(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on September 29, 2019, Proper 21)
Lasting Consequences for Everyone
“It’s not fair,” I declared to my
mom as I slung my backpack onto the ground and sat down at the table. “I didn’t do anything wrong. But the teacher said everyone in the class has to write one
page about respect.”
That was fourth grade. My class had conspired against a
substitute teacher, and various individuals had pulled off a series of pranks
against her. Nothing
sinister—chalk in the eraser, changing nametags, having stopwatch alarms go off
every few minutes. But it was
enough to get the message across to the substitute that she was not fondly
regarded. Later, of course, we
would have to apologize to the substitute as a class. But the apology was not difficult nor did it offend my
fourth-grade sense of justice.
Rather, it was having to write a paper for something I did not do.
The class punishment tactic is
not an unfamiliar one among teachers.
And although it upset me at the time, I can see now a profound wisdom in
what my fourth-grade teacher was doing.
In fact, she was a teaching us a lesson as old as Leviticus. First, she was teaching us that one
person’s action have consequences for the whole community, and that in fact the
whole community bears responsibility for that one person’s actions. This was very true for my fourth grade
class. Several of the ringleaders
had begun conspiring at the lunch table.
The rest of us heard their plans and did nothing. Ultimately their disrespect for the sub
was our disrespect.
But my fourth grade teacher was
also teaching us something else: namely, that an apology does not magically
restore what has been broken. As
my Old Testament seminary professor would later say, the apology of a drunk
driver does not restore whatever he has wrecked.
To summarize these two lessons
together: sin has lasting consequences for everyone.
The Visible Expression of an Invisible Reality
But the writers of Leviticus are
deeply aware of another truth: that sin is often subtle and slips under our
radar.
Irish poet and playwright Oscar
Wilde once wrote a story about this, The
Picture of Dorian Gray, where the main character Dorian decides upon a
hedonistic and corrupt lifestyle.
On the outside, this doesn’t change a thing. He appears as young and dapper as ever. But Dorian has a self-portrait that he
keeps hidden within a closet. And
every time he breaks someone’s trust or hurts someone, every time he delivers
distress and damage to the world around him, his portrait becomes more and more
disfigured.
In Leviticus, the tabernacle and
the altar are that portrait.
According to the worldview of Leviticus, every time someone in Israel
sins, the altar becomes contaminated.
In this view, sin is something like a social pollutant. If you do something wrong, it might not
show immediately. But you can bet
that your sin has entered the air and polluted the whole community. In particular, it has polluted the
altar and the tabernacle. The
altar and the tabernacle are the portrait—they are where the sin shows. They remind the people that if their
sin goes unaddressed, then sooner or later their world will fall apart. This is the reason for the sin
offerings. If sin has polluted the
altar with impurity and death, then what is required is a cleansing agent of
purity and life. That cleansing
agent is the lifeblood of the sacrificial animals.
If this strikes us as primitive
and outdated—well, on the one hand, of course it is! It’s thousands of years old. When Leviticus was written, animal sacrifice was the ritual
lingua franca. It was how the
ancient Near East gave expression to its hopes and fears. On the other hand, what Leviticus does
with sacrifice is revolutionary.
Embedded within this customary act was a new meaning. Whereas other nations were performing
sacrifices to ward off evil spirits or to fight demonic forces, Israel
understood that the chaos of their world did not result from evil spirits or
demons outside them. It resulted
primarily from human words and actions—it resulted from their sin. The
revolutionary significance of the sin offerings, then, was that it gave visible
expression to an invisible reality.
It reminded the people that their misdeeds and mistakes had
consequences, even if they couldn’t see them. The ultimate consequence is rarely spoken of in the Bible,
but it’s clear. If there is too
much sin that remains unaddressed, if the altar becomes polluted beyond a
certain threshold, then God will leave.
This idea of God leaving gives practical expression to the experience of a people’s
sins catching up with them. You
know the expression “leaving someone to their own devices”? It’s the same idea here with sin. If the altar becomes too polluted, God
will leave, and the people will have to face the unbearable consequences of
their deeds. They will face a
tsunami of sin.
Social Consequences
Today people generally think of
sin as a private and personal thing, particularly as something you know you
shouldn’t do, but you do anyway.
Thus chocolate or a dessert might be described as “sinfully”
delicious. You know you shouldn’t eat it, but you do
anyway.
What’s fascinating about today’s
scripture is that it only addresses sin that is unintentional or involuntary—when
you don’t know that what you’re doing
is wrong. The message is clear:
sin isn’t just about personal morality.
It’s about social consequence.
