Own to Rent

Leviticus 25: 8-55

So this Sabbath year bit continues for seven sets of seven years (49 years for those of you arithmetically challenged). Year 50 is the Jubilee. Seems like it's an extra Sabbath year- so they get two years back to back. No work for two years in a row. So on July 10th (on our calendar) a trumpet blows- this is the Day of Atonement. No sowing no reaping.

In addition, on this 50th year, anyone who has sold property goes back to where they used to live. They reclaim their house keys and put the couch back in the living room. No matter when you sold it, it reverts back to you. God tells them- you don't really own it- so you can't permanently sell it. You can let someone use it for awhile- but when Jubilee comes, it goes back to the original "owners".

He also warns about price gouging. Your price should reflect how close it is to jubilee when you sell the property. Year one sales should be much higher than year 47. Actually this price gouging is only mentioned in reference to buying from and selling to fellow Israelites. If you're selling to a foreigner... than buyer beware.

In regards to food for that 50th year, God says there will be major abundance in year 48. In fact so much that three years worth of food will be produced. There will be enough to eat until the harvest of year 51 comes in.

If someone is hurting financially and sells their property in order to make ends meet- his nearest relative should come buy it back. If he doesn't have any relatives, but wins at the track, invests well, or somehow comes into money- he can go and get the land back. He is to evaluate the worth of the land and pay the difference to the person he sold it to. If he can't do that- he gets it back at Jubilee anyhow.

Rules are different in a walled city. If you sell property, you get a year to come back and reclaim it. After that, the buyer keeps it. It does not go back to the original buyer at Jubilee.

Levites can always get their property back (this process in all of these contexts is referred to as redeeming). The town's pasture land, though, cannot be sold.

If a fellow citizen hits hard times- you are supposed to help him. No interest charged- no profiting on food you sell to him. If he sells himself to you, treat him like an employee, not as a slave. The motivation here seems to be that you do everything you can to help him be able to keep living among the Israelites.

If he's sold himself to you- he is released on the year of Jubilee- and he goes home. All is returned to as it was.

If you get slaves, they should come from surrounding areas. They can also come from temporary residents. They can be willed as property and are slaves for life. I wish I could just pretend this little section didn't exist here, but it does. Troubling, indeed. I get that God's people here are chosen by race and that this set-up changes with the coming of Jesus. But even under that context, the idea of it being okay to have slaves that are outside of "God's fold" doesn't seem to fit with ideas of love and humility.

If you sell yourself as a slave to a foreigner- you can be "redeemed" by your relative at anytime- once again figuring out the price based on when Jubilee is. If that doesn't happen, you are free at Jubilee time.

This year of Jubilee thing is amazing. No matter what mess you've made of things over the last few decades- if you can just hang on till Jubilee- you get to start over. You're free! You get your land back! You go home!

And maybe just the promise of it all- the knowledge that you just have to hang on until year 50 would be enough to help them hang on- help them deal with whatever tight spot they found themselves in.

I think you see where I'm going with this.

Hmm- feels a little like Jubilee around here. This redemption stuff really works.

Random Harvest
Leviticus 25: 1-7

So in addition to the other sabbaths set up to observe- there is also a sabbath for the land. Odd. For six years, they were to sow, prune, and gather. On year seven, not so much. On this seventh year there is to be no sowing, no reaping, no pruning, no harvesting. Whatever the land happens to produce is fair game to be eaten- but it's not business as usual for that year.

This certainly makes the job of farmer a lot more appealing. Every six years you get a year off. Sweet. No early mornings, no back breaking weeding, oops- no spinach grew, guess I'll have to have some more twinkees instead.

It certainly makes reliance on God much more necessary. If I give up complete control of food production, and perhaps my livelihood (the year off wasn't a paid year off I would assume) and I totally depend on God to provide for me, how does that change my perspective of my relationship with Him- and how does it change my appreciation for His gifts?

In our day and age, what does that look like? How does we give the land a sabbath? I'm the opposite of a farmer (although I'm a pretty good consumer)- is it good for the land to get a year off? Is the world of agriculture improved by not overproducing food that doesn't get eaten? Is God telling us that as great as His creation is, we need to treat it with moderation?

Or is this more about our need to depend on Him? But how does that work in our context? Quit your jobs for a year? No grocery shopping for a year? No vegetables for a year? I'm leaning toward that one. Maybe our culture has become so complex and busy that stopping anything for a year would make our whole way of life crumble. And maybe that's the point.

Everybody Must Get Stoned
Leviticus 24: 10-23

Wow- an interesting yet quite troubling story. So you've got this Egyptian and Israelite who get into a fight. And apparently in the midst of it all, the Israelite emits a curse against God (blasphemed the Name with a curse). The needle drags across the record, the jukebox is quiet, all conversation stops- everyone knows something bad has just happened. So they get this guy in custody until God's will becomes clear to them. At this point, the story sounds pretty good- people of God waiting for a sign of what to do to this person who cursed.

Then the answer comes- Take him out of camp and stone him. Everyone who heard it puts their hand on his head (to hold him down?) and the whole assembly is to stone him to death. God tells Moses anyone who curses God is responsible and all who blaspheme the name of the LORD will be put to death. I think we've found a solution to our overpopualtion problems. As if the death itself weren't gruesome enough, the entire assembly does the stoning. So I hear the curse and now I'm legally obligated to be involved in physically killing someone. That'll ruin your day.

