Author: John Tillman

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 21 Listen: (3:08) Read: Acts 17 Listen: (5:28)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 21.21-23

21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’ ”

Reflection: God Makes the Disabled Holy

By John Tillman

Is God against the disabled?

Leviticus 21.21 seems, at face value, to devalue the disabled.

Is Yahweh breaking his own command from Leviticus 19.14 to not curse or put obstacles in front of the disabled? When Jesus cleared the Temple courts of merchants described as “thieves” and called the disabled to himself, was he “correcting” God’s mistake in Leviticus 21? (Matthew 21.12-14)

No. When we set Jesus against Yahweh (or Yahweh against Yahweh) we deny the essential unity among the godhead which is taught by Jesus, affirmed by the Father, and demonstrated by the Holy Spirit.

There are a few things to consider in this difficult-to-understand passage.

The disabled were not barred from worship or the Lord’s presence. Leviticus 21’s limits are only for priests and only for one specific priestly duty: offering sacrifices.

Disabled priests were barred from physically demanding duties. Serving at the altar involved killing and butchering the animals and carrying out the many physical requirements of the ritual for whatever sacrifice was being made. This physical labor may have been difficult for those with some of the disabilities mentioned.

Nothing, animal, vegetable, mineral, or human, that approached the altar was to have a defect. Sacrifices represented the perfect dying on behalf of the imperfect. Both animal and priest represented the people offering it. Priests “without defect” were mirror images of animals “without defect.”

Disabled priests had full rights as priests. The disabled priests could not offer the food offerings, but their rights to eat from those offerings were identical to the other priests and they had no other limitations in their responsibilities.

God claimed disabled priests as his and made them holy. Describing a disabled priest’s limitation, God identified himself with them, saying, “his God.” (Leviticus 21.21) God is still their God and they are his priests. They are included when God says, “I am the Lord who makes them holy.” (Leviticus 21.23)

Today, many in our society threaten protections, education, and opportunities for the disabled. Our God makes the disabled holy along with us. Let us not allow anyone to label them as anything but equally blessed and loved by God.

In Christ, the disabled are priests of equal value, equal calling, equal standing, and share an equal blessing of the Holy Spirit. We must include them, not only in feasts, so that all will be blessed (Luke 14.13-14), but in every work of God within their capabilities.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Not So Random Acts of Kindness

The disabled community suffered greatly in the ancient world, often expelled as outcasts.

Not So Random Acts of Kindness

Read more: The Stigma of Disease

We are not being given a rulebook on how to judge others based on disease or disability. This chapter points up to God by pointing down toward death.

The Stigma of Disease

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 19 Listen: (4:39) Read: Acts 15 Listen: 5:43)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 19.1, 9-15

1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

9 “ ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. 11 “ ‘Do not steal. “ ‘Do not lie. “ ‘Do not deceive one another. 12 “ ‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. 13 “ ‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “ ‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. 14 “ ‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord. 15 “ ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

Reflection: Being Holy Includes Being Just

By John Tillman

God’s holiness is the motivating factor in every command. “I am holy, therefore, be holy.”

Leviticus 19 echoes the Ten Commandments, with some commands centering on the Israelites’ relationship to and treatment of God, such as not building idols and having proper respect for worship practices. However, the majority of the commands to “be holy,” involve others.

Godly holiness means being loving and just.

Do not harvest everything. Leave enough margin for the poor and the foreigner. Do not cheat one another or your workers. Do not curse or harm the disabled. Enforce the law impartially. Do not endanger others.

Leviticus defines God-commanded holiness as loving like God by establishing justice, doing good, being selfless, and helping the unfortunate. Being holy is not some esoteric, difficult-to-define, spiritual-emotional state. Holiness includes practical demonstrations of God’s love and justice.

Pray for this kind of holiness in our lives, communities, and nations.

Being Holy Includes Being Just

God who gives harvests, teach us to leave margins for the marginalized.

