Welcome to Leviticus!

Leviticus is one of the least well-known and least well-read books of the Bible. It’s one of those that seems to be avoided as much as possible. And I guess over the next month, we will maybe discover why!

I, however, am excited to see what this book holds for us as we continue on our journey.

So bear with me as I delve into a few Bible commentaries as an introduction to this unfamiliar book.Leviticus in Hebrew means ‘He called’, which is how this book opens. God called Moses to give these instructions for living to the people. Leviticus consists mostly of the laws and regulations that concern the priests, who are all from the tribe of Levi. Remember back in Genesis when Jacob was given the name Israel and he had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel and one of those sons was called Levi – and from the Levite tribe came a long line of priests, starting with Aaron and his sons………..

These laws come when the people are camped at the bottom of Mount Sinai after they have been rescued from Egypt and are given in this context of what God has already done for the people. This is also before the Israelites enter the Promised Land and so the regulations also look forward to and set the scene for what is to come.

This book is all about holiness – what it is to be holy and how to stay holy and what to do to restore holiness. It is known as the Holiness Code, dealing with the first three of the Ten Commandments about how to stay in right relationship with God. It shows how no area of life – from secret thoughts to social actions to the nation’s policies – is irrelevant to God and that every area of our lives can demonstrate our commitment to Him (or lack of it).

Holy does not mean self-righteous and judging and superior and boring and a killjoy, but it does mean set apart. The Israelites were to be completely differently from any other people around them, any other people who had come before. They were to live differently and behave differently and relate to their God differently. Everyone around them would see that they were different. They had no role model to follow, no precedent to learn from……one commentary describes them as an ‘underage’ people. I like this. It gives an image of a nation that is not yet established, that is making its traditions as it goes along, that has not matured in thinking for itself and dealing with the grey areas of life. They need everything spelt out to them and I mean everything – rather like when dealing with a young child, everything needs to be clear and the boundaries have to be defined,even when it feels like stating the absolute obvious.

And that is why the context is so important here. These rules are not for us, not in their entirety anyway. We have the benefit of being part of a God’s people that has grown and matured over time, that has a wealth of experience and tradition to draw from. Hopefully God’s people are no longer an ‘underage’ people. We have more freedom and of course with more freedom, comes more responsibility. We know from experience that life is not this black and white any more – the lines are often blurred and we have to use our brains and our consciences and our spirituality to navigate a path through the moral dilemmas of life.

But we are still to be holy. We are to explore what it is to be holy every day of our lives – in every situation…..in our homes, behind closed doors, in the secrets of our hearts, in our work, with our friends and with those we don’t like very much, in our free time, at a party……….We are to be different, to be set apart – not in a self-righteous and judging and superior and boring and a killjoy kind of way, but in a ‘there’s something special about her’ kind of way. In a ‘I like spending time with her’ kind of way. In a ‘I always feel better when I’ve been with her’ kind of way. Shining as stars in a dark sky. Allowing others to see God at work in us. Doing all that we can to keep the channels of communication open between us and God.

I’ve come into work in a foul mood today for all sorts of reasons, not least because the dog ate my packed lunch. Again.  All of it. I didn’t speak in the car and slammed the door as I got out – and then put my work face on and smiled at my manager……as you do. When I explained all this to my friend, her response was ‘Well, it’s good to know you’re human too.’ What did she think I was? Of course I’m human! 100% human last time I checked. I guess she means that I do actually come across as different quite a lot of the time – and yet at times, I am simply human!

I don’t know where I was going with that really – except sometimes we convey far more of who we are and what we believe than we think we do or feel that we do. ‘Holy’ is something to be embraced, not shunned. I’m looking forward to exploring the Holiness Code in more detail.