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The Seventh Sunday After The Epiphany
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Scripture citation(s): Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48; I Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48; I Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
✛
The Hard Road to Holiness or Perfection
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Leviticus is not everybody’s favorite bedtime reading book from the bible with its emphasis on the details of ritual laws and its strange fixation on body parts and bodily fluids, but by failing to take it seriously, we risk failing to fully understand the Torah or Law; and if we fail to understand the Torah then we may well fail to appreciate the teaching of Jesus who was known as a Rabbi or teacher of the Law. We are also likely to misunderstand the teaching of Paul who, understanding the Law very well as a former Pharisee, helped the church move from being a sect of Judaism to a way of life centered on the one who had said that he had come to fulfill the Law.
So, here’s a quick Leviticus 101 course:
The book Leviticus was written by priests, so that explains why there is a lot of interest in the cult of Israel.
The Book describes the giving of the Law to Moses and is basically in three parts:
Part 1 is an in-depth instruction on the various offerings to be made. If you attended Professor McGowan’s fascinating lecture on sacrifice (which you can still listen to on our website and I commend it to you) you will have discovered that there isn’t one Hebrew concept or even word for sacrifice but that there are different kinds of offerings and many of them include eating or feasting at the same time.
Part 2 is the more squeamish part – where we encounter lots of law and teaching about bodies, bodily fluids and emissions.
Part 3 of the Book is often called ‘The holiness Code’ and is the culmination of parts one and two: getting worship right, and being in pure, meant that the faithful were, therefore, attuned to God and able to serve him in the community of faith and the world around that community.
You see, the Book of Leviticus leads people of faith from how to worship God with all their heart and mind and soul and to the second of the greatest commandments – loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
There – that was easy!
Now we begin to understand that when Paul talks about our bodies he is thinking of the way they interact with others and with the worship of God. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Sounds almost like Leviticus to me, only, something has changed. The ritual laws led to a way of life that was holy – attuned to God – but required constant attention and the repetition of sacrifice or offering. The incarnation changed all of that. In Jesus we have the perfect priest and the perfect victim – the sinless one; truly God and truly man – who, in offering himself on the altar of the cross, finally reconciled the whole world to God.
And we, who are baptized into Christ’s death are now living temples of his Spirit – we are united to Jesus in his sacrifice on the cross and given new life and new hope in his Resurrection. So, writing to the Romans, Paul is able to say, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritualworship. “(Romans 12:1)
Bodies – sacrifice – worship.
Where does it all lead? To the holiness code; and that, my friends, takes us back into the Sermon on the Mount that we have been listening to these past few weeks. We have been eavesdropping into an intimate and formative moment in the relationship of Jesus with his disciples. Last week we heard some of the radical teaching of Jesus as he fulfilled the Law and expected more of his followers. In today’s Gospel reading we hear even more hard sayings; the disciples’ minds must have been spinning by now! Jesus moved from high moral ground to the nitty-gritty of how to deal with conflict, injustice and even ones’ enemies. He uses the same tone as we heard last week… “You have heard that it was said…but I say unto you…” Life in the kingdom of God will be radical and challenging but takes us full circle to the holiness code of Leviticus: Caring for the poor, the alien, the refugee; this is the actual motive behind the ritual of the sanctuary; being just and honest; avoiding fraud; ensuring workers’ rights; not giving deference to the rich or famous; not speaking ill of people. My friends, that is what we heard this morning: Jesus – who fulfilled the Law took it to its culmination. Leviticus says “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” and Jesus says, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
It may be tempting to think that the way of life spelled out by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount is impossible to live by, after all, we are not perfect. It is at such times that we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus ‘on the way’ –we are striving for perfection – struggling to liveby the Beatitudes. And being blessed means being a blessing for others; the Gospel is, after all, Good News and if it is good news to us it can be good news to others.
In our lifetime, some people and some communities have attempted to live through difficult times in the spirit of the Beatitudes. I think of Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights movement in this country; of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa; I think of Archbishop Janani Luwum whose anniversary of martyrdom in Uganda we celebrated last week and Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador whose martyrdom we celebrate next month. I think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and I think of the peace process in Northern Island or in Rwanda. All of these people and all of these movements were and are struggling to put into practice the Sermon on the Mount – the call to a radical living in community which, in itself, echoes the holiness code of Leviticus. In the places I have mentioned, those Christian leaders who followed Jesus’ instance of non-violence as the only way to respond to hate and injustice, struggled to bring about a new sense of community and a change of heart, but by living out the Beatitudes they became a blessing to others.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
Today, there will be many Christians around the world facing difficult choices.
