Unknowing Sins

Lev 5:14-23

Sacrifice and restoration – the prescription for violating the sacred inadvertently.

So what holy thing do I violate without knowing it? Without thinking about it?

I, myself, am called to be holy. To enter each moment into the possibility of that moment. But I stub my toe and I look away. I stub my soul when I become over attached – a little too interested in worthless distraction.

The moment fades without the requisite value to make the moment even register in my long term memory. But my failure is just as irreversible.

As important as reflection and examination are to my learning, the healing is more than learning. With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So I will offer myself a candidate for healing and trust in a grace that transcends all understanding.

We are holy – called to be holy.

But you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises” of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light

Special Cases

Lev 4:32-5:5

“5:1” It’s always caught my attention. If a person refuses to offer witness against another, then that person must bear the penalty.

The truth is established on the basis of 2 or 3 witnesses with integrity.

So, if I refuse to accuse another and there aren’t 2 other witnesses, then the truth of guilt is not established.

Under the law of Moses, an innocent person has the ability to absolve another – if they are willing to accept the penalty for the wrong done and make reparation to the Lord.

Surprise, surprise.  We were powerful the whole time.

“Hatred stirs up disputes, but love covers all offenses.” Prov 10:12

“Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Pet 4:8

Mercy.

Leaders and People

Lev 4:22-31

Sacrifice is for the people. It is through sacrifice that God can dwell with the people. Otherwise, the goodness of God is incompatible with human failing.

The goodness and the failing are irreconcilable.

Without reconciliation, we dwell in ignorance of God.

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Matt 11:27

Communal Purification

Lev 4:13-21

The community has sinned.

So what can a community do to sin? I thought that sin was personal – that’s why I need a personal savior?

A communal act is different than an individual act. The democracy killed Socrates. That was a communal act. Not merely the sin of one person. And in hindsight it is the shame of ancient Athens.

The authentic community is a community outside the notion of sovereign political state. How then sin?

A Catholic German killing a Catholic Frenchman on a field in Flanders – and we all think we’re doing God’s will. It wasn’t the first. It wasn’t the last.

A stain on the community. A shame. A sin.

Have mercy on us and on the whole world.

“For I am a man of unclean lips amongst a people of unclean lips.” Isa 6:5

Priest Purification

Lev 4:1-12

The sin of the priest brings guilt onto the entire community. A special sacrificial offering is prescribed to heal the breach.

It’s perhaps a little strange to think that my relationship with God, or with any other person, could be affected by the actions of a third party. Yet, when it comes to persons, that is the way things work.

Rightly or wrongly, for good or for ill, my relationships with other people are affected by the behavior and reputation of my family – my father and mother, my siblings, my wife and my children and even my friends. They all serve as a kind of mirror or reflection of who I am.

“Known by the company I keep”, the saying goes. There is a presumed knowing by association. Human persons do this.

My sins – even my inconsequential, inadvertent, venial, sins of omission – impact my family and friends.

So think about reputation. This also is love.

“A good name is more desirable than great riches, and high esteem, than gold and silver.” Prov 22:1

Life of Sacrifice

Lev 3:6-17

Touching the head of the sacrifice as it is being slaughtered. It’s hard to touch something that’s alive without knowing that its alive. It’s an almost innate ability that we have, to recognize the difference between that which is alive and that which isn’t.

At the mortuary, no amount of makeup can overcome the symptoms of death. The spirit of life is clearly not there.

Life is just that manifest. We have the intuitive sense of it.

Life and Death.

It is written that the spirit of God animates us; that in Him we live and move and have our being.

Thomas Merton once visited Louisville and marveled that all of the people there were shining – yet none of them seemed to know it.

The difference between life and death is the spirit of God.

If you want to see God, then look closely and see Him in the living face of another.

Communion Offering

Lev 2:12-3:5

The medium of all relationship is shared experience.

Perhaps it could be said that all of our experiences are, in a way, shared with the Lord. No argument.

But it seems safe to say that most of our experiences are not done for the exclusive purpose of relating to the Lord. There is too much earthly stuff in our days.

So a shared experience, a holy experience – that seems to be the issue.

Food. A meal. A shared, covenantal meal.

He said, “Do not come empty-handed”.

Is the shared experience real or a symbol? It’s kind of funny but from this perspective, the question seems to have lost merit.

I will praise you Lord, and share in the sacrifice of your covenant.

“…through the blood of Jesus we have the confidence of entrance into the sanctuary..” Heb 10:19

Grain Offerings

Lev 2:1-11

Provision and the giving back.

The priests receive the grain offerings and burn a token on the altar, the rest is for them to consume.

It is about community and provision. The other tribes have the land, but the sons of Aaron have the ministry of the Lord as their portion.

The authentic community provides for everyone.

The authentic community provides for everyone.

All who believed were together and had all things in common… Acts 2:44

Burnt Offerings

Lev 1:7-17

The work of sacrifice is grisly. Flesh and blood, cut and torn, and blood spilled out on the ground, then burned in a fire. The lines of people from all over Israel, waiting to participate with their offering of sacrifice. Who are these people? It is so foreign to my experience.

A good and creative God. The utter destruction and sacrificial loss of life. “God hates sin this much…” I still can’t reconcile it in my mind.

I get my meat from a factory where, as far as I know, nothing grisly ever happens. Meat from the grocery store, pink and fresh and clean.

“Where does this meat come from dad?” Not wanting to wreck a three year old appetite, or deal with the reality of death leading to life I say, “Don’t worry about it – just enjoy it.”

Why can’t I just say – “death to life.” Because it wasn’t always meant to be this way?

Fortunate fall? Isn’t that a little too convenient?

And yet, He came. He was beaten and bruised and slaughtered. And somehow this saves me. And somehow love overcomes death. And somehow grisly death leads to life.

…By His wounds we are healed  Isa 53:5

God’s Glory

Ex 40:33 – Lev 1:6

The cloud and the fire of God’s glory descend upon the tabernacle and tent of meeting.

What a strange moment. The children of Israel had these things made of gold, silver and other materials – which were valuable but ordinary, which they donate for the construction of the tabernacle. And now that very same material has become a part of the dwelling place of God.

That which once hung on the ears or wrists of a young woman, was now a part of the ark of the covenant. Ordinary material has become extraordinary. Holy.

Did she say to herself, “The thing I once touched every day and thought little of it, now is beyond my touch and is vested with glory. It has become part of the throne of God.”?

We rise. This ordinary day of yours has all this possibility.