When anyone presents a grain offering to the Lord, the offering shall be of choice flour; the worshiper shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it, and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. After taking from it a handful of the choice flour and oil, with all its frankincense, the priest shall turn this token portion into smoke on the altar, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord. ... You shall not omit from your grain offerings the salt of the covenant with your God; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
(Leviticus 2:1-2, 13)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I don’t know how many of you remember a TV show from the 1970’s called “The Lost Islands.” It was an Australian show. Believe it or not, I thought about it as I was contemplating Leviticus – the book of the Bible we read from just a few minutes ago. There were only 26 episodes of the show produced, basically because – strangely enough – it was an Australian show that was just never all that popular in Australia. But after it was cancelled in Australia it started to be broadcast in syndication all over the world and it became something of a cult hit, and it became pretty popular among young people of a certain era in places as far flung as Israel, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the United States and, of course, Canada. I know I wasn’t the only one who watched it because a couple of days ago I was trying to refresh my memories of it and I was watching some You Tube videos of it in my office at home when Lynn walked into the room, looked at the video and said right off “That’s ‘The Lost Islands.’” So I know my wife must have watched it as a kid, too. The premise of the story was that a multi-millionaire had brought together a group of teenagers from all over the world – different cultures, different races, different religions – and they were put on a ship called “The United World” and they were going to sail together around the world, getting to know each other, breaking down barriers, etc. But the ship encountered a storm, and as a result five of the teenagers ended up shipwrecked on a mysterious island. On the island was a community of people of apparently European ancestry who had lived there for hundreds of years but had never progressed. So they had no knowledge of the outside world, they had no technology. They lived as Europeans had lived centuries before. It's a bit more complicated than this, and the show had a bit of a sci-fi twist to it, but the basic story revolved around the conflict between the community – who saw the teenagers as different and therefore as a threat to their way of life, and the teenagers who saw the community as old fashioned and threatening. And this TV show about a clash of cultures came into my mind when I thought about today’s Scripture passage.
Think about it. Leviticus. The very name sounds ominous. Leviticus. In Jewish circles it's also sometimes called "The Law of the Priests," "The Book of the Priests," or "The Law of the Offerings." Which doesn't make it sound exactly user-friendly. It’s kind of like a technical manual. It's not a book that too many people would want to read from beginning to end. It's full of old and obscure laws and rituals, a whole series of strange sounding offerings that the people were required to make. It has rules that govern even the most intimate and personal details of people's lives. It prescribes harsh punishments for breaking even the most obscure of those rules. It's probably most famous for fundamentalists who take individual verses completely out of context and use them as what I refer to as "hammer verses" to hit people whose conduct they disagree with over the head with, while at the same time those same fundamentalists engage in hermeneutical contortions so that they can give themselves permission to ignore the rules about how to cut their hair and beards, or what materials can be used to make clothing, and I rarely today hear anyone condemn people with tattoos, even though Leviticus tells us that God doesn't much like them and doesn’t want people to have them! In other words, it's a book that's a product of a particular time and a particular culture (a book that’s definitely not of our time and culture) - and so we probably wonder why it's in our Bible? Of what relevance is this strange piece of writing from another age to 21st century Christians? And why is this wacky preacher even bothering with it? All good questions - especially the one about the wacky preacher!
Actually I was talking with someone just a few days ago who asked me why books like Leviticus were even in the Bible. It’s probably a question that a lot of people have at least thought about from time to time. There are a lot of reasons I suppose – the most important probably being that Leviticus and other books like it were among the Scriptures that Jesus would have known. He would have been raised on the stories and educated on the laws that were contained within such books. They would have helped to form his worldview. They would have been at the basis of his understanding of all that he saw happening around him. When I read the teachings of Jesus I often wonder where this idea or that idea came from – because they often sound so different and even so revolutionary even to our minds but, usually, when you do a little bit of digging, you discover that at least the kernel of what Jesus taught you can find in the law that he would have known so well. He may have brought a fresh interpretation to the law, but he was steeped in the law.
I began thinking about that last week actually. If you remember we talked about Jesus calling his followers “the salt of the earth” last week. I wondered where the image came from. Salt isn’t actually referred to a great deal in the Bible, but one of the few places it does come up is this reference to it in one of the rules for one of the offerings in Leviticus. “Add a little salt to your offering” is basically what this passage says. “Why?” I wondered. What would be the point of adding salt to the offering? Obviously it was symbolic – but what was the symbolism? And could it have been from this passage that Jesus – as steeped in the law as he was – had first formulated the idea of his followers being “the salt of the earth”?
This passage is about the “grain offering” that the people were instructed to make to God. Of all the offerings required by Leviticus, that’s an important offering. Let’s get some context here. This takes place after God’s people have left Egypt, but before they’ve arrived in Canaan. In Egypt there was a lot of grain. In Canaan there would be a lot of grain. But right now the people are at the foot of Mount Sinai in the middle of the desert. There’s not very much grain here. It’s very difficult to grow grain in the desert – and yet the people are commanded to make a grain offering to God. This is a special offering. I skipped over several verses, but suffice to say that from verses 3-12 you get all sorts of details about exactly how the grain offering is to be prepared. It’s special. You don’t just take some wheat and throw it into the fire. It has to be properly prepared. There’s hard work involved in this offering – finding and preparing the grain – and the offering is of something very valuable. So right from the start the message is that God’s people are to give their best for God. God’s people aren’t to hold back on the good stuff because it’s too good to give up - even for God. But it goes even deeper. Skip over those details of how the grain offering is to be prepared and you come to that strange little addition: “with all your offerings you shall offer salt.” Don’t leave out the salt! That’s what Leviticus says. In even this most valuable of offerings, you have to include salt. Grain was precious and hard to grow and therefore rare – but the people had other food. They didn’t absolutely need grain. But they needed salt for all sorts of reasons. Last week Karen talked with the children about all the uses for salt. We can’t live without salt. Back in the days we’re reading about we go back to the idea that salt was essential for preserving food. There was food other than grain. There was meat. But you needed to preserve it. You needed salt. Salt was valuable – even essential. So essential that in Jesus’ day the Roman Empire would often pay its soldiers with salt. So the point is that you not only offer grain – which is very rare and therefore very valuable – but you have to include some salt with it – and salt is literally life! This is no easy offering. This is an offering that demands a lot. And really, by the time Jesus comes along saying “you are the salt of the earth” he’s only taking this one step farther. Salt is life. Include salt in your offering. “You are the salt of the earth.” Don’t hold back yourself from the offering. Maybe that’s the whole point.
Even in Leviticus – a book full of rules and rituals - apparently the ritual itself wasn’t enough. There had to be a personal investment being made. You couldn’t just go through the motions. You had to throw yourself – body and soul – into what you were giving to God, because all of the offerings – whether the offerings in Leviticus or the offering we take in church – are just rituals; symbols. They point to something greater. What do they point to? They point to our willingness to give not just grain or salt or money or whatever it is. They point to the fact that we willingly give of ourselves for the mission of God in the world around us. So whenever we find ourselves asking what we can give that would be in any way meaningful for God - the answer is simple: give yourself! Just give yourself!
No comments:
Post a Comment