This is a draft of the sermon on 12th March 2023 (photo is of a goat)
By the time you get to the end of this sermon I would like you to say to yourself – Well, Thank you Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. So that’s sort of the take home point today. Thank you, Jesus. Add to it some other points that might help namely this idea that God cares. We go through life wondering if there is a God, if the gods are playing with us and what kind of nonsense is going to happen later in the year.
Thank you, Jesus. God cares- and God does that here by Cleansing us. God cleanses and by Connecting to us – God cares, God cleanses, God connects. Ok Thank you, Jesus!
There’s a thing in lots of literature called a chiastic structure. It’s a technique for showing what to be looking at and you often find them in the bible. You might have a structure – 1 2 3 4 5 – and in a chiastic form this means we should look closely at number three. So note that the first 5 books of the bible, sometimes called the Pentateuch, more commonly known as Torah – Leviticus is the central book. So, its worthy of a pause and a think.
But now have a look at the whole structure of Leviticus and we started last week looking at the first chunk and we saw that there were lots of Ritual Sacrifices – that’s how the book starts – and it ends by looking at the Rituals that go with the Jewish feasts, Passover, Tabernacles and so on. So that’s the outer bracket of Leviticus.
Next comes some guidance on the Priesthood, so we have the ordination of the Priests but then at the other end of Leviticus we have some guidance on qualifications for the priesthood.
Next comes some discussion on Purity, especially ritual purity and then at the other end we have moral purity, and so at the middle point we have this chapter 16 the Day of Atonement. So this is the key passage in Leviticus.
Ritual sacrifices, Priests ordained, Purity to do with rituals – Day of Atonement – then purity to do with morals, then advice on qualifications for priests, then Ritual feasts. A chiastic structure.
So, the Day of Atonement – we may have no idea what it means but we know already that its Really Really important.
The aim of this day of atonement is to allow us to draw close to God – God cares, God cleanses, God connects to us – and the question you must ask is – Did it work? The book of Leviticus starts with – the LORD spoke to Moses FROM the tent of meeting – the book of Numbers, the next book of the bible, starts with The Lord spoke to Moses IN the tent of the meeting.
So, at the end of Exodus, as Leviticus is beginning, it is not easy to approach the LORD God. Instead, we see Moses outside the Tent and God speaking from the tent but Moses is outside. Now, did Leviticus work? Numbers starts with Moses being IN the tent, so yes.
So, we come to the Day of Atonement – here we have 2 goats, one gets killed and the other gets released. And what is that all about?
The key difference between this sacrifice and the ones we looked at last week is that this is for ALL the people, this is a complete coming together of the whole family of God, the other sacrifices they were to do with you, maybe you and your family, but this is to do with ALL of us. So this is a big deal.
We are so used to be so very very individualistic. What matters is me and my opinion and even when we then translate that into Christianity it becomes what matters is me and my relationship with God. I don’t need a Church Family, I can be a Christian on my own. And you sort of can. But really you are missing out.
I don’t think we Christians have something that does this aspect of what the Day of Atonement does for Jewish people – this is a coming together of the whole family of God, and the sacrifices that are made, they cover the whole family of God and they deal – says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks with two things.
So, let’s look at the first Goat. Actually, just before we do that: When I sin it has a threefold affect – it affects my relationship with God, with you, with myself. Some sins that are deliberate they need addressing, other sins I might not notice – but they still need addressing – you could point them out to me – “I say, did you know that the other day you said something that upset me” and I could then say “I’m so sorry, I had no idea, I’m sorry” – okay sorted. But just because I was not aware of the sin, doesn’t mean that I am clear of the guilt.
I’m driving at 40, but I don’t realise that I’ve slipped into a 30 zone, I am speeding, me not being aware doesn’t make the sin less, there’s still a penalty to be paid.
So there’s the issue of Guilt. Guilt is sometimes something that I feel – I am aware of my sin, I feel guilty, I am guilty. But there’s also an objectivity to my sin – I have been speeding so regardless of whether I feel guilty about it, a law has been broken, I am guilty.
This first Goat deals with this at a Corporate level. And this is important to acknowledge that we do commit sins unintentionally. Of course a little bit of Psychology will show you that there’s Proper Unintentional – you really had no idea you were speeding – and then there’s that Freudian Slip where somewhere in your subconscious you feel the need to say something that isn’t rude but it does push the other persons buttons.
This is a sacrifice that acknowledges that there are different levels of Unintentional Sin, that we are not always as in control of our sinning as we pretend and our subconscious has betrayed a desire, has caused pain.
We started the service with a prayer of confession. I think its possible that a few of you here actually did take that moment to bring to God something that’s being weighing on you. More than likely lots of you went through the motions. I don’t mind that. I sort of hope that in going through the motions that you’re well equipped for those moments this next week when you do sin and you realise it and it catches up with you and because you are used to confessing your sins each week, that you have the spiritual discipline to come to God there and then and in that moment confess to God and ask for His forgiveness and mercy.
But it might be also that in this weekly confession, you may begin to realise that there are sins this week that you have not noticed and you’re sorry that you’ve not noticed them, and the hurt they’ve caused and so this is moment of confession becomes an opportunity, an invitation, for God to poke you and show you, and to keep your conscience open and not dulled.
