Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Leviticus 23
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Good morning and welcome. Name is Joel. I am one of the pastors around here and I get to call this community home. As people are taking their seats, I wanted to ask this question. Has anyone seen or is anyone planning on seeing the supermoon this weekend?
Speaker 1:Super okay. Some supermoon supermoon fans. I was asking if there were supermoon fans. Actually, only reason I ask, is because it reminded me of a tweet that I wanted to share that I think is funny. I respect the moon.
Speaker 1:It controls two of our most precious elements, oceans and wolves. Some of you don't know me and my crazy dry sense of humor, but we have twenty five ish minutes to get acquainted here this morning. Now maybe because of that tweet or just because of who I am, you may be looking at me today and saying, hey, when are we gonna hear from Bobby and Scott? I don't blame you. And to which I say, I agree.
Speaker 1:I wanna hear from Bobby and Scott as well, but they were in a class all week with Jeremy. And none of them had time to write a sermon, and so here I am and you're stuck with me today. You're welcome. We're still in Leviticus, but there's very little blood today. Very little blood.
Speaker 1:Very little animal sacrifice. We've actually moved through the second purity section. Today, are moving into the second ritual section that closes the book. Where we go today is much less intense than previous weeks, and it's about rest. And so maybe some of you are here today and you are feeling that you need a rest from some of the really heavy lifting that we've been doing previously.
Speaker 1:Or at least maybe a rest from some of the bloody imagery that we have been using. Today will be a reprieve for you. Or maybe you're a person that wants more hard controversy or someone who wants more blood and that's okay too. But regardless, today is about Sabbath and everybody needs to hear about Sabbath. I wanted to open with this question, who here is tired?
Speaker 1:If there's a spectrum from who just needs another cup of coffee or maybe who should have just slept in this morning to who's really reminiscing of a time before they had little children and you took sleep for granted. If there's a scale, maybe you find yourself somewhere on that scale. But maybe I have the sense that a lot of us are just generally tired or exhausted from life. Maybe I just feel that way because it's my own thing with little kids. I have a three and a half year old son, his name is Frank.
Speaker 1:And he doesn't have any tells that he's tired. He doesn't show that he's tired. And so, if anyone in this room has babysat for him or if you've come to our house and if your older children have played with Frank, he just goes and goes and goes and he doesn't show he's tired, doesn't show he's tired, doesn't show he's tired. Then we do the bedtime routine and he goes to sleep. And it's really interesting, but he doesn't rub his eyes or start yawning until it's time to go to sleep.
Speaker 1:And I it's crazy and I like wanna experiment with it. I wanna just let him go. Okay, Frank. Just stay up as late as you want, guess. See how long he would go and I assume that at some point he would come to me and he would say, father, I am feeling quite fatigued at this point, and I would like to go to sleep now.
Speaker 1:Maybe that would happen. And I am actually the opposite of Frank. So you can't really tell because I'm wearing glasses, but I have my left eyelid. I have a lazy eyelid. And when I get tired, my left eye just starts shutting.
Speaker 1:And I can't stop it. I can't help it. I can't prevent it. And I'll be out doing something fun or I'll have some people over and my body starts getting tired and I'm having a really good time. And I want this to keep going and I am having an enjoyable time with you, but my eye is like, my eye is like, we're gonna tell these people that they need to go home.
Speaker 1:That's what my eye says even though that's not how I feel. Let's pray this morning as we continue into Leviticus. Good and great God, we invite you to sit with us this morning. We ask you to reveal yourself to us in new ways as we search through your words and our history. As we explore how you have made Sabbath ritual and invited us into it.
Speaker 1:Help us to acknowledge where we find you today in ways that honor you and honor the people in this room that came here seeking you. In your gracious and holy name, amen. So we're in the midst of this book where God's people are setting up some pretty intense customs and rules to live differently and to live set apart. And in the middle of this book, God pauses and says, here's how you pause. And what's interesting is that there's not a ton of time spent on Sabbath in Leviticus, but it is there.
Speaker 1:And a lot of it is implied or taken for granted about what is said. So we have to go to a few other places in scriptures before and after Leviticus, and we end up in the gospels to try to get a handle on what this means and why it is even meant this way. And then we'll land with some insight as to why this means something for us today. So the Sabbath instructions from Leviticus are listed in chapter 23, near the beginning of this list of festivals and celebrations that God's people are called to implement and remember. So let's read.
Speaker 1:The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and say to them, these are my appointed festivals. The appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies. There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest. A day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work.
Speaker 1:Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord. And then we have a list with descriptions for each of those festivals. So I wanna do a little bit of background to the festivals before we go too far, because it naturally takes us into the Sabbath conversation. So a really quick run through on the festivals. First is Passover.
