Over the last few months we have been reflecting on books, films, music and other things that has inspired or challenged us. Well over the past few weeks all I have done is consume vast amounts of material on the book of Leviticus. I am afraid that is what you are going to get here. Bring on the sacrifice!
A very brief intro to this much maligned and often ignored book of the Old Testament.
- It shouldn’t be called Leviticus (which measures of the Levites). It should be referred to using the Hebrew term vayikra which means ‘and he called’ the he here referring to Yahweh so it should be ‘and Yahweh called’.
- It wasn’t written by Moses. But you knew that already.
- The timescale the book covers is a one month period. So we have 27 chapters focused on one month of Moses life and the life of the Hebrew people.
I can understand why people don’t like this book. There are a lot of animals that die. There are a lot of rules about what you can and can’t do. There are a lot of things that are repeated over and over again. Anyone reading it can quite rightly say, this has no relevance to me and skip on to the book of Numbers (which kills off there reading the bible from cover to cover). There are also lots of bits of vayikra that get cherry picked to make particular theological stands and lots of bits that are ignored.
Yet this is the book where we are first told to love our neighbour as yourself. The next time you hear those words is from Jesus in the gospels. Maybe vayikra can teach us something after all. Let me summarise some of the things this book might be trying to say to us and show us about what it means to be a people who dwell with the divine presence.
Working out a new way of living
The people that this book is addressed to are a group of former slaves who have been rescued from living under an oppressive regime. I haven’t been a slave and I don’t know what it feels like to live in that way, from reading the experiences of others, especially those taken into slavery from Africa to the US during the transatlantic slave trade it is a dehumanising experience. For the people rescued from Egypt by God they had only known one way to exist. In Exodus we get some hints about the kind of community these people were being called to be. One that would bless other nations, would be a royal priesthood (like God’s body in the world) and a holy nation (a different kind of community to those in the world, especially those like Egypt). In order to become something new and different you need to set out how you will do the things that you need to do. Vayikra does a lot of that. There is a lot of information about what should be done and what shouldn’t. How it should be done and how it shouldn’t. Sometimes these look like weird arbitrary rules and distinctions but at the heart of them is we aren’t going to be like everyone else. We are going to be different so that we can show people there is a better way.
Finding a new rhythm
Lots of vayikra is about finding a new rhythm to life. If you are trying to do something new or leave a bad habit behind then you need to be intentional about how you go about this. It doesn’t just happen. If you want to become a great cook you have to cook things. If you want to run a marathon you have to set out a training plan and stick to it. If you want to quit smoking then you are going to have to work out what triggers your cravings and what you are going to do to help you resist them. You need to find a new rhythm, a new order to how you live your life. To make this kind of thing stick you will have to be pretty strict at the beginning otherwise things will never change. vayikra is about finding a new rhythm to live by.
An escape from guilt and anxiety
If you lived with a worldview that told you there were forces at work in the world that could help you or hinder you in your life you may find a way to appease them. You might offer some of your harvest up to these forces to keep them on your side. But if you did this and no rain come you would worry. Worry because you can’t feed your family and you might have angered the forces by not giving them a pleasing gift. This time you offer an animal hoping this will be accepted. The problem with this system is you are never sure where you stand. Worry and anxiety can begin to eat away at you as you try to work out how you secure favour. In many places at the time of vayikra writing and before that led to sacrificing a child, the greatest gift you had, to keep the forces on your side. If you have a set system with clear rules about what was needed and when it was needed then this guilt and anxiety is relieved. vayikra goes further and tells people that they can actually spend time in God’s presence that they can even sit down together and enjoy a meal with the creator of the world.
We aren’t that different
I think maybe the reason we ignore vayikra and pretend it isn’t for us is that maybe it nags at us a little. Maybe we sense in its pages a reminder that we aren’t actually that different from these people. Our world looks different and we have made progress in some ways but in others, maybe we have actually gone backwards.
Questions – don’t answer all of them – chose the ones that seem relevant
- If you could introduce one rule that all people would have to follow what would it be?
- Can you think of a time when you found yourself living in a way that was different from others around you? What was that experience like?
- What’s something you’ve done that has required you to create a whole new rhythm or routine in your life? How hard was it to stick to?
- vayikra talks about ‘being different’ to show a better way of living. What’s one thing you think BFX could do differently to show a better way of living?
- vayikra talks about rituals and sacrifices that help to maintain a relationship with the God and with the created world. How do we find ways of developing practices that build up our relationship with creator God, nature, and the environment, today in light of climate change?
- vayikra offers systems to help people deal with guilt and anxiety, often through ritual and community. In today’s world, where anxiety and mental health challenges are rising, what are some ways we can create faith practices that provide support and help alleviate these struggles?
- vayikra is the first place where we hear the command to ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ How do you think this teaching applies to issues like immigration, climate refugees, or homelessness in today’s world?
- What does BFX have to do to look like a community that seeks to live differently in the world? What things could we change/start/stop to make this happen?
Photo by Vincent M.A. Janssen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-animal-skull-on-sand-3258243/
Has been a part of BeachcomberFX since his arrival in the North East in 2014. He is well travelled (at least in the UK) having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Southport, Doncaster, Berwick and Edinburgh. Supporter of Newcastle United, will watch any sport.