Even when a person does something wrong and doesn’t intend it, it is a
sin that affects others. The last
scenario mentioned in Leviticus 5:4 gives us a good example: when you make a
promise and then forget to fulfill it on time. Not being true to your word, even if it’s a careless
mistake, could have ruinous consequences for the whole community. I can only imagine that every family
has been here before: “You said you’d
cook dinner!” “You said you’d pick me up!” Some scholars of Leviticus go even
further and claim that behind this scenario is the principle that a sin grows
over time. That is, it festers. The longer a person goes not owning up
to his false speech, the stronger the sin becomes. We see this in relationships all the time. Perhaps we see it too on a communal
level, where the sins of previous generations lie hushed up or unacknowledged
and thus smolder and eat away at people’s unconscious.
Sins of the Community
Earlier in our scripture today,
Leviticus specifically addresses sins of the entire community. Apparently these sins have even greater
consequences on society than individual sins, for they require a more involved
sacrifice. Whereas an individual
sin only requires blood on the altar outside the tent, a community’s sin
requires that the blood of the sacrifice be sprinkled also on the altar inside
the tent. The more serious a sin’s
consequences, the more deeply it violates the holy space.
What would it look like for the
entire community to sin? Later
laws in Leviticus suggest some possibilities for communal transgression. One law commands that the Israelite
community shall not reap to the edges of the land. This ensures that there is food for the resident aliens—a
biblical word for immigrants (23:22).
Another law commands that all Israelites let their land lie fallow on
every seventh year (25:4). Now if
people have accidentally transgressed one of these commandments, it can’t be
addressed until someone else points it out. Notice the wording of today’s scripture. “When the sin that [the congregation
has] committed becomes known”: in
other words, there is a move from ignorance to awareness. The community has not intentionally
been hurting the land or the immigrant, but at some point they become aware
that they have unwittingly been doing so.
I wonder how these communal sins
became known. Did it happen when
the wealthiest or most powerful noticed that there were others struggling? Or did it happen when people
protested? However the sin comes
to light, it then becomes the responsibility of the leaders to own up to
it. As the text puts it: “The assembly
shall offer a bull of the herd for a sin offering and bring it before the tent
of meeting. The elders of the congregation shall lay
their hands on the head of the bull….” (4:14-15).
People talk about Leviticus as
though it were a primitive and barbaric text, yet I can’t help but wonder if
sometimes this world isn’t more brutal.
There is a general paralysis about our world when it comes to national
and global issues, whether it’s care for the environment or immigration policy
or the crisis of unwanted births—issues which sometimes begin to feel like a
growing tsunami. Some folks seem inclined
to deny that there are consequences for our failure in these spheres. Others acknowledge certain misdeeds and
their consequences but are uncertain how they could ever be made right. Underneath the blood and guts of
Leviticus lies a profound suggestion.
What if there were a ritual whereby the entire community owned up to the
collective grief and hurt and wrongdoing?
What if there were a ritual where the entire community said, “This isn’t
right. We didn’t mean to, but
somewhere along the way we messed up.
We have failed—the earth, the stranger, the mothers and fathers-to-be.”
I’m told that you can hardly walk
a few blocks in Berlin without encountering some sort of Holocaust
memorial. Perhaps that is the
Germans’ way of acknowledging the hurt of its history. Or in South Africa, schools resolutely
teach the evils of apartheid as a way of marking their acknowledgment of a
horrendous past and its enduring consequences.
The more that I become aware of
this planet’s ecological struggle, the more that I hear the harrowing stories
of refugees, the more that I encounter impoverished and helpless mothers and fathers-to-be—the
more I wonder. Sure, I haven’t
intentionally contributed to the hurt or injury in any of these
circumstances. Just like I didn’t
set my watch to go off in fourth grade, or plan any of the other pranks. But still I am a part of it. And the consequences are very real for
everyone.
Acknowledging What Is Wrong
There’s a small but significant
detail in all of the sin sacrifices that we haven’t touched yet, but it’s
crucial. Listen to the wording
again: “The priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven”
(4:20). The priest makes
atonement—but the priest cannot secure forgiveness. “They shall be forgiven” is all our text says, but the
implication is clear: only God forgives.
The ritual itself does not mend what has been broken. Only God can do that.
That’s where the gospel of
Leviticus becomes wrapped up with the gospel that we proclaim. Only God can make right what we have made
wrong.
But for that to happen, for God’s
forgiveness and love to redeem what has been broken…first we have to be humble
and honest and willing to acknowledge what is wrong.
Prayer
Forgiving God,
Who enters into
The hurt and heartache of our world
In order to heal it:
Give us eyes to see
The harm around us;
Hearts willing to acknowledge
Our part in it;
And hands ready
To own up to it:
That we and our neighbors
Across the world
Might know the fullness
Of your forgiveness
And the joy of your salvation.
In Christ, our Savior: Amen.
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