I am publishing this retroactively on the date I delivered the sermon, August 9th, 2020, even though I am writing these words in October. I just want to make this easier to find in the context it was delivered. I have written an entire post about the process of writing this sermon. It's a bit spoilery, so I suggest reading the sermon first.
Here is the video. The whole service is there, but I believe the link will open to the time I start preaching. As usual, scripture references are from the ESV Bible, and are in bold print.
3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit…
11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. Leviticus 26:3-4, 11-13
What do you think of when someone mentions Leviticus? Serious question, I’m looking for hands.
Leviticus is a bit of a puzzle. It starts in chapter one sounding like it’s going to be exciting:
“The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, …’” Leviticus 1:1-2b (NIV)
and we think, “Wow, a conversation with God! This is going to be cool!” But it ends up being a list of instructions. Not instructions for winning a battle, or building an ark, but instructions on how to do basic stuff: how to do offerings and sacrifices, how to prepare the priests to do their jobs, how to behave towards each other, how to eat. And the calendar.
It can be dry reading, and much of it seems irrelevant to us today: we no longer worship God at the Tabernacle or the Temple in Jerusalem, and our lifestyles seem so very different from those of the early Israelites.
But Leviticus actually does something very important: it defines holiness. It is a kind of map, or a blueprint for God’s Kingdom. As Micah has been teaching us in his 2 Thessalonians series, holiness is about setting something aside for a higher purpose, and Leviticus clearly marks those boundaries. The larger patterns we see in Leviticus can help us to understand God’s plan for us.
Leviticus is structured like a series of circles around God, some larger, some smaller, but all centered on God, separating the holy from the common. Like the diameter of a horn, or ripples in a pond after tossing in a stone.
The beginning of Leviticus outlines the guide to the sacrifice of animals, which is the smallest circle. Sacrifice was, and still is, the only way to make ourselves holy enough to approach God. Blood is used to make things and people clean, or holy, 89 times in Leviticus. And each of those procedures were carried out many, many times. Some daily, some multiple times per day. We should not forget how expensive holiness is, nor should we take the blood of Jesus for granted.
The next circle is a guide to holiness for the priests. Only the priests could draw near to God on our behalf, and only they could make sacrifices. The only narrative in Leviticus displays how important this was: two of Aaron’s sons are killed by God for bringing “strange” or “unauthorized” fire before the LORD. Coming into this circle is a dangerous act.
The next larger circle is a guide to holiness for the community. The people of Israel needed to be ceremonially clean to be acceptable to God. These verses deal with what foods they could eat, childbirth, bodily discharges, and bleeding, as well as skin diseases, mildew, and dead things. Only things and people that are clean are acceptable in the circle of God’s community.
The next circle is not really larger or smaller than the previous ones. It’s a circle that sets a time apart: the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. This was the time of year, every year, that Israel was drawn closest to God, by confessing their sins. It was signalled by sounding the shofar, a horn, perhaps like this one. On Yom Kippur the sins of the nation are placed on a goat, and the scapegoat carries the sins of the people out of the circle of God’s community, to die in the desert.
The next circle defines a place of holiness, warning that sacrifices are not to be made outside of the tabernacle, or later the temple. This is a reminder that we do not get to decide where God is, or where God is to be approached. We can pray to God from anywhere, but we must enter this circle to be forgiven.
With every rule and law, a circle is drawn, and limits are defined. Using these circles, God’s people can locate themselves in God’s presence, and orient their lives towards God.
The second half of Leviticus is a bit messier. As the circles get larger, they interfere with each other, and Leviticus takes us in a lot of different directions. So we have rules about sexual conduct mixed in with more general rules about being fair to each other. These rules often amount to providing for the poor through daily life decisions, for example by not harvesting 100% of your crops. This would encourage the poor to come and glean what was left. In God’s circle, holiness is often expressed as justice.
There are rules about how the priests should behave in their lives outside of the temple, because true holiness is not something you put on and take off like the priestly garments. The circle is smaller while performing their duties, but it still exists while they are outside, interacting with their neighbors and family.
In the second half of Leviticus we find a call to obedience: a promise of blessings and curses that echoes the promises made by the people of Israel in Exodus and Deuteronomy. A circle that God’s people deliberately step into, promising to have no other gods, promising to stay inside the circles of holiness.
In one section, God appoints special times throughout the year, as periodic reminders of what God has done for us: the Sabbath. The Passover. The Festival of Firstfruits. Pentecost. The Festival of Trumpets. The Day of Atonement. The Festival of Tabernacles. The Sabbath Year, and the Jubilee. These festivals are all worthy of attention, but today I will focus only on the three Sabbath-based holidays:
The Sabbath is another kind of circle in time, again helping us to find God at the center. God commands the people Israel to rest on the Sabbath, to take time to withdraw from the world, from pali-pali culture, from working overtime, and focusing on money. On the Sabbath, there was to be no cooking, no farm work, no buying and selling. All preparations for the Sabbath are made the day before. As we enter the Sabbath circle, we are to leave our distractions outside.