Speaker 1:Passover remembers the time when the spirit of the Lord passed over the homes of the Israelites during the last plague on Egypt from Exodus 12. The second is the feast of unleavened bread. And this follows immediately after Passover and it lasts one week. And during this week, the Israelites ate bread that was not leavened or with no yeast in it in remembrance of how quickly they had to prepare for their exodus from Egypt. Third is the feast of first fruits.
Speaker 1:And this takes place at the beginning of the harvest and signified Israel's gratitude and dependence on God. Now, to Leviticus 23, an Israelite would bring a sheaf of the first grain of the harvest to the priest. And the priest would wave it before the Lord as an offering. And Kevin told this story this summer. I don't know if anyone remembers it or was here, but one week my family came to church right after the music had started.
Speaker 1:And my worship stance is hands in my pockets. And that's just who I am, and that's how I stand, and that's how I express myself during music. And that's how my family is just used to me. And Kevin, our worship pastor, usually sometimes sits here in the front with us. And so one day, we came in a little bit late, and Kevin was in the front.
Speaker 1:And he was doing his move, which is he stands and he kind of rocks back and forth and waves his hand in the air. And he's worshiping in with this community, and it's great. But Frank hadn't seen this before. And so Frank comes in and he sees Kevin, and he's like he's waving to Kevin, but because Kevin's really worshiping, truly worshiping, he has his eyes closed. So he can't see Frank and so he's just doing his thing and it's great.
Speaker 1:And Frank says to Hillary, he says, well, who's Kevin waving to mom? And she's like, well, I guess technically God. I don't know. I don't know. And so that was our experience.
Speaker 1:My point though is that Kevin has really good form And I think that Frank would think that he would make a good first fruits festival priest. That's what I was trying to say. Next, number four, the feast of weeks, which is also called Pentecost. This is fifty days after the first fruits festival and it celebrates the end of the grain harvest. And this primary focus of this festival was gratitude to God for the harvest.
Speaker 1:The feast of trumpets was commanded to be held on the first day of the seventh month and it commemorated the end of the agricultural year. Now, were trumpet blasts that day and they were meant to signal to Israel that the day of atonement was approaching. And it does sound ominous to me too when I hear that, to think about that. Day of atonement, just ten days after the feast of trumpets. Day of atonement was when the high priest would enter the holy of holies to make an offering on behalf of the sins of Israel.
Speaker 1:And Jeremy talked about the day of atonement two weeks ago. The feast of tabernacles is the seventh and final feast of the Lord and it takes place five days after the day of atonement. So for seven days, the Israelites presented offerings to the Lord and while they lived in huts made from palm branches. Living in these huts, that recalled their nomadic journey before taking the land of Canaan. So they are there they are, these sacred assemblies of the Lord as laid out in Leviticus.
Speaker 1:Now, six of these Sabbaths are partial rest. Which means that if you had a job or a trade or a business, you couldn't do that on that day, but other light work like food preparation was permitted. And I read this this week from one of the commentaries, one of the bible commentaries I was reading. The day of atonement, however, is a Shabbat Shabbaton. A Sabbathly Sabbath or a super Sabbath, which required total cessation from all work.
Speaker 1:Okay. Just so we're clear. Sabbathly Sabbath is the greatest thing I've ever read in a commentary before. I think this is just hilarious to me. When I describe myself to someone, this would be like me saying, well, I'm 37.
Speaker 1:I have a lazy eyelid and I'm hot, but I'm like hotly hot. This is the distinction. But the point is that there is a distinction early on from full and partial rest or full and partial Sabbath. Now, all of these festivals are centered around the weekly Sabbath. That is our constant.
Speaker 1:So the Israelites work and they celebrate and they repent and they remember and they prepare, but consistently throughout those regularities in their work and their normal lives, they stop and they have their weekly Sabbath. Now, these festivals were to remind the Israelites every year of God's ongoing protection and provision. And following that cycle, the festival cycle is about journeying with God. But as everyone knows, a journey you need points along the way. Where do you stop, and you regroup, and you check the map, and you buy some beef jerky, and you remind yourselves where you're going and who is with you.
Speaker 1:So we go from the heart of these festivals into Sabbath. This constant rest in the midst of this cyclical journey. And the idea of Sabbath initially comes from the Genesis creation narrative. This is the first mention of it. On the seventh day, God rested from doing the work of creating.
Speaker 1:Now it says that God rested. There's nothing in Genesis two that tells us that the Sabbath has been made for humans. And the reason that some historians and some theologians believe that it's still relevant, is that in the creation story, by blessing the seventh day and making it holy, the day is fused with a special relationship to God who alone is holy. Some people start there. I read this quote this week from HP Dressler.
