Leviticus 6-7:38, Matthew 26:1-35

Okay, Leviticus continues today illustrating for us specific instructions for the offerings the Israelites were to do. I’m going to start at the beginning of chapter 6. I find it interesting that God actually lays out a range of things that would be considered a lie. I think we classify lies now and I don’t like it. Anything that doesn’t accurately give the honest picture of something is a lie if you do it either consciously or subconsciously with the intent to not give the whole truth. God lists not being honest about what you’ve been given to take care of, whether that is something you are watching for someone and don’t give back all of what they gave you, or aren’t honest about what someone gave you for tax purposes, or just aren’t totally honest about it in general, that is lying. I’m sure some of you are thinking “Well, it’s none of their business if I am given something, and they don’t need to know.” What is the purpose in your heart when you say that? If you truly believe that and it’s not a prideful reaction then fine. Yet, don’t lie about the situation, just honestly tell the person that you aren’t going to tell them. Then pledges come next. Pledges are more than raising your hand and saying something as a promise. Integrity is lost in our culture for the most part. When we say yes, we should follow through. When we say no, we should not waver on that. I am not saying that people don’t change their minds but it should not be a regular occurrence and should be communicated and agreed upon by everyone involved. This is why you should always be sure that you can follow through if you say yes or no. Sometimes we pledge to do things that we later find out are much more difficult or less enjoyable than we’d originally thought. Most of us will break that. This is not okay. This means you lied. This is not a judgment, it just is. Most people agree that robbery and extortion are lying. Then we come to finding something that is lost and keeping it. Most of us have found things that someone else lost. The temptation is to keep that thing, claiming it as your own, but it is not yours. The honest thing to do is to turn it into the lost and found somewhere nearby, or put up signs letting people know you found it. If it isn’t claimed you just might end up the honest possessor of it. Finally, swearing falsely. That is swearing that something is true when we know it’s not, or even think it may not be. We shouldn’t really swear at all because things are not always as we see them. The result of an Israelite being dishonest was to restore the value of whatever it was and then some. That means that if you found a $5 bill, you would repay that and add an extra dollar to it. Then on top of that, they had to spend money on an extra offering. I find it interesting that this offering was called the trespass offering. We pray the model prayer and in the old school version, we pray “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I have in the last few years changed how I pray it to say “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” This passage however brings a new aspect to using the word trespass.
Now the rest of our reading today are instructions specifically for Aaron and his sons, who were the priests. The fire on the altar was to always be kept burning because God was not honored by an altar without fire. This would have been a difficult task when moving around, so God had to make this really clear to them. We see this echoed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:13 where he talks about not allowing the fire of the spirit to go out in us. Usually we think of fire as destructive, especially when we think of God’s judgment. That isn’t always true though. When it is described as a destructive thing, it is in correlation with God’s enemies or sin. Here we are speaking of God’s sacrifices which become holy and in turn made the person giving it holy. Many places in the Bible, we see fire as a test of something’s quality (1 Cor 3:13), guidance (exodus), a transforming thing (Job 28:5), and refining or purifying (Rev 3:18, Is 6:7). These are the things I think we should associate with the fire on God’s altar. Also the grain offering was interesting because the offering to make the priest holy was to be totally burned, but the priests received part of the offering of the people. I think this is really cool. I know that my pastor’s all tithe and offer their time and talents as well. They receive a paycheck from the church but they also give an offering of their own. We often forget that pastors are people too I think.
Chapter 26 of Matthew begins the passion and resurrection of Jesus. In chapter 2, Jesus comes right out and says it. We see the priests plotting. I don’t see how anyone in a spiritual leadership position can think that plotting against something is in Jesus’ plan. I see us behaving in much the same way as the priests much of the time. Jesus didn’t teach that. He taught openness, honesty, love, and unity. We don’t have to agree on everything, or always like what other people are doing, but we do have to not spend our energy trying to control what other people do. We are to educate and uplift one another and not tear them down or judge them. When we do those things, we are no better than these men who orchestrated the plans for the death of our savior.
