Another Passage Veggie-Tales Won't Cover

Leviticus 14: 1-32

OK, this is a bizarre section. I would expect to find this in an explanation of voodoo practices and not so much in a Levitical discussion of leprosy cleansing. If the diseased person is proclaimed healed (by the priest leaving camp and checking him out) the priest decrees that two live clean birds, some cedar wood, some scarlet yarn and hyssop (a minty, European herb) all be brought for a cleansing ceremony.

So you take the birds and kill one of them over a clay pot of fresh water. Then you dip the live bird along with the wood, yarn , and hyssop into the blood of the dead bird. The formerly leperous person is then sprinkled seven times. I have no idea how, or with what. Do they wave the live bird now covered in dead bird's blood over this guy? Is it all mixed together and sprinkled? Is there any scenario where this isn't totally crazy?

The soon-to-be-clean guy shaves his hair, washes his clothes, and bathes in water. Perhaps doing this more regularly would have helped with his problem in the first place. It would at least have made him a little more popular. At this point he can enter camp- but not his tent for seven more days. Then he shaves the rest of his hair- his head, beard, eyebrows, and the rest- like Bob Geldoff in The Wall. More clothes washing, more bathing- and finally he's clean.

Then come the post cleansing sacrifices. He brings two male lambs and one ewe lamb, some of a flour and oil mixture and two-thirds of a pint of oil. In one way or another this covers the guilt offering and the wave offering.

More weirdness. Some of the blood from the guilt offering goes on the right ear lobe, right thumb, and right big toe of the one being cleansed. Then the oil gets sprinkled seven times (from the priest dipping his right index finger in oil pured into his left palm). Then using his palm, the priest uses oil to cover the blood on the ex-leper's earlobe, thumb and toe. The rest of the oil goes on his head.

Then a sin offering and a burnt offering. There's a reduced rate for the poor involving one lamb and doves or pigeons instead of so many lambs. A very similar process happens for the poor man to make him clean.

There maybe some metaphoric significance to the sacrifices or the ritual or the ear lobe- but it seems to me like more burdening for a group of people who are already quite burdened at this point. But perhaps if you were relieved of the prospect of finishing out your days in isolation as a leper, this procedure would seem like next to nothing in comparison.

I'm glad I'm not an Israelite.

Don't Do the Dew

Leviticus 13: 49-62

So even if you're pronounced "clean" your clothing might not be. And not unclean in the this is third day I've worn these jeans, they're starting to smell bad kind of unclean- more like go and burn those jeans before their retched-ness is spread throughout the community. You know, that kind of unclean.

So, the clothing is treated pretty much like people were in the last section. If they have mildew, take them to the priest, and he checks them out. He'll isolate it for seven days and then re-examine. If it's spreading, it's time to hit the tunic sale at JC Penney's- oh and you have to actually burn the infected piece of clothing.

If it hasn't spread, you can wash the clothing (what a novel idea). Then seven more days in isolation. If the stain hasn't changed, it goes to the fire. If it has faded and not spread, you can just tear that part of the clothing out. So you can keep the shirt, there'll just be this pesky hole when you wear it.

If the spot shows back up, into the fire.

It seems perhaps that this clothing quarantine can be looked at as a metaphor. At the risk of seeming a brimstone spewer- maybe the message is without Jesus, who can permanently cleanse our stains (that whole "whiter than snow" idea)- we're destined to a future in fire.

Or maybe it's marketing for Israelite laundry detergent.

Infection is Only Skin Deep

Leviticus 13: 1-46

A passage not for the squeamish...or the easily bored.

God spells out requirements for folks who potentially have skin diseases. In general, when rashes or odd skin developments occur, they are to consult priest-types. It's become sort of a tabernacle/health clinic. Although, there's not much treatment going on...just the determining of clean or unclean.

Without getting into too much detail- if you have a rash- go see the priest. If it's a swelling, rash or bright spot, and if the hair has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep- bad news- you are contagious. The priest declares you to be ceremonially unclean. You are isolated for seven days. If there's no change, seven more days of isolation. If it's gone away at that point, you're clean again. If not, you are unclean- and you must live alone outside the camp.

Other scenarios are similar. If disease covers you head to foot, you are clean- but once raw flesh appears you are unclean. When the raw flesh turns white, you are clean again...congratulations.

If you have a boil that heals and it leaves a white mark or a reddish-white mark- you have to go to see the priest. If it seems more than skin deep or there's white hair in it- you're unclean. The priest can check again in seven days. Close to the same thing for burn victims.

If a man or woman has a burn on his or her head or chin- and it seems deep and the hair in it is thin and/or yellow, that's gross. And you're also unclean. In fact, it's an unclean itch. But if it's just skin deep and there's not too much black hair in it- you can just be put into isolation- instead of out of the camp. After seven days, if things are looking better, you have to be shaved except for the infected area and then put back into isolation for another week. If it spreads, the priest doesn't even need to look for yellow hair- you're unclean... and probably not too happy about it. But if black hair has grown back in, the itch has healed- and you are clean.

