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Leviticus 1
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Well, welcome today. My name is Jeremy. I'm part of the team here at Commons, and we have just come out of a series in the book of first John. Now it was a quick three week little series, to start our third year together as a church, but we wanted to set the stage for the year as it were by rooting ourselves in some of the core values of our community. And first John is just one of these incredible little books that has so much to mind from it.
Speaker 1:And so we didn't cover the entire book. We just hit a couple of highlights, but we actually started in chapter two where the writer reminds us that sometimes we need to hear someone else say the things that we struggle to believe about ourselves. He writes and he says, you are strong, and you know God, and his word lives in you because you have overcome the evil one. Now, obviously, that is not objectively true of everyone who was in the room reading this letter in the first century. Clearly, that is not objectively true of each of us as we read this letter today.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we are weak, and sometimes we are unsure. Sometimes we feel very defeated. But the writer here understands that sometimes we need to be reminded of our best selves. Sometimes we need to be reminded of our potential. Sometimes we need to be told what God sees when God looks at us.
Speaker 1:So it's okay to need to be reminded of how strong you are. In the second week, we backtracked. We went to back to look at chapter one in first John. And there, we had to talk about, some of the background to this collection of ideas that we call Gnosticism. But the basic idea of Gnosticism was that the created world was bad, and the spirit world was good.
Speaker 1:So sun and sand and beaches and rain and trees and skin and sex and food and wine, all that is physical was bad. But spirit and thought and prayer, anything transcendent was good. And part of what the early Christian story affirmed was, no. It's all good. Because there is only one creator, and anything he creates is infused with his goodness.
Speaker 1:But then, in probably the most incredible endorsement of creation, the creator becomes creature. And so God is embodied and incarnated. In Christ, God comes and he dwells among us. And not only that, God tells us that the clearest image we will ever see of him, all that we need to know about the divine is present in Jesus. So not only is God willing to enter creation when he does, that's the best way to know him.
Speaker 1:And so anytime we wonder about God, we go back and we look at Jesus. That's our starting point. And then finally, last week, as we wrapped up the series, we moved into chapter three, and we looked at this really neat passage where the writer talks about something he calls eternal life. Except that the conversation wasn't about what happens after you die. In fact, he is very explicitly talking about something that comes and lives inside of you right now.
Speaker 1:He says, this happens when we love. In fact, he says that eternal life resides in us when we give our life away the way that Jesus does. That sounds like a paradox. But what he's talking about here is not just a life that goes on forever. No.
Speaker 1:He's talking about life that really lives, full and present and vibrant flourishing life, life that does what life was supposed to do. That's what eternal life looks like. So that's how the life of God can be inside of you right now when you love. Now we didn't talk about everything in first John. I would really encourage you, if you haven't had a chance yet, to go and read through that little sermon, because there is a lot in there for you to pull out of it.
Speaker 1:Today, however, we are moving on to a new series, and the artwork is obviously already on the wall behind me. And, yes, that's right. We are going from the love of first John all the way to the ritual of Leviticus. Now why Leviticus? Well, I can't pretend that it is because a lot of people have been asking for this.
Speaker 1:People have not been banging down my office door asking, Jeremy, when are we gonna get to Leviticus? That has not happened, and that's okay. Maybe one of our real tests for year three here at Commons is if anyone continues to come to church by the end of this series, then we'll know we're on to something. Because we can be honest here. One, this book gets used out of context a lot, and two, is a fairly hard to access set of writings.
Speaker 1:We just live in a very different world from this text. There's a lot of background that we need in order to work through to make sense properly of how these ancient cultures thought about their world or how they thought about God. At the same time, however, this book is part of the Pentateuch. So that's the first five books of the Bible, also known as the books of Moses, or maybe if you've heard the term Torah in Judaism, it's all the same thing. And what that means is that this book sits in a foundational place for Judaism and therefore for Christianity, which emerges out of that Jewish story.
