On Holiness

I recently shared how much I love to read the Bible.  Since September, I've been part of a women's Bible study group at a local church and together we have read through the book of Exodus, which tells the thrilling story of Moses, Pharaoh, and God, and how God's people were set free from slavery.  The Bible study continues this month as we jump into Leviticus, which is the not-so-thrilling list of rules and guidelines for the newly formed nation of Israel.  Bo-ring!  I have read through this before and struggled to get from page to page, sentence to sentence.  Most of it no longer applies to modern readers, as we don't present animal sacrifices or live in a desert climate and have access to, you know, modern medicine.  And yet, this time, Leviticus seemed to come alive for me.  Instead of reading through a bunch of stuff I don't have to do, I saw each description as a picture of God.  God is not diseased, and so his people need to be purified from their disease to live with him.  God is incapable of sin, and so his people need to be purified from their sins to live with him.  God is honest and fair, and so his people need to be honest and fair so they can live with him and each other.

I think the Old Testament, and especially Leviticus, gets a back rap (I have personally complained about both).  But when I got to chapter 19, I had to stop and reflect.  The chapter is a list of rules and commands that don't necessarily seem to go together.  The chapter is titled "Holiness in Personal Conduct".  It includes:

• "Each of you must show great respect to your mother and father, and you must always observe my Sabbath days of rest." verse 3
• "Do not steal.  Do not deceive or cheat one another." verse 11
• "Do not defraud or rob your neighbor." verse 13
• "Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble.  You must fear your God." verse 14
• "Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor OR being partial to the rich and powerful.  Always judge people fairly." verse 15
• "Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.  Do not stand idly by when your neighbor's life is threatened." verse 17
• "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself." verse 18
• "Do not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute." verse 29
• "Stand up in the presence of the elderly, and show respect for the aged." verse 32
• "Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land.  Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself.  Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt." verses 33-34
• "Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight, or volume." verse 35

I know what you're thinking...this sounds like every Christian I know, right?  We do such a good job keeping these commandments.  Oh wait, no, no we don't.  But like I said, Leviticus doesn't say as much about me and where I fall short, as it points to who God is.  What I learn about God by reading through this chapter is his commitment to equality.  Don't treat people differently because they are old, or poor, or rich, or blind.  Don't cheat each other.  Be honest.  Love each other the way you love yourself.  And I also learn that God knew what we would actually do.

If there is one thing that all people have in common, it's this tendency to constantly rank ourselves according to the people we know.  Like, they have a bigger house than me, her kids are better behaved than mine, but that person doesn't dress as nicely as I do.  We tend to bow to those we perceive to be "better" or "higher" than us, and to look down on those "lesser" or "below" us.  We derive our worth from our ranking.  I know striving to be better than everyone else characterized most of my teen years, and carried over a little into my twenties.

Take my friend Liga, for instance. She is much prettier than me.  She has a bigger house.  She has beautiful, special kids (and more than me).  Most days, I feel like she's a better mom than me.  She takes her kids on outdoor adventures and makes art with them on snow days.  She is more generous than me.  When we first met, I didn't think we would become friends.  I looked at how she was just so much MORE than me.  I felt self-conscious and inferior.  I needed to find some flaws to level the differences between us.  Instead, what Liga offered me was a grace to transcend our differences.  We became friends not because I was able to lower her to my level, but because she sees worth in the way that I do things.  And so I have found myself in this new kind of friendship where I tell her she is an amazing mom and then she tells me that I'm an amazing mom.  It doesn't matter what our houses or cars or clothes look like.  There's an equality that doesn't insist on all things being equal, but delights in the differences.  It's a blessed relief from the "mom-petition" (like competition, but when moms do it to each other).

It's a Levitical relationship when we stop trying to match up and accept each other for who we are.  For instance, there wasn't much that a blind person could offer to society at large, certainly not in comparison to someone whose vision was intact.  But we are told not to hurt them anyway.  A daughter wouldn't be worth as much as a son thousands of years ago, but parents were told to offer them the same protection anyway.  Foreigners have never had rights or power ever in human history, but we are to treat them with dignity anyway.  Jesus even taught about this in Luke 14:12-14 when he said, "When you put on a luncheon or a banquet, don't invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors.  For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward.  Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.  Then, at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who cannot repay you."

I think we should take Jesus literally.  Not only will God be pleased by opening our homes and sharing our meals with those who don't "rank" as our equals, but we can be pleasantly surprised to find new friends where we hadn't thought to look.  Because when we stop measuring a person's worth by what they can offer us, or by their sameness to ourselves, we can look at people with eyes wide open and realize that we are all equals as human beings and children of God.