Speaker 1:God's last creative act is not the making of man, but the creation of a period of rest for mankind. Within the historical context of other ancient near eastern people groups, they have their own religious patterns for work and rest set by their gods or by their cultures. The theologians also point out this distinction. But in the Genesis story, God set up earth for the benefit of his creatures, and didn't intend to make human beings work while God rested. But this early on, even though we have some sort of reference and allusion to the Sabbath, the weekly Sabbath was not simply one of God's commandments.
Speaker 1:In Exodus thirty one thirteen, he told the Israelites, you must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come. So you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy. The word observe is extremely significant for me. It's from the start, God views Sabbath as an invitation to the divine human relationship.
Speaker 1:Within which God is bringing his people into harmony with himself, with his holy character, and with his commandments. Now within the framework of the Israelite people forming their practices, keeping the Sabbath becomes the fourth commandment of the 10 commandments. No work is to be done on this day by anyone including animals. It's a holy day for remembering. A Sabbathly Sabbath.
Speaker 1:Now, unlike in Exodus, the reason for observing the Sabbath in Deuteronomy is that Yahweh has redeemed Israel from Egypt. Deuteronomy also includes this clause, so that your male and female slaves may rest as well as you. This is a line that isn't found in the Exodus parallel, but it reflects Deuteronomy's concern for social justice. And this beautiful association with redemption from Egypt that you are no longer slaves. Now, in fact, you have slaves yourselves.
Speaker 1:Do not forget that it was God who brought you out and gives you rest. So from a biblical historical stance, we have these two groupings of the introduction and the intent of the Sabbath ritual in the Old Testament. So we'll continue through today holding both of these views on how to see the history and the purpose of Sabbath. That on one hand, was the loving creator God creating space for his people to be able to rest from their labor and reconnect with himself. And on the other hand, it's that same loving creator God, making sure that his people remember that they aren't slaves anymore.
Speaker 1:They don't have to work every day for someone else and to treat their slaves differently than they were treated. These two viewpoints are not to the exclusion of the other. And yet somehow, still holding both of these beautiful pictures. We reach points in the old testament where the rules begin to get disagreed upon. And we see something as well intentioned as rest and remembering God's faithfulness start to become divisive.
Speaker 1:So obviously, Leviticus is a set of rules with a purpose of setting God's people apart. But when we become rule centric, naturally division happens. There are differing interpretations of rules, which is a lot of what the rabbinical system was and is. And remember this calendar of the festivals that I shared. Well, right off the bat there are already debates about the specifics of when a certain festival falls or if it is a pure rest or partial rest.
Speaker 1:Human beings begin to divide based on the ways that they are interpreting rules. We did this then. We did this when Jesus was here, and we do this now. As much as there tends to be a pull to the polar ends of a spectrum or to the rule bound structures in religion, we're not always dealing with black and white. And the heart of the law matters more than the letter of the law.
Speaker 1:Even though we often focus on the letter, it's easier to see, it's easier to read, it's easier to understand. And this also reminded me of another funny tweet to pause and share with you. Once at church, I opened my eyes during prayer and saw Jesus riding around on a wolf making sure everyone's eyes were closed. Oh, well, no. No one thinks that's funny.
Speaker 1:Okay. Obviously, this is facetious and yes, that is for the record two wolf tweets in one sermon. But as always, strictly adhering to the rules makes it easier for me to know if I am in or if I am out or which club exactly I belong to. But it doesn't care about and make room for others at the table. To quote Jeremy from last week, the rules must always give way to relationship.
Speaker 1:To see this and to truly understand it best, we have to look at Jesus. We have some great passages in Mark where Jesus interacting with the Sabbath and on the Sabbath. So first, I'm gonna paraphrase from the end of Mark two a quick story. One Sabbath, Jesus was walking through the grain fields and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. And the pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?
Speaker 1:And part of Jesus's response is the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. As far as Jesus was concerned, the disciples didn't violate a law. They only violated an overly strict and inhumane application of the law. And the other record immediately follows that story from Mark three one to six. Another time Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there.
Speaker 1:Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with a shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Now real quickly here. It says that there were some that were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus.
Speaker 1:Back in the book of numbers chapter 15 verse 32, there's a report of a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. He was stoned to death as was the punishment for not keeping the Sabbath back then. In Ezekiel 22 talks about how the profaning of the Sabbath was a factor that led to the exile of the Israelites, a horrible time in their existence. And so these pharisees that are trying to trap Jesus are somewhere between holding on to the law to keep their status above other people and knowing by heart this story from numbers and fearing these legends of the reasons for the exile. And it's wrong.
