Holiness

I just finished reading through Leviticus.  Some Christians see this Old Testament book as part of the Bible that go mostly unread.  Since Christ came, we don’t practice ritual sacrifice in worship. People would be appalled if upon entering the church they heard the pathetic sounds of cows and sheep about to fall under the priest’s knife.  No modern horror movie is bloodier or more macabre than worship in Israel in the day Leviticus was written.

            Most American Christians don’t observe kosher food laws.  And we don’t settle legal disputes according to the prescriptions in Leviticus.  What does this seemingly antiquated OT work have to say to Christians today?  It is part of the collect we call ‘word of God,’ Holy Spirit-inspired writings.

            It would be impossible to identify all the ways God speaks to our lives in the pages of Leviticus.  But here are a few thoughts to hold in mind.  First, Jesus did not overturn the truth and divine assertions we find in Leviticus.  Jesus doesn’t undo the word found there, or replace it.  He fulfills it.  All the hopes, dreams, and ideals intended in Levitical law reaches his fulfillment in life, teachings, and salvation of Jesus Christ. 

            Second, in Leviticus, we see the baseline truth upon which we build our faith.  Leviticus 18:5: “I am the Lord your God.  You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing so one shall live.”  What follows is a series of “You shall’s” relating to modesty, appropriate and inappropriate sexual expression, and religious fidelity.  The chapter ends with “I am the Lord your God.”  Then chapter 19 opens with “You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (v.2).  Throughout that chapter, the reason given for each command is this: “I am the Lord your God.”

            The instruction of 19:2, “be holy,” carries the same sense as Jesus’ injunction in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.  “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (5:48).  This underpins the promise of 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”  Our highest calling as followers of Jesus, the fulfiller of the Law, is holiness.

            Of course we may read through Leviticus and find some of the laws to be not to our liking.  Within the arc of the salvation that runs from Genesis to Revelation, much of the Old Testament practices are no longer normative for us as they were originally fixed in a culture different from modern cultures.  However, anytime history leads us to live in ways other than what is explicit in the Bible, we have to remain tethered to the call to holiness.  In our cultural practices, in our moral code, in our relationships, and in our ethics, we are called to be holy as our God is holy.  If we cannot support our life choices with easily seen Biblical precedents or principles, we need to change our life choices.  Yes, cultural expressions have changed throughout human history.  No, we cannot discard the divine call to holiness mandated in both testaments of the Bible.

            Thus each person must ask himself or herself, “Is the life I am living one that enables me to ‘lean in’ to God’s holiness?”  If it is not, I need to make different choices.  The standard is holiness.  If I why this is, God’s only answer is, “I am the Lord your God.”  No more need be said. 

I can probe the divine mind with my questions, and God would rather we be engaged, even in a tense engagement with Him, than we be automatons.  You or I can go to God with tears or with shouts or with shaking fists.  We can challenge God, rage at God, and rush at God with all our hottest, heaviest emotions.  God can take it and God will love us.  He may not answer all our questions, but God will always love us.  And whether or not we get the answers we seek, we are called to obedience and more strongly, we are called to holiness.  Why?  God is the Lord our God. 

As Christians wrestle with 21^st century cultural issues and shifting moralities, our baseline is the teaching expressed in Leviticus and perfected in Jesus.  We are to be holy as the Lord our God is holy.

Defeated and Down, but Never Out

“Do not human beings have a hard service on earth?” These remarks of Job begin Job chapter 7 and come in the middle of his second monologue after Eliphaz has spoken (Job 4-5). What do we hear in Job’s words?

“Are not the days of [human beings] like the days of a laborer? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like laborers who long for their wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness” (Job 7:1b-3a). Brite Divinity School professor Leo Perdue comments on ‘ebed’ the Hebrew term which means ‘slave’ that Jobs uses in verse 2 (in the book Wisdom & Creation, p.143). He points out that after 7 years, the slave was to be freed (see Leviticus 25:40-41). Even though the slave may have owed much to his creditor, all debts were forgiven in the Jubilee year.

However, Job does not lean such a hope in his present outcry. Graphically, he describes his circumstance. “My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out again. My days … come to an end without hope” (7:5-6). Have you ever experienced such calamity that it seemed hope was impossible? Has life ever been so bad, you decided hope was too heartbreaking because it was sure to fail? That’s where we find Job.

