first part:

“About that time, while the number of disciples continued to increase, a complaint arose. Greek-speaking disciples accused the Aramaic-speaking disciples because their widows were being overlooked in the daily food service.” (Acts 6: 1)

The gist of John Boyle’s point is that when we discriminate against people who are “other” or get caught up in petty, prejudiced squabbles (ahem… politicians…), the most vulnerable among us are the ones that suffer the most. We need to look past that and have compassion.

So Many Rules (Leviticus 1-3)

While Leviticus 1-3 wasn’t quite as dull as some parts of Exodus were, it’s still difficult to read through these long lists of rules that really don’t seem to apply at all today. Like, what exactly is an entirely burned offering (Leviticus 1: 3-17)? So much time is spent, not just here, throughout the Old Testament even, talking about them…what are they? I understand that the phrase is translated differently in other versions of the bible, but if this version is supposed to be such plain language, what is it supposed to mean?

The Fourth Church Youth video by John Vest that went with this reading talks about the way physicality can play a role in faith, as shown through Leviticus. And the daily devotion by Judith Watt that went with this reading addresses the fact that because of Jesus, we don’t follow all these tedious rules anymore. Instead, the gist of what we’re supposed to take from all these rules of lists is that we should try to do our best.

“The first three chapters of Leviticus are instructions given to the Israelites about proper worship. Proper worship in the earliest days of the formation of God’s people was centered around sacrifice at the altar and the centrality of the temple. We find ourselves reading these lists, quickly dismissing them. I can’t imagine how many of us could have met the obligations of proper worship in that day. And yet the theme that jumps out at me in reading all of these lists and also in reading the Acts story about Ananias and Sapphira [Acts 5] is the idea that God deserves our best. Thankfully, Jesus has given us a message that turns all of these former lists upside down. Our best is the best we have to offer in how we live and how we love. We don’t have to be perfect or unblemished or rich or smart to please God. We simply have to offer our best.” (Judith Watt, Feb. 14)