Interesting that after commanding taking part in putting someone to death for blasphemy, the next section talks about the death penalty for whoever takes the life of a human being. Doesn't that create an endless cycle? Kill John, he blasphemed. Kill Peter, he killed John... etc. Is this why the whole assembly is doing the stoning? We don't know which rock actually killed him so we don't know who actually did it... It seems like this could create a society of snitches looking for an excuse to throw a rock or two.

Killing an animal results in restitution. If you injure your neighbor- same thing happens is done to you. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. I know Gandhi's famous line, but I like a tooth for a tooth and we're all gumming applesauce. Notice that there's no mention of intent here. Sorry I ran over your mailbox... go ahead and back your car into mine. It's like a sort of mandated karma- except even that involves intent.

In both instances, the alien receives the same punishment as the native born.

So they take the blasphemer out and stone him.

This is troubling to me on two fronts. First... stoning? Killing someone for cursing? What does that entail exactly? Just saying "God" or "Yahweh"? Does the curse translate? I rarely say "Yahweh" at all, so am I safe on the name in vain front? Especially since "god" and "lord" are English words in different contexts, does that suggest that these English words don't qualify here? Regardless- seems a bit steep. And if we lived by this, how many of us would still be alive? The concept of God's people being violently engaged in frontier justice is hard for me to swallow. Maybe God was a little more blatantly involved in the prosecution process- but it seems like it would be a pretty easy thing to manipulate ala "The Crucible".

Second, maybe it's bad that hearing God's name as a curse doesn't put the sort of anger or rage in me that it seemed to in their context. Honestly, hearing God's name in vain does get under my skin (OMG, GD, etc.- you get the idea)- but certainly not to the point where I feel compelled to become a vigilante. I think it's important to point out that this "cursing" here is related to God's name exclusively and not cuss-words which seem to me to be highly cultural in both their existence and usage.

I'm not suggesting I should be wishing people dead whenever I hear God's name cursed, but maybe it should bother me more. Maybe it suggests a lack of sanctity for things holy- maybe it suggests a numbing of conscience, maybe it suggests yet another example of conflict avoidance in my life- but I don't have any desire to stone people to death for such usage any more than I wish to lay down on an altar for my slips.

This passage certainly paints a contrast between God's wrath and God's grace. Not quite the go your way and sin no more mentality I cling to in the NT. But in the midst of it all, maybe there's a lesson about the need for discipline in our attitude to God- if misusing His name resulted in death, maybe I should treat it holy too.

Eternal Flame

Leviticus 24: 1-9

Nine verses, but not a lot of content. The Israelites are commanded to bring another couple of things.

First, olive oil- to be used as fuel for the lamps on the pure gold lamp stand in the tent of meeting outside of the curtain of testimony. These lamps are to be always lit from evening to morning. Aaron is in charge of making sure they stay that way. I'm not sure why they need to be constantly lit. The most obvious metaphor that comes to mind deals with letting your light shine before men- but maybe this is more like an open sign- an indication to the Israelites that there isn't a time that they can't come before Aaron (or God) with their testimony- or prayer- or whatever. Maybe God is saying, Look- Aaron's going to be up keeping the lamp lit anyhow- don't worry about bugging him- you are always welcome here.

Second, bread. Lots of bread. Twelve loaves each Sabbath (total, not per person) to be put on the golden table. This is part of Aaron's family's share- though they are to eat it in a holy place. There is also supposed to be incense placed on the table to represent the bread. The bread apparently gets eaten, the incense offered to God.

Open all night- dispersion of bread- seems like an Isreali Krystal. That's some pretty serious clashing of cultures.

Table or Booth?

Leviticus 23: 33-44

Five days later the festivities continue. Apparently coinciding with the end of harvesting, this marks the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles, one week in length. Day one... you guessed it, a day of rest- no regular work. They were supposed to pick fruit and rejoice. The day following the celebration (day eight for those of you doing the math) is also a day of rest. Day eight consists of a sacred assembly and fire offerings, no mention of fruit consumption. It is referred to as the closing assembly.

All the days in between consist of fire offerings to the LORD as well. Being an Israelite would be a pyromaniac's dream. This festival is to be a lasting ordinance- for generations to come.

Finally they are admonished to live in booths for these seven days. I have no idea what this means. Are they hanging out at Wendy's? What would these booths be? Whatever they are, God wanted future generations to know that He had the Israelites live in booths after coming out of Israel.

I'm sure these booths are significant in some way. But I haven't a clue how.

Atone Deaf

Leviticus 23: 26-32

Nine days later there is to be another day of resting- this time a day of atonement. Atonement is really a difficult concept for me to get my mind around. Making amends- or fixing your wrongs. Even in this legalistic context, the Israelites were unable to undo the terrible things they had done- and with all of the specific regulations, there was surely a great need for atonement in every home.

God's arrangement here is a fire offering, fasting, and rest- This is the same prescription as the feast of trumpets- but hanging over this day is the need to be reconnected to God.

Atonement is a word, if not a concept that isn't too common in our culture. Atonement doesn't seem to be the same thing as forgiveness. It implies a making up for wrongs- unless I'm misunderstanding. So, if I get the implication here- and much later with Jesus' gift - the sacrifice is more than forgiving us for messing up countless times- it's rectifying it for us- it's making up for it-

Maybe this is minutia- maybe it's all in my head- maybe I'm saying the same thing in multiple ways- but it all speaks to the enormity of Christ's gift to us. No fire offering, no fasting, no day off, necessarily- but a system where he covers our lacking- he not only forgives, but in a cosmic, spiritual sense- he undoes. The wrong is gone- made up for- erased- over.