Epiphany 7A, February 19, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 Do you not know that you are God’s temple?
Matthew 5:38-48 Give to everyone who begs from you.
O Holy God, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Today seems like a good day to make sure you know some things about the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, because we just heard the only passage that ever gets read in our three-year lectionary cycle. Chapter 19 of Leviticus is sometimes called the mini-Torah because of how comprehensive it is in its summary of what it will look like to be the people of God. In a three-year cycle of readings, this lesson gets read on the 7th Sunday of Epiphany in Year A, when the calendar permits seven Sundays in Epiphany, which is to say almost never.
That’s why if I asked you what you know about the teachings of Leviticus, you’d probably first mention the prohibition of a man lying with another man, because you’ve heard that often cited as a Biblical indictment of same-sex relationships used against you or someone you love. Queer people and our allies have heard a lot about Leviticus as our rights to fully living and fully loving have been debated over recent years. You might know some of the other Levitical prohibitions against mixing wool and linen or cross-breeding animals such as mules, or tattoos or autopsies. That’s also why, if I asked you who said, “you will love your neighbor as yourself,” you would probably answer “Jesus,” and not first think of Moses. Jesus was quoting Moses.
Some of you might remember, a few years ago, when our Emmanuel Center hosted a panel of Biblical scholars to talk about The Jewish Annotated New Testament, published by Oxford University Press. During the question and answer session, a member of the audience asked, “Is there anything that Jesus taught or said in the Gospels that is original to him?” The panelists were silent for a few minutes trying to think of anything. We couldn’t.
Love your neighbor as yourself is Torah 101. The whole book of Leviticus, known in Hebrew as vay-yi-qra (and God called) is a sort of a priest’s handbook from long ago. It includes instructions for temple rituals with animal sacrifices; it addresses the consecration of priests to their offices and their vows; it describes distinctions between what is clean and not clean; it gives instructions for the observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of At-one-ment or reconciliation with God and neighbor; and it gives instructions about how to live in holiness.
Of course, there are instructions for how to live like holy people that don’t make much sense to us any more – ritual animal sacrifices clearly do not apply, nor do we follow the dietary restrictions. Unless we are ultra-orthodox Jews, the Book of Leviticus can seem completely frightening or irrelevant, but I want to assure you that it’s not, because Leviticus is all about the nearness of God – and how God has provided the means of grace for God’s people to be vessels of grace for others. You will be holy, God says to the people through Moses, over and over again, because God is holy and you are God’s people. The word holy (kadosh), in one form or another, appears 150 times in Leviticus. [1]
What does holy mean? Well, it’s the opposite of profane. It’s the opposite of corrupt. Holy is awe-inspiring, worthy of respect and devotion, sacred, the essence of goodness. Holiness is the essential nature of the Divine, and for the people of God, holiness is just as essential. So I’d like to talk with you this morning about holiness – specifically your holiness. It’s time for a check-up. How is it going? What does it mean to be holy? And if you’re not feeling so holy, what is your get-well plan? I’m your priest. I want you to get well!
According to Leviticus quoting Moses, and according to Jesus quoting Moses, holiness is a matter of both actions and attitude. It’s about what you do, and also about what’s on your heart. It’s about reverence for the Divine, respect for elders including parents, and about observing Sabbath. Observing Sabbath means many things about regular rest, recreation, prayer and study, but for now, let’s say it’s about the weekly reminder that God is God and we are not God. According to Moses, being holy means being in right relationship with others: with family members, with workers, and especially with poor people and with strangers, aliens, non-citizens. Being holy means not being stingy. It means no stealing, no lying, no fraud, not taking advantage of another’s vulnerability. It means not showing deference to wealthy people. Being holy means not taking revenge or holding grudges. As the apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” It means recognizing that and cleaning up – coming clean.
