Lovin' me some Leviticus

Our church has been blessed with fantastic pastoring, from before I starting attending, which was in the previous millennium, and all the way up to the present. Over that period we have constantly led the league in PSR (Pastor Sermon Rating) with an unprecedented average weekly score of 9.82 out of a possible 10 Spurgeons (the units of PSR). ¹

Our latest series on, of all things, Leviticus, may be the best of all. It was promised that we would see Leviticus in a new light. I was skeptical. I was wrong. The promise has been delivered. Never before had I considered that Leviticus was all about Christ. I had this primitive, incorrect view that God was giving these arcane rules for the Jews because, having been in captivity, they were clueless and needed help setting up shop. (How could I be so wrong! Practice, I guess.) It is now very clear to me that Leviticus is way more substantive (and alive) that I ever imagined. It is so awesome that I hope the next series is on Lamentations. ²

I can’t do the sermons justice. So if you think, as I did, a series on Leviticus would send you to the back row ³ then I challenge you to listen on sermon audio, and then come back and say: “You know what David, for once you were right!”

Yesterday’s sermon was primarily concerned with Leviticus chapter 19, and its sandwiching in between two very parallel chapters of 18 and 20. A thumbnail sketch (again, go listen) is that the Jews are being told of the horrible sins of the Egyptians and Canaanites, and being commanded: don’t do that. And the sins include the top-ten list of biggies, e.g. murder, thievery, child sacrifice, forced prostitution, and a laundry list of sexual deviations. But sitting there, in the middle of all these terrible sins, and so one must conclude of comparable heinousness, you find

⁹ “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. ¹⁰ And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:9-10) 

And, I can’t help but thinking especially relevant for the politics of 2019,

³³ “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. ³⁴ You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:33-34) 

It appears to me that God is telling the Jews (and us) that failure to take care of the poor and, dare I say, undocumented immigrants, is not going to be in our best interest.

I am immediately reminded of that well-known trivia question, Why did God destroy Sodom? The answer (or at least the partial answer) is found in Ezekiel:

⁴⁸ As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹ Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. (Ez 16:48-50)

I’ll regurgitate my over-generalized condemnation of the Evangelical church in America: we (I still don’t understand why) embrace conservative politics, complain about big government, but then abrogate our responsibility to care for the poor to that same despised institution. And to add insult to injury, we then complain about the high taxes required for social services. In this we are like Sodom.

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¹ This is the only sermon (post apostolic era) ever to achieve a perfect score of 10 Spurgeons.

² I believe it is now true that Lamentations is the only remaining book concerning which I have never heard a sermon. Yes, I've heard a somewhat racy one on Song of Solomon.

³ Metaphorically speaking. Because literally speaking, I do sit in the back row.