The Sabbath Year is like the Sabbath Day, only on a grand scale: a circle that encompasses one year in seven, rather than one day. We read in Leviticus 25:1-2
The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: ‘When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD.’” (Leviticus 25:1-2)
The people, who were mostly farmers, were not allowed to work their land. Can you imagine what you would do with a year of setting aside your job? Just you, in this year-wide circle, without the usual things to distract you from the LORD. What would you do? I suspect that the Sabbath Years of old produced a lot of art and music, and perhaps some innovation and exploration of different talents.
Then we come to the Jubilee. Every fifty years there is a Super Sabbath: seven sevens of years. The circle is drawn around the whole nation, and tightened down so that everyone is pulled in close to God.
The Jubilee is marked by sounding the horn on the Day of Atonement. In this Jubilee all land that has been sold over the past fifty years is returned freely to the family group that originally owned it. Slaves were set free. Debts were forgiven. All aspects of life that had been pushed to the outside of God’s circles were pulled back. Back to the center. Back to God. Because, as God tells Moses:
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.” (Lev 25:23 ESV)
Jubilee, and all of Leviticus, really, draws a clearly defined circle. It told them, and it tells us, “Everything inside this circle belongs to God. You are welcome to anything you find outside of this circle, but there is nothing outside of this circle. Not even you.”
As I have said, Leviticus is a guide to holiness. It is no coincidence that it is also a guide to justice, to fairness. The laws in Leviticus do not only make it possible to approach God, and live in covenant with God, they make it possible for God’s people to live together in peace.
With hindsight, we can see how the rules of Leviticus played out: once God’s people settled into Canaan, they played little games with God’s plan. They started inside God’s circles, but wandered out to see what the world had to offer. They repented when things got rough, but never seemed to make it as far back into the circles. Last year at Redeemer we followed the path of some of the Judges of Israel, as well as King David, and at most turns we see Israel taking one step forward, and two steps back. And sometimes they skip the step forward. We see the people draw their own circles around wealth and power and pleasure, ignoring the circles that God has drawn in Leviticus.
Until Jesus shows up. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and reads from Isaiah:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
Everyone there knows what Jesus is talking about. At least, they think they know what he is talking about. Sound the horn! It’s the Jubilee, just like back in the day! Israel will get their land back! Jerusalem will be our capital, and we will no longer be second class citizens of the Roman Empire! God is redrawing the circles! And we will be inside!
His listeners dreamed of the ideal kingdom that Israel was supposed to, but never quite managed to, be. They did not imagine that it would be so much more than that.
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:18-21
The Good News had arrived. The Gospel, the Word, the Lamb of God was right there, walking among them. And Jesus was going to expand those circles to the ends of the earth!
With the death and resurrection of Jesus, all of the requirements of Leviticus are fulfilled!
We can meet God in any place, because Jesus has established the temple in us!
We can meet God at any time, because Jesus brings the Sabbath and Jubilee into our lives!
The community is washed clean in his blood, and all of us are priests!
And the sacrifices that were required to approach God have now been perfectly fulfilled!
This is not just good news for the poor and the captives, it is good news for everyone!
Yet many Christians act as though this were just advance notification of good news, something that is going to happen, at some time in the future. This is a problem I see with many Christians: they view the Kingdom of Heaven as nothing more than a reward that they will get after they die. It is that, no doubt about it, but it is so much more!
All of us still have the opportunity right now to choose which circles to dwell in. When you walk out of Redeemer ICC, which is a super easy circle for some Christians, what kind of circle will you step into? What kind of circles have you joined, or made for yourself?
Some people draw their circles around fame or power. They are drawing their own prisons, and Jesus is calling them to liberty!
Some draw their circles around friendship or family. They are drawing their own oppression, and Jesus is calling them to freedom!
We have all drawn circles around ourselves at times, putting ourselves in the center, drawing our own blindness. Jesus is calling us to see!
Some of us have fooled ourselves into thinking that being bound by any circle is a bad thing, but Jesus has drawn circles of freedom!
Freedom from a false sense of security! Freedom from the desire to be a winner! Freedom from the constant, anxious striving to get more stuff!
The circle that Jesus draws not only frees us from these prisons, it frees us to act! Freedom to show mercy, love and compassion! Freedom to fight against unjust systems and structures!
Read with me the words that Jesus said,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:18-21
Come into the circle!