Dull white spots are a harmless rash- get checked out, but you're clean.

Balding men are clean- and quite distinguished, I'm discovering. However, if you have reddish-white sores on your forehead or bald head- uncleanness awaits you.

So the priests are somehow qualified to make medical determinations. And these determinations impact not just the health of the person and the community, they dictate the future of the infected person. The person who is suffering isn't usually helped- just relegated to more suffering.

As long as you are infectious- you must wear torn clothes and not take care of your hair (easy if you're bald) cover the lower part of your face and shout UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! when people approach. You also live alone outside of the camp.

This to me is the heart of this passage. What a terrible shock to discover that you've got something on your skin. There aren't a lot of health options for you. And if the priest declared you as unclean, life as you know it drastically changes. You leave behind your family, your friends, your livelihood, in fact everything. Every interaction is a reminder of your unclean state- there's little hope of ever returning to how things were. Life moves on without you.

And maybe it's all a metaphor. Without a savior our boils are infectious- we are truly unclean. We are outcasts who can't repair the state of our damage. Granted, these people haven't caused their state through sin- and much of this seems to be to avoid contagion- but in a very real sense if we were, like they were, without the Messiah- we are isolated, scarred and damaged.

But with Him, the health plan just got a whole lot better.

Pregnant Pause

Leviticus 12

So it was a bad time to be a woman.

God tells Moses the purification procedure following childbirth. If she has a son, she's ceremonially unclean for a week. On day eight, the boy is to be circumcised- plenty of life left for the trauma to be reduced. Then she has 33 days to wait for purification from the bleeding. She can't touch anything sacred during this period of time. If she has a daughter, she has a two week period of uncleaness followed by a 66 day wait to be purified.

After this period of time, she is to bring a year old lamb to the tent of meeting for a burnt offering and a dove or pigeon as a sin offering. If she can't afford the lamb, she can bring two birds instead.

My puzzlement comes not from the need for purification- I think I get the whole sacredness of the blood thing (at least in part). My bigger question is the differing purification times for the gender of the child. So, having a daughter makes you twice as unclean? Is this simply a reaction to cultural norms of the time? Is God making a statement of some kind about gender? Surely bleeding in the mother wouldn't differ depending on the gender of the child? It reads almost like punishment for producing a less desirable gender. This is troubling for two reasons (at least). First, it's beyond the mother's control- and second, and more importantly, it suggests that a male child is a more desirable alternative.

In my mind this is just one of a number of troubling passages concerning gender differences...and apparent misogyny...and misogyny might be too strong of a word, but certainly a different standard and value being placed on gender.

Contrast this issue with the New Testament concept of their being no male, and no female in Christ.

Wilbur's Hey-Day

Leviticus 11

God tells Moses and Aaron about the food they need to keep out of their systems...actually even out of their hands. Just touching the carcasses results in being unclean.

As far as land animals are concerned, a good rule of thumb is if it has a split hoof and chews cud, dinner is served. If it's only one and not the other- stay away. So no camels, and avoid rock badgers, rabbits, stewed or otherwise, and...the killer...no pigs.

Water creatures are also discussed. If they have fins and scales- they're probably okay. Otherwise- you shouldn't just avoid eating them- you should also detest them.

The list of detestable birds includes eagles, vultures, black vultures, red and black kites, ravens, owls (horned, screech, little, great, white, and desert- if it's me, I'm just going to keep away from owls), bats, cormorants, gulls, osprey, storks, herons, and the belvoed hoopoes. As a Carson-Newman Eagle- I take the detestable comment a bit personally, but at least we shouldn't get eaten by any wayward Israelites.

Next comes a list of insects to avoid. In my way of thinking, this list is really not too important- I won't be ordering any fried termites anyhow. But maybe in this legalistic system something inadvertantly flying in your mouth would count. Here God just tells them the "OK to eat" ones: locusts, katydids, crickets and grasshoppers.

Before moving onto the crawling on the ground animals, there's a reminder about the whole unclean thing. Don't touch the carcasses or you are unclean until evening and you need to wash your clothes.

So of the crawling animals- stay away from the lizard (great, monitor, and wall), weasel, rat, gecko, the skink and the chameleon. So even if you saw what appeared to be a good eatin' skink, you'd still need to maintain your self-control. In fact, He goes on to say that all of these animals are detestable. These animals also make things unclean if they die on them. If they die on the shelf, the shelf is unclean, if they die in a clay pot- everything in the pot is unclean- and you need to break the pot. If they die in a spring, it's still clean, but if you touch the animal to remove it, you are unclean. If it dies on seeds, they are still clean unless they've been watered- then they're unclean.

Even if it's an animal you're allowed to eat, you are unclean if you touch the carcass- which I would imagine makes food preparation a little tricky.