Speaker 1:And one of our commitments here is to be intellectually honest. And so sometimes that means that we need to do some of the hard work to make sense of these texts that are foundational and yet often ignored in the church. Even if that means they make us a little bit uncomfortable, even if they seem a little bit strange, and let's be honest, a lot a bit bloody, because there's a lot of blood in the Leviticus. My guess is that most of us have never heard a sermon all about Leviticus, let alone spend a couple months in this book, and that is okay. Because I'm gonna do my best to start at the ground level and give us just a primer in this text as we go through it.
Speaker 1:Now we're not gonna go verse by verse. There is just a lot of detail in here that we simply don't need unless we think we're going to try to reenact some of these rituals, which we're not because they're gross. And frankly, because in Christ, they have largely been done away with. But we are going to try to explore the major themes and movements in this book. And in that, we'll try to understand what God was teaching this ancient culture about himself.
Speaker 1:Now as we do that, sometimes we are gonna see how God was preparing the story for Jesus, and the connections are going to make a lot of sense to us. Other times, we are gonna see just how completely Jesus upends ancient assumptions about the divine, and we're gonna see just how incredibly revolutionary the Christian story was in bringing God's character closer to his people. And there will be a disconnect, and that's okay. And so this is going to be a very different series for us, and it is going to take some work from all of us, but it's also going to be a lot of fun. Trust me on this, especially if you're a theology nerd like I am.
Speaker 1:So let's jump into this. But first, let's pray. God of all time and times and places and peoples, we come today from our unique place in history with certain assumptions and perspectives, societal norms that inform our world, and that sometimes seem to separate us from these most difficult of texts. Would you remind us today that you are unchanging, that you are steady and steadfast, that you are unfazed by the shifting of time and cultures, and yet that you are also so deeply loving that you have been present to each generation before us, that you are present to us right now in just the ways that we need you to be. Would we sense today that the same divinity that condescended to speak with the ancient Israelites in their language and their world now lives and moves and loves in and through us?
Speaker 1:May we do our best to read these texts with ancient eyes, but never lose sight of the fullness of God that dwells in the person of Jesus. God, may this be a festival day in which we reaffirm our love for you, our commitment to your text, our care for our neighbor, our hope for the city, and in all things, might we honor you from whom the gifts of life come, from generation after generation down to us this day. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Alright.
Speaker 1:Leviticus. Well, the plan today is to do a bit of an overview to help situate ourselves, and then we're going to look at the opening chapter, and that is it. And after that, we will have 26 chapters to go for the rest of this series, but I promise it won't take twenty six weeks. We will finish this up just in time for Advent as we reengage our focus on the person of Jesus for that season. Now earlier, I mentioned something called the Pentateuch or the books of Moses or the Torah.
Speaker 1:Well, these are the first five books in your Bible, and it's where you'll find Leviticus. It's also where we've spent some time as a community over the past couple of years. So Genesis is the first book, and it tells the story of the creation of the world and the emergence of this tribal family that God decides to use to bless the world. That's Abraham and his family. And that's a story that we spent some time together in last year.
Speaker 1:You can find that on our podcast if you want some of the background to that story. But it's also where Christians, Jews, and Muslims all draw back to as their source. That's why we call these three the Abrahamic religions. So Abraham is a pretty big deal. That's Genesis.
Speaker 1:Next is Exodus, which tells the story of the descendants of Abraham. Now they have become more than a family, more than a tribe now. They are a large group of people, and they are in slavery in Egypt. And Exodus is dominated by the figure of Moses who God chooses to free his people as they exit from slavery. We spent a couple months in this story as well.
Speaker 1:You can also find that on our podcast if you wanna check out the story of Moses. That brings us to Leviticus, which is the third book in your Bible. And it is largely about this newly formed nation of Israel, these descendants of Abraham, now under the leadership of Moses, trying to figure out how to get along as a society as they search for a new place to settle And so Leviticus is sort of equal parts social guideline and religious ritual designed to help this community manage itself. If you have ever tried reading through Leviticus and thought, man, this is boring. I'd rather read municipal bylaws.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what you were doing. At least you're on the right page there. If you have ever found yourself riveted by city council discussions of secondary suites, you may love Leviticus. There you go. Check it out.