He doesn’t ask God for relief or restoration. He doesn’t dare believe that God could be on his side. Job believes God is against Him. Mournfully, he says, “remember that my life is a breath” (7:7). And, he challenges God. “Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity?” Job is sure of his own innocence and he equally sure that God against him. If God is against me, what can I possible do? Thus his lugubrious lament, “now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be” (7:21). Perdue notes that Job doesn’t seek the freedom of Jubilee; rather he just wants God to leave him alone.

As I have written previously, Job’s problems began exactly when God left him alone at Satan’s prodding. A person’s life is most forlorn when that person is far from God. Whether Job’s suffering was a caricature or an accurate historical accounting of a man who went through a living hell, the principle holds. Human beings experience pain. Sometimes they go through a lot of it. It is that much worse if the sufferer is also alienated from God. Job was not, but he thought he was. His pain created despair that submitted him to the deception that God was his enemy,

I urge you, reader, to think about Jesus’ assurance of what he desires for all who follow him. I say this knowing that Jesus’ disciples in fact go through all kinds of pain (cancer and other diseases, ridicule, persecutions, economic loss, accidents, divorce, etc). Christians get hurt just like everyone else; still we lay claim to the words of Jesus. “Whoever enters by me will be saved; … I came that they might have life and have abundantly” (John 10:9, 10).

Stubbornly, we who follow Jesus hang on to those words even though the situations we are in may make those words appear foolish. We refuse to go where Job went. We refuse to despair and give up on the Jubilee (freedom, release) that God promised. When Jesus says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32), we believe Him.

Yes, followers of Jesus get knocked down. Yes, we experience loss. We are sometimes defeated. But, we do not give up. We do not forfeit hope. Because of the cross, we will not descend to darkness of the soul that Job could not escape. We learn from his example that faithful people will go through debilitating pain. But, we learn from Jesus that faithful people will be delivered and blessed, even in times of trial. We reach out to God in the name of Jesus, and God reaches out us and pulls us through.

Bible Overload – A Good (but also demanding) Condition

I write this acknowledging that the nature of my work (church pastor) allows me to put in a lot of time reading the Bible; I am, in fact, expected to do that. Even so, it can be overwhelming.

My current daily devotional reading is in Leviticus. I read a chapter and write my reflections/responses in a journal. So I began Wednesday with my Leviticus reading. That was still fresh in my mind as I shifted to my sermon prep work. The text for the sermon is Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council. Finally, after I had worked on the sermon for several hours, I did some reading on the book of Judges because I am thinking of preaching from Judges in August.

Judges – Acts – Leviticus; they were each competing for my thought and attention. And, I have not even mentioned Job. These days, with all the reading I am doing on that Biblical book, Job is constantly on my mind. So, as I headed for home, my brain felt as if it were swimming, tossed wildly in large waves. In some ways this experience was exhilarating. It was also exhausting. Overall I appreciate the experience.

I am specifically grateful for the way the different texts informed each other. I believe all scripture is inspired word of God (as it says in 2 Timothy 3:16). I also believe God’s Spirit is at work in my mind and heart as I read. So, a passage from my devotional reading (Leviticus 20:26) ended as a part of my sermon on Acts 15. And, this morning, as I read the section on Job in Norman Gottwald’s book The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction I found information that will be helpful in my work on the book of Judges.

All of this leads me to an obvious but refreshing conclusion. Job fits in the Bible, and the rest of scripture has something to say in what we learn in Job. Often when I am leading a Bible study group, I challenge the participants to imagine that the only Bible they have is the particular books we are studying (be it Genesis, Job, Matthew, Revelation or whatever). Reading in this way, I ask the group to talk about God as that particular book describes God and presents God.

Here, I offer the opposite insight. When studying Job or any other book, we do well to consider the message of the rest of the Bible. It will enrich our understanding both of Job and of God. Job is such a unique book; it is hard to locate it in a genre category (Gottwald, p.576). At the same time, Job takes its place in God’s Holy Word. Therefore, in concert with the rest of the Bible we meet God in the pages of Job, and the message there informs our faith.