So the Goat is sacrificed, the blood is sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant, and this is your atonement – more than your – this is Our atonement. We as the family of God, corporately, together, our sins seen and unseen being dealt with in this sacrifice of this first goat.
Okay so what’s with the 2nd Goat. The Scape Goat. Before we unpack this, I need to share with you some tangential thoughts from the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who has written an excellent commentary on Leviticus. He wrote about how in the earliest of English translations of the bible, William Tyndale didn’t know what to call this second goat and saw that the goat escaped and so he labelled it the Escape Goat and we have shortened this to the Scapegoat.
But, wrote Rabbi Sacks, we now use this word in a way that is completely different to how the bible meant it. We use it when a powerful group need as a community to externalize their pain and hatred and avoid blame for their sins and do so by picking on a third party. So the scapegoat becomes the recipient of all the faults of society and when society has finally agreed that the real problem here are These People, these minorities, then we can all be agreed on transferring onto them our fear and hate and violence. And that is what we have seen, and still see, with antisemitism. Not always with Jews, very often others in our society will be the easy butt of jokes and prejudice and oppression so that we, “normal people”, allow this hurt, turn a blind eye, do not speak out.
This is not what the bible means by scapegoat.
Back to Goat no2. Here the High Priest lays both his hands on the goat and confesses the sins of the whole community on to it and then it is sent off into the wilderness. The Word translated Scapegoat – is Azazel – one literal way of taking this is to translate this as a Steep Rocky Hard Place – and that is where these sins are to go. Others break up this word Azazel into the word for Goat Ez and the word for Send away – Azal – and so you just have the Goat that is sent away.
Others still see in Azazel something more demonic – in which case this act of laying on the goat all the sins of the community and then sending it off into the malevolent wild wasteland back to Satan or Samael, is a way of saying Oi you there, you engineered this sin, you can have them back, they no longer have any power over us.
So in the Day of Atonement we have this resetting of God’s relationship with all of God’s people.
Rabbi Sacks takes this point deeper to see in the Day of Atonement not merely an addressing of the sin of guilt seen and unseen – but of the corporate shame that often goes with it. When I feel guilty, that’s just me, and down to me and God to deal with. But when I feel shame – that’s because we, corporately – as a family, as a society, as a group – be it a facebook group, have decided to shame whoever it is who is in need of shaming.
Adam and Eve hide having eaten the apple, suddenly ashamed of their nakedness. Their instinct is to hide from God. What can cure this?
Rabbi Sacks argues that this is what the other goat, the escape goat is doing – he is carrying away our shame.
To make his point, Rabbi Sacks points to Lev 14 where someone who was a Leper but is now clean comes to the priest and offers two birds, one is killed as a sacrifice, the other is released. This first dove deals with the sin and atonement is made. The 2nd dove deals with the public shame that goes with being a leper, everyone has been avoiding you, you have been persona non-gratia but now this is changed and so here’s a ceremony that acknowledges that. And so, the 2nd dove is released.
We need these rituals as a way of helping us to process our emotions, our sins, our grief, our guilt, our shame.
Now those of you saying “I’m so glad I didn’t live in ancient times, gosh all these rules and blood and sacrifices and so on” Well you have a point, there was no WIFI back then. But you would be missing the context that says Back then you didn’t know where you stood with any of the ancient deities, you might please one but how did you know if you’d succeeded, and you might have offended another and who knows!? But here with the LORD God you knew where you stood.
Keep these rituals and it will help you, us, to stay close and connected to the LORD God who cares for you.
Over the years the prophets come along and challenge the sacrificial system because a few generations on it became easy to go through the motions and for it to make no difference to how you lived and loved and cared for others. The aim of Leviticus was always more than to draw close to God, it was for us to live lives that showed the goodness and holiness of God – so there are rules about cancelling debt, about setting slaves free, about caring for the poor and the foreigners – so when the sacrifices stop making a difference that’s when prophets like Isaiah 58 say things like God doesn’t want you to put on a show of fasting like you’re being super spiritual, this is the fast God would like to see – a fast where you pay your workers properly, and share your food with the hungry and do away with the yoke of oppression. This is why Hosea 6.6 says – God doesn’t want your sacrifices – I desire Mercy not sacrifice.
Amos 5 gives a tirade against the whole sacrificial system – God says I hate, I despise your … your burnt offerings – but let Justice roll on like a river, a righteousness like a never failing stream.
We are called to live this life of Mercy. The aim of the day of Atonement was to make us realise how much God cares for us, cleans us, connects to us – and with it was always the implication that we are called then to take that fresh renewal, that freedom, that holiness out into the world and live it and show it.
And this leads me to say Thank You Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. As He dies on the cross, his last words are Telestai – It is finished – that’s it an end to the sacrificial system, so now it is through the blood of Jesus, not the blood of a goat, that we may approach, with confidence, the Heavenly throne, and so we find that our sins, our guilt, our shame, are atoned for in the blood of Jesus.
And we find that we are then called to live that life of forgiveness and freedom and love. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.