According to my Torah commentary, this is the oldest recorded declaration that all members of society have a right to support from the people of God, and vulnerable people should not be dependent on voluntary charity alone, although certainly voluntary charity is stressed. [2] One might counter that there are plenty of Biblical passages that seem to justify mistreatment of enemies. But that is a misreading and misuse of scripture because the arc of the biblical narrative is always toward welcome, toward acceptance, toward Love. Maybe you saw the recent Facebook meme posted by Bixby Knolls Christian Church that says, for example, according to Deuteronomy, Moabites are bad and can be hated. But then, Ruth comes along. Ruth was a Moabite and God loved her into becoming King David’s great-grandmother! According to Jeremiah, people from Uz were evil, but then along comes Job, a man from Uz, who was the “most blameless man on earth.” The arc of the Biblical narrative, of the story of the people of God, is what might start with animosity, with prejudice, is moved by the Spirit of God, again and again toward inclusion and affirmation. It happens throughout the Bible – this move toward acceptance and love.
Vulnerable people, explicitly including poor people and disabled people and immigrants who are not citizens, must be protected and treated with dignity. Being holy means integrating the moral, the civil, and the religious aspects of our lives for the well-being of the community, of society. Being holy means being vessels of God’s grace for others. Our opening collect for the day includes the words, “you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing” and includes the reminder that love is God’s greatest gift to us. Moses and Jesus, quoting Moses, remind us that God’s love is not a gift for us to keep – it’s a gift for us to use to assert and respect the dignity of all people.
Jesus’ life work cannot be understood apart from Chapter 19 in Leviticus. The Second or Christian Testament cannot be comprehended apart from Chapter 19 in Leviticus. What Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount is about behaving in a way that is holy. Give to everyone who begs from you. Treat others and treat yourself as being worthy of respect. (If you need to learn the lesson of how turning the other cheek is about asserting dignity and respect, I’ll do a demonstration. Just let me know.) The moral obligations or directions (usually referred to as commandments) taught by Moses, taught by Jesus, “call for just, humane, and sensitive treatment of others…[those who are vulnerable] are to receive consideration and courtesy. The laborer is to be promptly paid. The stranger is to be accorded the same love as we give to our fellow citizens. The law is concerned, not only with overt behavior, but also with motive; vengefulness and the bearing of grudges are condemned.” This is precisely where our religion and our politics must mix according to our tradition. Be holy, be perfect, because your God is holy; your God is perfect. How on earth, can we be that?
It’s about cleaning up – about coming clean. Here’s what I think about the work of coming clean. Some of you have heard my reflection of how the experience of coming to Holy Eucharist is like a diaper service. Some of you know what a diaper service is. When my oldest daughter was an infant, I really wanted to use disposable diapers as little as possible, for environmental and other reasons. The very generous gift my in-laws gave me was a diaper service for a year. Each week, a large stack of clean, soft cotton diapers was delivered on my front step in a clear plastic bag. The bag was light and easy to carry into the baby’s room to the changing table. The diapers got put into a holder and the bag went into the diaper pail – a trash-can like bucket with a strong and truly terrible deodorizing disk in the lid. All week, dirty diapers went into the bucket by opening the lid just enough to slip the used diaper in because the smell was horrible. At the end of the week, though, the lid would have to come all the way off and the very heavy bag full of dirty, smelly, wet diapers tied off and dragged to the front door and heaved onto the front step. The diaper service picked up the dirty diaper bag and left a freshly laundered light stack of clean diapers. The bag never came with a note that said, “now don’t mess these up.” The expectation was that the diapers were going to get used. They were going to get dirty. They were going to smell bad. They were going to get hauled out the front door and they would get replaced with a fresh set to be used through the coming week.
For me, that’s what coming to church is like. For me, that’s what coming to communion is like. I drag my heavy, bad smelling stuff out the door at home, and bring it here to leave it at the altar. I get a fresh start for the week ahead. When I put my hands out for bread, I get bread. The message is not, I gave you bread last week, what happened to it? Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is where the diaper analogy really works. Every week it’s a fresh start. Like a diaper service, it’s expensive – in terms of money and time – to be a part of a worshipping community, but it’s so much better for the environment! Keep coming back – it really works.