Let us not be so efficient that we spend every cent in our own interest. (Leviticus 19.9)

For when we collect all the profit to ourselves we steal by keeping what you instructed us to leave for the poor. (Leviticus 19.9-10)

When we say, “We can’t afford to help” we are often deceptive—the truth is we have spent the portion you intended us to use to aid others. (Leviticus 19.10-13)

Teach us to honor workers, for you ask us to pray for workers in the vineyard and not to spare expense in paying them. Let us not be stingy, but generous that all will go well with our nation. (Leviticus 19.13)

Teach us to help those in need without partiality or favoritism. Teach us to remove barriers to success and allow all to be treated equitably. (Leviticus 19.14-15)

Teach us not to value our own freedoms over our neighbor’s life and to treat foreigners with the same love we treat our own family. (Leviticus 19.33)

Teach us to root out corruption and dishonesty.
Let not the poor be defrauded by corrupt business…
Let not the minority be dominated by the majority…
Let not the weak be preyed upon by the powerful…

Help us make the scales of commerce, scales of political representation, and scales of justice fair. (Leviticus 19.36)

In all these things, may we be holy as you are holy by being just as you are just and loving as you are loving.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us.
Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations. — Psalm 67.1-2

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

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Read more: Prayer for Outcasts

Welcoming the stranger is a consistent biblical command. One must work hard not to pick up on it, but some do go out of their way to avoid it.

Prayer for Outcasts—Readers’ Choice

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 18 Listen: (3:46) Read: Acts 14 Listen: (3:54)

Scripture Focus: Leviticus 18.24-28

24 “ ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

Reflection: Older Than the Old Way

By John Tillman

There’s an argument that the biblical sexual ethic is old and outdated. “That was the old way. Now we must think about sex in a new way.” The truth is more complicated.

Biblical sexuality is the “original” idea from page one of the Bible, but we rejected it on page two and never looked back. There is nothing “new” about the modern sexual climate. Sex has always been abused by the powerful, made a tool of addiction and manipulation, peddled for money, intertwined with slavery, and unlimited in its scope. This free-for-all leaves casualties and abuse in its wake.

Sexual ethics go beyond personal choices. God says the land, the dirt we came from, is affected by our defilement of one another. When we mistreat each other, the land itself gets sick. Creation is not inanimate, unaffected matter. “Cursed is the ground,” God says. And why? “Because of you.” (Genesis 3.17; 4.10-12)

When the only sexual limit is consent, human bodies, souls, and emotions are just hills to be mined or streams to be tapped. Secure the mineral and water rights; take what you want. Strip mine, clear cut, dam them up, dry them up, poison them…who cares? They signed on the dotted line. This is the old way. But older than the old way, is God’s way.

Current cultural sexual ethics are old, but in every age, God carved out for himself people to be different—to return to Eden, little by little. (Matthew 19.4; Mark 10.5-6)

In Leviticus, God instructs his people to be distinct in how they practice everything from handling money to how to treat one another’s bodies. God’s language centers on care for others, respect, and self-control. No one group is singled out. God’s people must be distinct from the pattern of normality all around them. “What is normal for them, must not be normal for you. What seems natural to them, must not be natural to you.”

This didn’t start in Leviticus. Throughout the Bible, there is a consistent pattern of God subverting the cultural norms of sex among those who follow him. God worked gradually and people followed imperfectly. They consistently followed culture rather than him, but God worked with and among them even amidst failure.

We are a part of this people. We may fail at times, but if we continually turn to him, he will continue to undo our curses and make us blessings to our land.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble, my eye is consumed with sorrow, and also my throat and my belly. — Psalm 31.9

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: It’s in the Bible

If we look carefully, we can see God actively disrupting cultural assumptions and human traditions that people in scripture accepted as normal.

It’s In The Bible

Read more: Beyond Consent

May each of us submit every part of our identities, including our sexuality, to God’s calling in our lives.

Beyond Consent — Readers’ Choice