Now we move to the woman with the alabaster flask who’s love so totally is opposite of the hatred we see in the priests. Many people are upset by this passage and it gets used for all sorts of things. I wish we would just take the stories as they are and not try to twist them to what we want them to say to meet our agenda. Here Jesus is not countering his command to take care of the poor. He is merely saying that instead of judging this woman they should be honoring her for showing such love to her savior. We are so often focused on what is wrong with a situation that we miss what is good. I am going to make a conscious decision to focus on the positive and praise that first. The disciples flipped out about this woman wasting an expensive oil. Maybe it would have gone better if they’d praised her for showing love to Jesus and then work on whatever else needs to be worked on. Better yet, leave that to God. Anyone who loves Jesus as much as she obviously did will no doubt have that love overflow into acts such as caring for the poor.
Judas goes and betrays Christ, for money. I don’t think I’ve ever sold out a friend for money. I am sure that in some way I have sold out a friend at some point but I can’t recall it right this moment. Yet, I know it’s never been for money. I hope that God will help me to be a good friend and put the needs of those friends ahead of my selfish desires.
The next section is about the last supper. Jesus was in control. He knew what he expected, what needed to happen and how to direct the disciples to make it so. Jesus is pretty vague about the betrayal and they are all upset about it. The thing is that in his heart, Judas has already betrayed Jesus. Judas chose freely. This does not make his sin okay just because God used it. God doesn’t use sin as a means to get where he wants with things. He doesn’t have to. He’s God. He uses us in spite of our sin. The sin is not his purpose, he just moves ahead to achieve his purpose regardless of what sins we commit. That doesn’t make the sin okay, it just means that it won’t get in God’s way. We need to be careful how we think of what God does. He doesn’t want the sin, it’s not a tool for him. We are, and we are responsible for those sins we commit.
Jesus moves into a passage that many of us are familiar with. It is used for our own communion. I won’t get into factional things about what communion is exactly or the differences in opinon on what it is about. The important thing is that it is in rememberence of Jesus and what he did for us. He shed his blood and allowed his body to be broken for us even though he could have just destroyed us all and started over. The love God showed for us should never be forgotten. I hope that you will remember it daily, moment by moment as you go through your life. This love is not just for some of us, but all of us. He died for everyone, not just Christians, everyone. The forgiveness of sins is available to all of us, we need only to accept his sacrifice.
One other part surprised me a little. I had an aha moment. Jesus not only said that they would stumble but he told them he will be raised and go before them to galilee. Yet, they seemed to be so focused on what Jesus had said about them, they didn’t pay attention to that last part. This happens a lot in communication. We focus on just one part of what someone is saying and we miss the most important part that followed. We get so wrapped up in the part that points to our failure or frailty that we don’t register the part that would be our joy. If the disciples had just stopped for a moment, and focused on God’s promise instead of what they might do to fail, they would have had hope. I encourage you to pick out a promise of God today and focus on that. Let it be your hope today.
And here comes Peter. I love Peter. I am so like him. Why can’t I just think through what God tells me, submit to it and do what I can to further it? No, I have to think I know better than God and run my mouth. Lol He gets defensive like I said above and forgets not only to pay attention to Jesus’ promise but he actually tells Jesus he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Lol Peter, told GOD that he knew more. That is just hilarious. Oh wait, we do that all the time. Lol I just crack up when I read the Bible sometimes. How lame are we? This is God. He created it all, he knows it all, he can do it all. Yet, we continually rebel and treat him like we know better. Jesus meets Peter’s rebellion with a calm illustration and prophecy. You can almost see Peter turning and picking up dishes and such rolling his eyes and thinking “yeah whatever Christ” lol. Yet because he didn’t pay attention, his failure almost crushed him. If we accept that we will have failures and that God will bring us through them, the failures are often less flagrant than if we denied they would occur. Our pride as they say goes before our fall. If we humble ourselves before God and accept our humanity, then maybe we will not fall, but only trip a little.
Tomorrow’s reading is Leviticus 8-10 and Matthew 26:36-56.