Speaker 1:Now the fourth book in the Bible is called Numbers. It's all about the nation wandering around in the wilderness for a generation. And the final book in the Pentateuch called Deuteronomy is all about God reiterating his promise to give his people a land, and then God really trying to impress his character and his commitment on these people before they move into that land. So that's the body of writings that Leviticus sits within, and it sits right in the middle of the Torah. But the text of Leviticus is actually structured as if it was a pyramid or a triangle itself.
Speaker 1:It builds up on one side to a climax in the very middle of the book and then down the other side by rearticulating the same ideas in a slightly new way. In literary analysis, we call this a chiasmus. It comes from the Greek. It just means a crossing arrangement. Chi is the Greek letter that corresponds to an x in our Roman alphabet.
Speaker 1:And you can try to work chiasmus into your next dinner party conversation. You'll sound very smart, also a little pretentious, but this is what Leviticus looks like. Chapters one to seven are all about rituals, and in particular, the various offerings and sacrifices that these people made to God. We're gonna talk about one of those today. Chapter eight, nine, and 10 focus on the priests, and in particular, how the priests were set apart for their role in community.
Speaker 1:Chapter 11 to 15, this is all about ritual purity. Now we're gonna get here, and this is strange, and it's hard to get our heads around, but a lot of ancient cultures had this idea that we call ritual purity. This is important for us to understand. This has nothing to do with morality. So very famously, a woman on her menstrual cycle was ritually impure in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:That had nothing to do with shaming her or regarding her as less than or dirty. It's not what it was about. This was strictly to do with religious ritual and how and when people participated in these different practices. So for example here, if you touched a dead body, that also made you ritually impure in Leviticus. Well, priests are not exempt from dealing with dead bodies.
Speaker 1:And so if the priests do their God ordained jobs well, they make themselves ritually impure on a regular basis. Impurity is not a bad thing. It was a normal part of life in ancient Israel. What ritual impurity did for the people was remind them that there are certain rhythms and patterns to life, and there are practices that are set apart for the worship of God. Now it's really hard for us to think that way, partly because we don't have to think that way anymore.
Speaker 1:Christ completely does away with this whole idea of ritual impurity. This idea that we can only approach God in certain ways and certain times, all of that is gone, but it was a very important part of this Levitical system. It's just important that we understand that when we read about ritual impurity, this was not a value statement. Didn't make you a bad person has nothing to do with sin. And it's important because once we start looking at the sacrifices and offerings for ritual purity, if we associate that with sin or with Christ, we're gonna misread what's happening in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:K? It was a cultural thing. It was very important to them, but it is very foreign to us. Now speaking of sin, chapter 16 is the climax of the book, and it is about sin. And the central idea here is a very complex concept called atonement.
Speaker 1:Now atonement is an English word that was literally invented. It was made up to help describe what is going on primarily in Christ, but also to some extent at the center of the book of Leviticus. This is where the people were made at one with God. That's what atonement means. The at one ment.
Speaker 1:And so chapter 16 is where the sins of the people are covered up temporarily in the Old Testament. So two things here. First, the vast majority of offerings and sacrifices we will see in Leviticus have nothing to do with sin. This is just how they approached God. It's how they thanked God.
Speaker 1:It's how they remembered God. Now sacrifices were also part of how they thought about sin, but if we read sin into every time we read about a sacrifice in Leviticus, if we think it's some nasty person who's done some terrible thing, that's misleading. Sacrifices were used for all kinds of things in Leviticus. It was simply part of how ancient cultures expressed their devotion to God. But second, when we get here to atonement in chapter 16, this is where we are going to see some major differences between atonement in Christianity and atonement in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:What we see in Leviticus is a covering up of sins. What we see in Jesus is a forgiveness of sins. What we see in Leviticus is a temporary fix. What we see in Jesus is a fundamental shift in our relationship with God. So Jesus' death is not a sacrifice like we see in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:Yes. Leviticus points us toward Jesus. But to think of what Jesus does just as a bigger, better version of sacrifice in the vein of what we see here is badly missing the point. This is why the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament compares Jesus to the Old Testament system, and he says, guys, don't you see how big a deal this is? He says, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins.
