Tag Archives: Leviticus 7

Chapter-a-Day

Of Fat and Blood

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Of Fat and Blood (CaD Lev 7) – Wayfarer

“Say to the Israelites: ‘Do not eat any of the fat of cattle, sheep or goats. And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.”
Leviticus 7:23-26 (NIV)

Living in Iowa, one is spoiled when it comes to a good steak. The other week while Wendy and I were on a cruise, we treated ourselves to a fancy, upscale dinner at the ship’s onboard steak house restaurant. It was a lovely evening and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The steak I ordered was, however, just okay. The truth is that for one-third the price I could have gotten a much better steak at my local grocery store.

One of the things you learn about steak when you live in farm country is that fat is good. Fat is what helps make the lean meat even tastier. Steak experts talk about “marbling” of the steak and the fat to lean ratio. It’s a whole thing.

We are also spoiled by having fat cows. For the ancient Hebrews living in the desert wilderness, fat was a luxury and a sign of abundance.

One of the things modern readers struggle with in reading Leviticus is understanding some of the rules God put down. They seem so strange to our 21st century lives. This is true even for Biblical scholars and experts. There are certain things in this ancient Hebrew priest manual that are mysteries lost to us in the course of time. Others, however, can be understood when you translate God’s base language of metaphors.

In today’s chapter, God gives instruction that the fat of a sacrificed animal is God’s alone. Some portions of certain sacrifices could be eaten by the priests (it was how the priests and their families were provided for), some might be eaten by the person who brought it, but only God could have the fat. Fat, being a sign of health and abundance was the best. It is part of a recurring theme God is teaching the Hebrews through this entire sacrificial system. Bring God the best: the first fruits of the harvest, animals without defect, and the fat of the animal.

As for blood, it was deeply associated in the Hebrew mind with life itself. When a person was injured or slain and the blood spilled out of them, it was to them a person’s life spilling out. And God makes it abundantly clear throughout the entire Great Story that life is sacred. God even boils down the Great story on multiple occasions to a simple choice of life or death:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – Jesus
John 10:10

To consume the blood of another living being was metaphorically consuming its sacred life.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, there were two things that emerged for me.

First, I found my heart and mind returning to the idea of giving God our best. The truth is that for most of my life I feel like I gave God my leftovers. It was only as I matured in my understanding that everything I have is God’s and nothing is really mine that I truly understood generosity. Generosity is not me giving something up, but rather it’s me stewarding and channeling God’s goodness and provision to others.

Second, God is beginning to teach His people about the difference between the sacred and the ordinary. He’s introducing His people to the concept of holiness, and I believe that it was another thing that is easy for humans to twist into something it’s not. I believe it was another thing that Jesus came to reclaim and return to a heart understanding.

But there’s more of that to unpack in the chapters ahead. It is now time for me to engage in the sacred task of my vocation.

Have a great day, my friend!

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Chapter-a-Day

Rulebooks and Keeping Score

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This is the ritual of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being….
Leviticus 7:37 (NRSV)

I like to keep score at baseball games. I’ve always been fascinated by the scorebook since I was a regular benchwarmer in the minors at Beaverdale Little League. I would sit on the bench next to the coach’s wife and watch her mark the book as a record of was taking place in the game. I never lost my curiosity for it.

Scoring a baseball game is relatively simple if the game follows a simple story line of strike outs, fly balls, and base hits. But when run downs involving multiple players take place and the pitcher’s mound becomes a turn-style of pitchers called in from the bullpen with runner’s on base, things get incredibly more complex in a hurry. Then layer over it the official scorer’s role of making subjective decisions of whether the batter reached on a base hit (he gets credit for it, and any runs he batted in, and the run gets charged to the pitcher who gave up the hit to the player who scored the run [unless the player who scored the run reached on an error – then the run doesn’t get charged to the pitcher]) or an error (batter doesn’t get credited for the hit, and the error must be charged to either the fielder who should have caught it, the fielder who didn’t throw it effectively, or the other fielder covering the base who didn’t catch it). You get my drift. It gets arcane in a geeked out way.