Speaker 1:We don't have any other records of anyone else being struck down for not following the Sabbath. But there's no way that it's because every single Israelite followed that law perfectly since the day that it started. The point is that there are some in the room baiting and waiting for Jesus to break a law on the Sabbath. So let's keep reading. Then Jesus said to them, which is lawful on the Sabbath?
Speaker 1:To do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill? But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and it was completely restored.
Speaker 1:And then the pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. Jesus is mad and deeply distressed. And I want him to say, what is the heart of the law? What is the heart of the law? I know you know the letter of the law.
Speaker 1:Also, I just healed a guy's hand. In case you missed that part. They baited him and waited for him to see if he would heal. I feel like they missed the entire point of that moment together. And that's what I want Jesus to say, but he doesn't.
Speaker 1:He looks around at them and then says to the man, hold out your hand. He doesn't react the way that I want him to. He responds only to the hurting person in need. This beautiful full revelation of God in the person of Jesus. Jesus's approach to Sabbath keeping is based on the conviction that love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated.
Speaker 1:What dishonors my neighbor cannot honor God. And what leaves my neighbor in suffering can only be evil. And the best part is that Jesus is not abolishing the law. He's not doing away with the law. Like he says himself, he is fulfilling it.
Speaker 1:And even God's heart is revealed in Leviticus if we pay attention. So in the middle of chapter 23, in the middle of this chapter about setting up Sabbath and setting up all of these festivals, there's verse 22. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.
Speaker 1:We can see God's heart in the middle of these rules in Leviticus as clearly as we might be able to see God's heart in the way that Jesus lives in the gospel of Mark. And so for us today, how do we make rituals meaningful and keep them meaningful? The Sabbath still points to the idea of rest. Rest still matters. Resting to be reformed and reminded of God's character.
Speaker 1:And how do we do rituals and not get caught in the motions, but do them as a way to rest in God's presence and remember who we are and what God has done for us. I'm not talking about relaxing. Downtime does not equal Sabbath straight across. But I'm more interested in having us ask, what does it look like for me to really stop? For some of us, when is the last time that we went to a family gathering or a dinner party and we didn't bring in our phone?
Speaker 1:Or when is the last time that we sat in prayerful silence or in a deep and transforming conversation with someone else instead of just defaulting to Netflix? What are your patterns for leaving work at work, so that you can really be home at home? If we go back to Leviticus 23 verse three, we read this early on. There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work.
Speaker 1:Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord. Wherever you live, it's a Sabbath to the Lord. Normal life should be centered around regular Sabbath. Sabbath is this constant, and we work, and we celebrate, and we serve, and we remember, and we prepare. But consistently throughout those regularities in our work and our normal lives, we stop and we have a Sabbath.
Speaker 1:Regular routine rest, even sleep matters. To go to bed is to let go of the myth that everything depends on me. It's a daily practice of Sabbath keeping. The point of which is to rest in the sovereignty of God. So these two complementing views of the Sabbath.
Speaker 1:First, that Sabbath is about creating spaces of rest and rhythms to keep God at the center of everything. And second, that it's a rhythm that reminds us that we were not created to be slaves to anything. And holding both of these views, I invite you just to ask yourself some questions this week. What am I a slave to? Or what do I need to be reminded that I am not a slave to?
Speaker 1:How can I increase my awareness of others and my neighbor? And I wonder if we were to reevaluate our time, both downtime and regular time, and reconfigure it with rhythms of real Sabbath. I wonder what that would look like. And I invite you to ask some of these evaluative questions of your own life, not because of guilt or because of rules, but out of the invitation that the loving God created us in his image with rhythms in place to work and to create and to celebrate and to serve and to rest alongside him. As we enter back into this last ritual section in Leviticus, Let's be reminded that ritual is never really just about ritual.
Speaker 1:And that from day one or day seven, if you prefer, it is clear that we were created to live in harmony with God and each other. And Sabbath was intended to remind us of that, To keep God at the center of everything that we do. So that we don't lose sight of the fact that we are loved and we are called to care for everyone around us. Would you pray with me? Holy God of rest and redemption.
Speaker 1:It is good to sit in this space and be reminded of who you are. You're reminded of your nature and the creative ways that you've created us. As we look back on our history, trying to live within sets of rules, sometimes missing the point of the heart of the laws, and sometimes needing the letter of the laws to keep us focused. God, would you remind us again the ways that Jesus walked and interacted with his neighbors, with others, with people we assume we wouldn't associate with. The ways that he did that while staying rested and connected with you.
Speaker 1:God, would you meet us in these moments? We wanna seek the heart of your laws. We wanna seek the heart of ritual in order to remember you better, in order to be formed by you more fully, and to be able to better recognize our neighbors in need. Thank you, Jesus. In your powerful name, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.