Speaker 1:That's Hebrews ten four. And now Jesus has fundamentally changed the game. Everything is different now. That's the whole point of Jesus. That's the point of Hebrews, that Jesus is so much better than everything we will read about in this book of Leviticus.
Speaker 1:That's part of what makes Christianity so compelling for us. It's also part of what was so shocking for the early Christians who were coming out of this Jewish mindset of temporarily covering up sin in Leviticus. K. So that's the ride up to the climax, the day of atonement. Now we ride down the other side.
Speaker 1:Think of this as a really fun sacrifice filled roller coaster. Here we go. Chapter 17 to 20, this is all about purity again, but this time it's about moral purity and the choices that we make that please or displease God. Chapter 21 to 22 are about the priests again, but this time it's the standards for the priests. So they've been set apart for this new job.
Speaker 1:How are they expected to live differently now? And then finally, the last five chapters of this book, 23 to 27, we return to ritual, but these are the rituals of thanksgiving. And so this is all about the Sabbath and these various festival days that were used to thank God throughout the year as the people lived in Israel. So that's the basic structure of Leviticus. Now as a caveat, let me say this.
Speaker 1:Biblical scholars love to find the chiasmus everywhere in the Bible. I find myself generally unimpressed with most of them, because a lot of the time, they really seem like a stretch to me. Like, they're forced onto the text sometimes. People just like patterns. This one really does seem to make sense of what's going on in the text.
Speaker 1:And to be honest, in a book that is all about ritual and purity, if there is anywhere for a chiastic structure to make sense, it's probably here in Leviticus. So as far as this diagram goes, take it or leave it, it's just a framework. But there are a lot of scholars that approach the text this way, and I happen to think that it's a useful, helpful way for us to get the major themes in our head, at least when we're looking from a 40,000 foot level at the text. K. Now with all that in mind, let's finally actually open this book.
Speaker 1:And we're gonna start at the start today. This is Leviticus one verse one, and I've already talked about a lot. So I'm just going to read the first two verses of this book, and then I'll point out a couple things in the opening chapter, and then we will call it a day. But Leviticus one says that the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting. He said, speak to the Israelites and say to them, when anyone among you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.
Speaker 1:Now if you read on, verse three says that if the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you are to offer a male without defect. And then the text proceeds to give you all the very specific directions around that. A lot of details about how to kill the animal and then how to cut it up, details about how to clean it and skin it, what to do with the organs and where to splash the blood. For someone who doesn't even eat meat, it's all very gory to read. At one point this week, I was writing this sermon, and I needed a break.
Speaker 1:And so I walked over to the other office where everyone was working, and I sat down with a glazed look in my eye, and someone asked, how's it going? And I responded, so much blood. Because this is a very different book to immerse yourself in than first John was last month. But if you make it through that and you keep going, verse 10 says, if the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, either from the sheep or the goats, you are to offer a male without defect. And then it proceeds to give you all the very specific directions around that.
Speaker 1:And if you haven't passed out yet and you keep reading, eventually, you'll get to verse 14. And this is interesting. Because verse 14 says that if your offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then you are to offer a dove or a young pigeon. And then it proceeds to give you all the very specific directions around that. Now the thing is, all of these are the same offering.
Speaker 1:It's called a burnt offering, and we will talk about it more next week in the context of the first three offerings of Leviticus. They kinda go together. The burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering. But the burnt offering was essentially your way of saying hello to God. This is how you approach God.