So on top of all the sacrifice things you need to learn- here's a whole new list of things to be paranoid about. I'm guessing Egg McMuffins weren't the cleanest of choices.

I'm not sure what to take from this section except that being an Israelite would likely make you obsessive-compulsive.

Strange Fire

Leviticus 10

Day one of the priesthood may have seemed pretty cool. Whatever day happens in Leviticus 10 surely seemed much less so. After all the careful instruction, two of Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu, thought they had a better approach to it all. I don't know if they just took a short cut through the proceedings, burned the wrong meat at the wrong time, didn't pay attention to the fat on the sacrifice or what- but the NIV describes the error as "unauthorized fire." It seems from Moses' explanation that whatever it was, God took it as irreverance. He says:

"...in the sight of all the people I will be honored."

The result, that fire that usually consumes the sacrifice- consumed them. Aaron loses half of his priestly staff. Two of his boys go from proud ambassadors of God to shame of the clan of Aaron. Moses instructs a couple of their cousins to carry the charred corpses outside of the camp... and Aaron's family is told to keep a stiff upper-lip. No visible signs of mourning. Keep that hair trimmed. Don't rend your clothing. Others can mourn...but not you- if you show signs of mourning, you will die- and God won't be happy with the community. They are also to stay put in the Tent of Meeting.

I've always heard this passage used to teach the authority of silence. If God didn't decree it, it must be forbidden. Some of this may come from the King James translating "unauthorized" as "strange" although both words can be read that way. Not approved by God. I think though, that there's a rebellion inherent in the actions of these two. And with so much detail spelled out regarding the ceremonial procedures, it seems more likely that God's law was ignored, changed, abbreviated, or rebelled against.

It may be that this wasn't a case where God didn't specify and people were free to interpret. This was specific and deliberate law breaking. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all. Whichever the case, God wasn't happy and the suffering was great.

God then tells Aaron that they must not drink any wine while in the Tent of Meeting. They need to be able to distinguish between the common and the holy- between the clean and unclean- and they must teach the people God's laws. This makes the context even richer. Why does this decree follow the Nadab and Abihu section? Is it that their sins were violating just this? They treated the holy as common? They treated the unclean as clean? And now God says- look... get it right- you're the priests, if you can't keep it straight, who can?

Moses then tells Aaron that he and his two remaining sons (who must be terrified) should get their share of the food that's left. There's some grain offering that's yours, there's also some breast and thigh that belongs to you all. He specifies what to eat and where to eat it.

When he comes back and discovers that they haven't eaten it, he's a little ticked. In fact they not only don't eat it, they let it burn up. He asks them- what's up? This was supposed to make atonement for the community- what's wrong with you?

Aarons replies. You may have noticed, this hasn't really been a banner day for the priestly profession. Do you think we really earned our share today? You saw how angry God was, right? Do you really think he would have been happy if we'd chowed down as if we'd done something to deserve this sacrifice? Moses hears this and reconsiders.

As good as they must have felt in chapter nine, Aaron is surely doing some heavy soul searching here. Is he wishing he'd never let Moses get him involved in the great Exodus? Is he determined to get it right? Is he growing more and more petrified of his God? More paranoid about getting everything just so? Questioning his own parenting skills?

Or is he slowly realizing the challenge of serving God- the difficulty of denying self and becoming immersed in the will of One greater than you- the frustration of not being in control and the necessity of trusting in the justness of your Creator?

And is that what we should take away? That submission is the key. God isn't interested in sacrifice that makes us happy- our service is catered to His whims, His desires, His decrees. Anything else is strange fire.

Rookies of the Year

Leviticus 9

So Moses calls Aaron, his sons and the elders and lets them know that opening day is imminent. He gives them specific instructions about their own sacrifices (bull calf for a sin offering, ram for a burnt offering) and what they are to tell the people to bring for their own sacrifices (male goat for a sin offering, one-year-old calf, and one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering, an ox and a ram for a fellowship offering, and a grain offering mixed with oil). Of course, these animals for the sacrifices are to be without blemish. This is happening because today, God makes an appearance.

So they do it- Moses gives us the play by play- details about blood on the horns, liver coverings, washing of inner parts, blood sprinkling and other gruesome yet somehow boring specifics of this slaughter-fest.

But it surely wasn't boring for them. I'm sure they were a bit unnerved keeping all the detail straight- but ultimately they were probably quite exhilerated. Finally, the work we've been training for- we're actually serving an amazingly important role for our community and more importantly for our God. We've found a way to truly make a spiritual difference in the lives of those around us and whatever inconvenience comes with it is totally worth it.

They're living the dream.

Moses and Aaron enter the tent of meeting and when they come out they bless the people. And the glory of the LORD appears to them all. Fire comes out of His presence and consumes the offerings. The people are awed- they shout for joy and fall face down.

All in all, a pretty good first day of work.