On our coffee table sits a copy of Major League Baseballs official rule book. On occasion, when a play raises a question about a play or how it is to be scored, I’ll pick it up and try to find the rule. It’s a small book, but it’s a labyrinth of regulatory text. There’s an entire section on how to score. Sometimes it’s hard to find what I’m looking for in rule 4.2 paragraph two, sub-section C line six. The game is still going on. I don’t have that much time if I’m going to keep up with my scorecard.

As I read the chapter this morning I was struck by the way it read like baseball’s rule book. The rules for sacrifice were so complex. It’s a labyrinth of offerings and sacrifices of different kinds for seemingly every occasion. It made me think that the ancient Hebrews had a different sacrifice for every emoji:

“I’m feeling thankful today. How do I make an offering for that according to the Levitical rulebook? That’s section 2, offering 3.4, paragraph three.”

“Oops, I accidentally dropped my neighbors pint glass and a shard cut my wife’s foot causing her to jerk her foot back and kick the neighbor’s cat. To whom do I charge the error and who  has to make the guilt sacrifice? Is that a blood sacrifice or just a burnt offering? Burnt offering? Can I do that on the neighbor’s grill?”

It’s overwhelming just to think about living under the weight of that system. I can’t imagine it. Which was, I believe, part of the larger point God was trying to make in the grand theme of the Great Story. “You want to try and do it on your own?” God says. “Okay, here’s the rulebook. Have fun.” Trying to keep score in life, recording errors and then make up for every wrong doing, unintended injury, and moral oversight is impossible.

“Then who can be can be saved?” Jesus’ followers asked when the subject came up.

“It’s impossible for human beings,” Jesus replied, stating the grand lesson of the Levitical law. “But it’s not impossible for God. God is the one who can and will do it.”

Jesus becomes the sacrifice, once for all.

Suddenly, keeping score becomes quite simple. Charge the errors to Jesus. All of them.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Leviticus 7

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From the day they are presented to serve as priests to God, Aaron and his sons can expect to receive these allotments from the gifts of God. This is what God commanded the People of Israel to give the priests from the day of their anointing. This is the fixed rule down through the generations. Leviticus 7:35-36 (MSG)

When the law of Leviticus was given to Moses around 3500 years ago, the fledgling nation of Israel were nomads wandering in the desert and they were split into twelve tribes. The sons of Aaron (Moses’ Chief Operating Officer) and the rest of his tribe of Levites, were appointed the job of priests and caretakers of the Tabernacle, which was a giant tent sanctuary that they took with them and set up wherever they went. Once the people had settled in the Promised Land, the plan was for the Levites to continue to be caretakers of God’s temple. As priests, they would not own and control a section of land from which to earn their living. The daily sacrifices offered by the other tribes would provide what they and their families needed to survive.

In the Levites, we find another brilliant word picture of God’s ultimate plan. God’s message calls those who follow Jesus a “royal priesthood”  (1 Peter 2:9-10). Just as the Levites found their provision in the sacrifices offered in the Tabernacle and the Temple, those of us who follow Jesus find our provision in the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus made when He gave Himself up to die on a cross.

This morning as I read the chapter and the bread offerings that became daily provision for the priests and their families, I couldn’t help but think of the prayer Jesus taught His followers to pray: Give us this day our daily bread. And I thought of the last supper when He broke the bread: This bread is my body given for you.

As followers of Jesus, we are given daily sustenance and provision through the sacrifice of Jesus. He is the Bread of Life. The system of sacrifice set up in the law of Leviticus is a beautiful word picture that foreshadowed God’s plan to send Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, to be the ultimate sacrifice for sin. It was a metaphor for the royal priesthood Jesus’ followers become, and the daily provision Jesus’ sacrifice becomes for those who partake. Without Leviticus, we don’t have a complete a picture of who Jesus was (and is, and is to come).