B-Sides of the Old Testament: Leviticus

If you are over a certain age, you will remember that back when music came on records, when a song came out as a single, it meant that there was an A-side song, that was pushed and marketed widely.  But since records naturally came with 2 sides, there was also a B-side song, which was not nearly as marketed. Sometimes they were live recordings, or more experimental songs, or just plain weird.

The Worship Team this summer had a fun idea for the fall for a series called the “B-sides of the Old Testament.” We all know the A-side OT books…Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah. But what about those B-side books? The ones that feel a little less influential, less well-known…or just plain weird? So, I thought what better to start such a series than with Leviticus, the book of the Bible that more than any others has derailed that New Year’s Resolution of “I will read through the Bible this year!” We get through Genesis just fine. And Exodus gets slow near the end, but we power through. And then Leviticus hits us, around the first week of February…and that’s all she wrote. It’s full of laws, and regulations, and sacrifices, and skin diseases, and descriptions about the décor of the tent of worship. Weird stuff.

So, this morning, I read from that infamous book of the Old Testament, from Chapters 23 and 24. Welcome to the B-side…

Leviticus 23.40–24.8

23 ⁴⁰ On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. ⁴¹ You shall keep it as a festival to the Lord lasting seven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴² You shall live in booths for seven days; all who are native-born in Israel shall live in booths, ⁴³ so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” ⁴⁴ Thus Moses declared to the Israelites the appointed festivals of the Lord.

24 ¹  The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. ³ Aaron shall set it up in the tent of meeting, outside the curtain of the covenant, to burn from evening to morning before the Lord regularly; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴ He shall set up the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.

⁵ “You shall take choice flour and bake twelve loaves of it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. ⁶ You shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. ⁷ You shall put pure frankincense with each row, to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire to the Lord. ⁸ Every Sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the Israelites, as a covenant forever.

I hold in my hands this morning an 8 pound sledge hammer. Can you imagine what this sledge hammer could do in this sanctuary? I could take the Christ Candle out with one swing. It could do some serious damage to the Lord’s Supper table, couldn’t it? I could go all Gallagher on the bread and the juice (another “if you are old enough to know, you know” reference). Or these pulpits that Bob Heacock so lovingly crafted. They could be splinters pretty quick, couldn’t they? Or I know…maybe I start with the stained glass window in the back? Hey, tech crew, can you all get a camera back here so that we can get a good tight shot for everyone… Or wait, the organ. All that soft metal back there. A lot of you know that these pipes are a façade using the pipes from the old downtown church, so it wouldn’t matter if I took a sledge hammer to them, would it? Or for that matter, the actual pipes in the back wouldn’t last long against this baby. I could take out the whole thing in a matter of minutes. And then I could go to work on the cross. That would take some more work, but I bet I could take it down! Tech crew, let’s get a camera back here for a close-up. [Pastor Matt disappears behind the curtain].

I want you to pay attention to your emotions right now. Most of you trust me enough to know that I would never do any of that. But in spite of it, even imagining such destruction might be enough to raise your heartbeat a few points. Tighten your shoulders and jaw? What did it feel like to imagine the destruction of some of these elements of worship? Some of you might not have flinched. They are just wood and metal and glass…nothing magical, right? But for others, you had a definite emotional reaction. I want you to notice those emotions, what it would feel like to watch such destruction.

Because that experience is a helpful introduction to the book of Leviticus. When I read the passage a moment ago, how many of you thought that the passage felt largely irrelevant? Maybe you have read the whole book, and wondered why any of it matters. Who cares about the color of the drapery? Where the lampstand goes? How to make the bread? Let me suggest that 3,500 years ago, those things meant as much or more to the original hearers as our candle or communion or cross mean to us today. Because they understood that they weren’t just wood and metal and glass. They symbolized something more. Something profound. When you understand that connection, now you are ready to read the Book of Leviticus.

It might be helpful to start with some background on the book of Leviticus. The people of God have just escaped their captivity in Egypt, an Exodus from their oppressive slavery. Fresh off their escape from the Egyptian army, they have found themselves surrounded by disorder. On one side is the spiritual and social disorder of the Egyptian Empire, which has enslaved them. On the other side is the physical and psychological disorder of the desert, the wilderness, which terrifies them. Surrounded by this disorder, they arrive at Sinai, the mountain of God, where they receive the Torah teachings of God. Starting in Chapter 20 of the book of Exodus, through all of the book of Leviticus, and into the 10th Chapter of Numbers…over 50 chapters…they receive these really detailed, specific regulations and laws about stuff that to our ears often feels like it doesn’t matter.

