Leviticus 2.1-16. (Photo above is of Fine Flour)
I had the joy and privilege last weekend of being introduced to my son Sam’s girlfriend. Ooh. But here’s the tricky bit. It’s the first time we have met, do you go for the hug or the handshake or what? I went for the hug. I think it was okay.
Then Lucy and I went on to see her parents and my father-in-law sticks out his hand for a hand shake and says I’m glad you’re here I’ve a list of jobs for you.
Its tricky to know how to behave what to do when you’re meeting someone for the first time, but when you’ve known them for almost 30 years it’s a bit different.
We come to the book of Leviticus – and it starts with How do I meet God. Where do I start?
The Israelites had just come out of Egypt. For years and years they had been in Egypt, since Jacob and Joseph and his coat of many colours, and then years later comes Moses. And Moses introduces them to the LORD God whom they may have been distantly aware of but it’s clearly been some time since they have had to think about how to worship and pray and connect to their God.
God has rescued them from Egypt with a mighty hand, with a whole list of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea and guiding them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and as they get to the end of the book of Exodus we have the beginnings of a place to worship, a Tent.
Now the LORD called to Moses and says When anyone wants to come and worship me – then this is how you do it. So, whilst we call it the book of Leviticus – which sort of means: the book of rules for priests – and that’s not such a bad title – in the Hebrew bible it’s called Vayikra – God called – and that’s the first word of this bible book.
It starts with God inviting us all to draw near to Him.
But when Moses went up the Mountain to get the 10 Commandments – no one was at all keen to go with him. They were very keen for Moses to go on his own. The whole thing was just too terrifying for them to even contemplate.
So perhaps their default understanding of God comes from what they have inherited from their life as slaves under the ancient Egyptian gods.
Perhaps this is why God doesn’t rush in there with a hug or a handshake but with some rules. And the rules start with WHEN. When. Not IF. Not IF at any stage you feel like drawing near to God, worshipping God, IF. No. God starts with a When.
There is inside of us this need, this God shaped hole, to express joy and wonder and praise and delight and to deal with fear and rejection and reconciliation and redemption.
God calls and says WHEN, God says When ANYONE – anyone, not just the righteous, not just the priests, not just the chosen, not just the regulars – Anyone.
I was shown some statistics recently about how many people say they’re Christian, or Muslim, or Sikh – and I thought the problem with these stats is that People know if they are a Hindu or a Jew – it’s nice and clear you either know you are or you know you are not.
But with Christianity, we’re a bit more muddled and our boundaries are perforated – some of you I hope will say Yes I am a Christian, some will say No, I am not a Christian,
but because we teach RE in a way that makes you feel that you are either in or out – when the Church has an open door – its not that simple.
And lots of people will says “I’m not religious but” – and they have this need in them – WHEN – they have this desire to come to Christmas, to seek Christening, a church funeral, – but increasingly in our society we’re making Christianity into an either you’re in or you’re out sort of thing.
Perhaps we need a label like Theist – someone who believes there’s something more, they’re not especially religious and they’re sort of Christian at least in terms of values and maybe the occasional prayer.
We need to keep welcoming those for whom something has stirred up in them and God has called them and they have this need to draw near to God.
So, Leviticus – it’s a great book – there’s very little story, it just rules of rules, but here we have the call to Love your neighbour as yourself – we are called to be Holy because we’re made in the image of God and God is holy. We’re reminded not to take vengeance because that’s God’s job not mine, not yours. We have rules about how to treat slaves and we have rules about ending slavery in the Jubilee, and rules about ending debt and poverty in the jubilee – so it’s a great book.
Leviticus starts off with the Call of God to us, saying When – because God knows that we have inside of us a need to draw near to God at different times, and the reminder Anyone – so we must be welcoming and to all.
And so, we have these sacrifices. Now, It’s been over two thousand years since there’s been any religious sacrificing so this will read really oddly, and I deliberately picked a vegetarian friendly chapter this week because next week we will look at Ch16.