Speaker 1:This is what you do to enter into God's space. But according to the opening passage of Leviticus, there are two options here. You can offer an animal from the herd or the flock. Now the herd would be a bull or a cow. The flock would be a goat or a sheep.
Speaker 1:And what's the difference between those two? Money. A bull is worth a lot more than a goat. A cow is worth a lot more than a sheep. And the text doesn't tell us which one we should bring.
Speaker 1:It doesn't need to. If you are an ancient Israelite, you can figure that out on your own. You should bring whatever you can afford to God. That should not be lost on us. I know that a lot of churches spend a lot of time trying to convince more people to give more money.
Speaker 1:I'm not interested in playing that game. But there is something about figuring out generosity for ourselves. Bring an animal from the herd or the flock, God says. I will leave the decision up to you. That's your call.
Speaker 1:But then there's verse 14. If your offering is a bird you know, we are going to see all kinds of very detailed, perhaps rigid rules in this book. And I recognize that at times, it can feel like God is very distant, very, very cold in Leviticus. He's very by the book, and he just doesn't come across with the same kind of warmth that we're used to in Jesus. But notice here that we are 14 verses in, and God is already willing to bend the rules for the poor.
Speaker 1:In fact, if you read, you'll notice that if you bring a bird, there are no requirements that it be blemish free or that it be male like there are with a bull or a goat. Most scholars think this is because if you're that poor, God will take whatever you have to give him. And, again, I would never wanna use that as an excuse to give God less than my best, but I find it all very reassuring when I am less than confident in myself. That God will take whatever you have to offer. Do you remember the story in Luke where Jesus' parents bring him to the temple for dedication as a child?
Speaker 1:They bring a sacrifice with them in Luke chapter two. Do you remember what that was? It was two young pigeons. So Jesus grew up not in the wealthy neighborhood with a gift from the herd and not in the middle class with a gift from the flock. Jesus grew up on the margins where they brought birds to God.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about that for a second, that God placed himself in a family he would need to make an exception for. I mean, how poetic is that? And granted, this is a very different world and a culture that imagined God in a very different way. This was a God who was revealing himself very slowly to humanity in ways that can seem archaic to us looking back now. But never was it not understood that God was gracious.
Speaker 1:When you bring your offering, bring it from the herd or the flock, but if your offering is a bird. See, I don't know about you. But for me, this is such a powerful insight into what we are about to read in Leviticus. That in the midst of all the rules and the regulations, the blood and the sacrifice and the rituals that seem archaic, there is still present this gracious invitation, this welcoming presence of God that says, bring what you have, and it will be enough. I promise.
Speaker 1:And verse 17 actually says that the priest shall take the bird and place it on the wood that is burning on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. That is exactly word for word the same description as the offering of the bull or the goat. Because even in Leviticus, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. And so hear me on this.
Speaker 1:I get it. Leviticus is going to be a tough slog at times. It is. But if you find yourself getting bogged down in the rules over the next few weeks, losing sight of that gracious heart of God that you've come to know and experience in Jesus, then would you try this for me? Simply say to yourself if your offering is a bird.
Speaker 1:Because if you need him to, God will move the goalposts for you. That's what God does. And so may you sense today that rules always give way to relationship, and that the state of your heart, your willingness to humbly come to God and offer what you have to him will always be more important than anything you could ever bring to please or impress him. That even in Leviticus and certainly here in the presence of God this day, you are welcome to come. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:God, Help us as we engage with this text that is separated from us by so much time and culture and societal norm, by rituals that seem very violent and archaic, to sense in the midst of that this incredible, gracious invitation that you extend. God, would you be present by your spirit as we read, reminding us, showing us that still beating heart of God that invites and welcomes, that gathers us at your table to come and sit and eat and speak with you. God, if we have ever wondered if we are enough, if we have ever been concerned that we don't have what it takes to bring before you, that we won't be accepted when we come to you, God, would we see that even in the rigidity and the rules of Leviticus, you are always moving the goalposts. You are always moving toward us. God, would we know, each of us, that we are welcome in your presence this day?
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.