In fact, I have heard a lot of Christians say it doesn’t matter. That Jesus made all of the book of Leviticus irrelevant, or the whole Torah irrelevant, or even the whole Old Testament irrelevant. But the problem with that line of thinking is that it seems to go against what Jesus himself preached. Jesus was asked about what commandments were most important by the law teachers, because they were trying to get him to in fact say that the whole law doesn’t matter. But he said the opposite. He quoted from Deuteronomy 6: “Love the Lord your God with your heart and soul and strength.” And then from none other than Leviticus 19: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus makes it clear that you can’t throw this stuff out.

And yet, he also deeply disagreed with the law experts and Pharisees and scribes about how to interpret that Torah law. I would suggest that Jesus differed with them because they focused on the minutiae of the laws. Ironically, a lot of Christians do the same thing, when they either a) pick out the minutiae that they agree with and use Leviticus to prooftext or b) they focus on the minutiae and say it’s dated and irrelevant so we should throw out the whole thing. But Jesus didn’t do either of these things. Jesus saw the big picture. What if we did the same thing when we read this book? So, what is that big picture?

I’m glad you asked. The theology of Leviticus can be summed up in three points. I lean into the work of scholar Samuel Ballentine, who has written a brilliant commentary on the book. He says (with a little different language) that Leviticus is about ordered time. Ordered space. And ordered community. Let’s take a quick look at each.

You should be able to preach the sermon by now about ordered time. This is, of course, the concept of Sabbath, which we have talked about for 9 weeks in the last four months! Compared to the disorder of the surrounding Empire and wilderness, God commanded the people to honor a rhythm of Sabbath worship. In the passage that I read, perhaps you heard the references to Sabbath, and to the annual festivals that they were commanded to observe. That ordering of time differed from the 24/7/365 command of Egypt to produce, produce, produce. No rest. No pause. God commanded a different order.

Next is the concept of ordered space. This is the point that I was trying to make with the sledge hammer. While it feels silly to have to read about where the lampstand goes and how to bake the bread and what the priests are supposed to say, remember how disordered it felt to you when I was standing above the communion set with a sledge hammer. Over and against the disorder of a worshipless existence, in captivity or wilderness, God was calling them to see the power of these symbols to signify that this order symbolizes a God of order. A God who crafted creation in an orderly way. A God who can be worshipped in an orderly way. The two go hand in hand. Also in this 50 chapters of Torah teaching, the people are commanded that when they pick up and move their camp, they should set up in a way that all of the tents face inward, toward the tabernacle, the worship center. It is not a great defensive military strategy, where they would probably face outward. Nor would city planners say it made as much sense as a good midwestern grid, where navigation and structure were primary. But the space was ordered around the intentional and symbolic worship of God. The way they set up the space mattered.

Finally, Leviticus teaches about an ordered community. This Torah teaching begins with the Ten Commandments, half of which are about how we are to treat each other. It includes stewardship teachings, including observing a Sabbath year where food was free for all and no one would practice farming production. It includes economic teachings, including a Jubilee year, where all debts were to be cancelled. It includes commands to care for the immigrant, the widow, the orphan…the poorest and most vulnerable in their midst. This is the stuff that made Jesus the angriest about the Pharisees’ minutiae focus. They were missing the big picture of how they were to order community. Instead of laws meant to include, they were using them as a way to exclude some from community and worship. Ordered time, space, and community. This is what Leviticus is all about.

So, again, what if we used the big picture view of this stuff that Jesus employed, even today. Listen, I am not ignoring the fact that there is some hard stuff in the book of Leviticus. About punishment for those who don’t follow the rules. And purity code stuff that we don’t find as relevant or necessary today. But again, if that’s how we focus when we read the book, we are as guilty as the Pharisees about missing the point. What if, instead, we celebrated the Jesus way of ordered time, ordered space, and ordered community?

Because, just like the Israelites on Sinai and Jesus under the thumb of Rome, we are surrounded by disorder. Beyond these stained glass windows, there is a world that is committed to the way of the sledge hammer. Taking a sledge hammer to holy rhythms, insisting instead on the law of produce, produce, produce. Taking a sledge hammer to God’s creation, treating it as a commodity and resource instead of a garden that we are to care for…consume, consume, consume. Taking a sledge hammer to decency, treating immigrant and widow and orphan and neighbor as another commodity, as an enemy…abuse, abuse, abuse.

But here, in this place, in this time, we turn our tents toward these symbols of peace. An open table…a cross of sacrifice…Biblical wisdom preached from a pulpit…music and stained glass and candles and beautiful symbols of worship. So that when we are finished worshipping, we might go out, past those stained glass windows and show the world what the ordering shalom of God looks like, what it looks like to treat neighbor as we would ourselves. Here in this place, in this time, we lay the hammer down. We embrace the Torah teachings of God’s order. We embrace the Jesus way.