So we have chapter 1 an animal sacrifice – a burnt offering – it could be a pigeon, a lamb, a bull, for when you need to come close to God but you can’t because something is blocking that, you need forgiveness,
and then ch2 we have an offering of flour – a bread offering – and that’s a thank you offering –
ch 3 we have a sacrifice that is as a way of bringing people together so its called the fellowship sacrifice and its about having a party – so the meat is offered to God and some is kept by God and some is then eaten by the party – that’s like you sort of having a meal with God,
4&5 then there’s a couple of sacrifices for sin and guilt and one for where you really are in the wrong and you need to bring restitution as part of your sacrifices.
Some people when you read these chapters they’re just dull and repetitive. Fair enough. For others there’s just nothing you can relate to here. We take our frozen mince out of the deep freeze and put it in the oven and there’s no need to be separating out the entrails because that’s all be done for us and so that just makes our appreciation of food so very distant to these ancient Israelites.
But note that they didn’t take anything for granted. They were grateful for all their meat, they saw within it the gift of life, they saw it as a gift from God, so this moment of sacrifice is about gratitude. How many of us still say Grace as we sit down to eat?
I still remember at Bible college a student who would hold his tray of food at lunch time and struggle to eat it knowing that his whole family in South Sudan wouldn’t see this much food in a day, and he got to eat three times a day. He said Grace.
Each sacrifice has a purpose to it. Always a tone of gratitude, always the intention is an aroma pleasing to the Lord, but what has always been difficult for us is to know when is enough enough?
DO You want the gods to bless your crops and so you burn some of your crops thinking that this will please them, but if the harvest fails do you conclude from this that you didn’t burn enough? When is enough enough for the gods?
The Vikings when they built a new bridge over a river, they felt that it was important to drown a number of locally captured slaves in the river as an appeasement to the river gods – having given them this much blood maybe they wont feel cheated by this bridge. When is enough enough?
God says I don’t play by those rules. With each sacrifice – and the first one is great because there’s so many options to fit any budget – a bull, a lamb, a pigeon – God doesn’t make worship or forgiveness financially expensive – God wants this to work.
And with each chapter we read how – chapter 1 – do this do that – and ‘it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you’.
Do this do that – it will be enough, it will be accepted, reconciliation is made.
Each chapter has something like that – ch2 do this do that, it will be an aroma pleasing to the Lord, – chapter 3 – do this do that – the priest will make atonement for you, you will be forgiven, ch5, you will be forgiven.
It is enough.
I was recently rude to someone. I mean proper rude, not just said the wrong thing but really rude. It didn’t take long for God to say to me – ‘Why did you do that? You’re an idiot now go say sorry’. So, I went and said sorry, and we talked it out and then hugged it out and now we are reconciled. Enough is enough.
But I have other relationships where there has been a simple misunderstanding and I have said Sorry, and sorry hasn’t been enough. We must Be careful that we don’t suffer from a pretense that by remaining offended that somehow, we have kept the moral high ground.
I think that all we do then is to show our inability to let go of hurt – and that shows that that we struggle to accept an apology, we struggle to allow someone to draw near to us. It takes a humbling sort sacrifice to accept an apology.
But God says – Enough is enough – Do this and that and we’re good. And you just have to take God at His word. That’s faith, and trust.
SO When you hear Jesus on the cross, his dying words in John’s Gospel: It is finished – telestai in Greek – enough is enough – the sacrifice is made, redemption, reconciliation, atonement, forgiveness – it is done.
So take it and now live by faith.
And now that you know how powerful this simple sacrificial process is – through these first chapters of Leviticus – Here is this simple process whereby you and God can come together – now you understand the shock and power when God says I desire Mercy not Sacrifice. To God, the life of Mercy, that’s a life that is an aroma pleasing to the Lord.
So, let’s live that sacrifice – a life of mercy – an aroma pleasing to the Lord. Amen.