Today, we begin Leviticus. . .

Happy Valentine's Day! I was trying to find some kind of music or video clip to add, and I came across this one from http://www.youtube.com/. It's a new cultural phenomenon called "Post Secret." It's a blog "art project" where you can write something on a postcard anonymously and send it to them. They will take a picture of the postcard and post it on their site. It's a place to "post secrets." You can check out the website if you're curious: http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/.

Here's their Valentine's Day video:




Here's the question and answer from yesterday:
Fri, Feb. 13- What was attached around the hem of the priestly robe?
Exodus 39:26 “The bells and pomegranates alternated around the hem of the robe to be worn for ministering.”

And here's the question of the day:
Sat, Feb.14- Why were Ananias and Sapphira struck dead?

And here's the reflection of the day:
Today, we begin Leviticus. . . . Please curb your enthusiasm. If you haven't read Jim Davison's little blurb on Leviticus, it says this: "Leviticus is a book to read quickly. Much of the material it records, which is intended to regulate religious and civil life for Israel, will be hard to understand and will appear burdensome to us." He mentions there are some major themes to the regulations, especially a theme of atonement in chapter 16 and of justice/helping the poor in chapter 19.

I'll do my best to point out other themes as they might apply to us. One of the challenges of reading a book that's two thousand years old is to figure out how it still applies to us today. And as someone at Bible Study this week said, "It's surprising how much of this stuff written so long could be written today!"

Let me introduce you to Samuel E. Balentine, author of the commentary on Leviticus that I'll be relying heavily on for explanation and interpretation for the next 13 days--that's how long it's going to take to read through Leviticus. I wanted to check out his introduction to see if there was anything there that might help us keep an eye on the big picture and not get lost in the details.

It seems that Balentine has a bit of a sense of humor dealing with Leviticus. In his introduction, he writes, ". . . how does one 'explain' and 'apply' a book that devotes seven chapters to the bewildering, if not seemingly bizarre, requirements of ancient Israel's sacrificial system and five chapters to details of ritual impurity, including such indelicate matters as menstrual blood and semen?" (p 1). Thank God for humor, right?

The theology of Leviticus is not clearly spelled out; instead, it is tucked inside the rituals it details: "every act, whether movement, manipulation or gesticulation, is pregnant with meaning" (Milgrom quoted by Balentine) (p 3). To us the word "ritual" is something we associate with being old or ceremonial or even superstitious--like "Friday the 13th" or not walking under a ladder. How can we reinterpret rituals so that they become helpful and positive? That is one of the questions we must ask as we read through Leviticus.

A ritual is a "social drama"--a repeated act by an individual or group. What we need to pay attention to, as we read these rituals, is the worldview (or the reasons why) certain rituals are proscribed. Balentine points out that there are TWO MAJOR BELIEFS that help us to understand these rituals:

1. "God has created the world and purposely designed its rhythmic orders that keep it tuned to its capacity to be 'very good.'" (In other words, God has set up his relationship with the world in harmony and when that harmony is disrupted, the harmony between God and the earth is fractured)
AND
2. "God's creational order is generative of sustained by human observance of an imaging ritual order" (p 4). (In other words, what we read in Leviticus is meant to establish boundaries to allow a holy God to dwell among a people vulnerable to sin and defilement.)

Keep these 2 beliefs in the back of your mind as you read through Leviticus. What are your favorite rituals we do in church? (baptism, sharing communion, lighting the candles, singing hymns--worship is full rituals!) Why are they so important? Why do you think we do the rituals we do?

Have a great day!
Allison