THOSE verses

"Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them, I am the Lord."

THOSE verses...
By Rev. William Dohle

I like the book of Leviticus, but, honestly, until a few years ago, I never really read it.

Leviticus was always the book of the Bible that derailed my "Read through the Bible" New Year's Resolution that I made every year.  Every year I would sit down and start to read through the Bible.  I'd love Genesis(read that one like ten times all the way through).  I'd love Exodus(the stories of Moses).  I'd even "get through" the rest of the book of Exodus with its descriptions of the tabernacle.

But then I'd get to Leviticus and the steam would go out of my resolution.  After a few chapters of law, I just couldn't read through the rest. (Maybe that's why I'm a pastor and not a lawyer).  I'd put off reading a few weeks and then a month and then...I'd just stop.

I'd read through the rest of Scripture, but my journey front to back would end there.

That was until a few years ago when the book of Leviticus suddenly jumped into discussion.  My denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was wrestling with sexuality and the book of Leviticus was front and center in the discussion.

So... I cracked open the Book and read the verses they were talking about...

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable"(Leviticus 18:22)

At the time, I really didn't know what I thought of them.  Having always been derailed in my "Read through the Bible" journey by this annoying book of Scripture.

But then I started reading the book of Leviticus, as we've done in this blog, and I started to notice a few things.

There's a lot in this book that I really don't follow...and have no desire following...but which God has commanded me to follow.  Like...

• Eating pork...and shrimp...two of my favorite foods!  Leviticus 11:3 says "You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud."  Well... pigs don't chew their cud...so they are forbidden to eat by God.
• Eating shrimp... Leviticus 11:10 says, "...all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales--whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living things in the water--you are to detest."  Eating shrimp is forbidden by God too.
• Leviticus 7:26 says, "...and wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal." But there's blood in the hamburgers I ate last night.  I know because I saw it as I put it in the pan.

And that's just the eating laws.  There's other laws that come after the Leviticus text quoted to me.  Like...

• Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of materials. (Leviticus 19:19) ... Polyester and cotton are out then!
• Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)... Ooops!  Did that yesterday morning!
• Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tatoo marks on yourselves.  I am the Lord.  (Leviticus 19:28)... Okay, I have no tatoos so I've followed that one, right?
• When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him.  The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.  Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.  (Leviticus 19:33-34)... Ooops, guess our government should read this verse when dealing with poor refugee children from Central America.

The point is that the more that I read through Leviticus, the more I saw how few of the commandments we Gentiles really follow!  And yet, we pull this obscure passage out of Leviticus to validate the heterosexual and condemn the homosexual?  That's absurd!

St. James says that those who've broken one commandment have broken them all.  If we, pork-and-shrimp eaters, continue to chow down on our forbidden meals, do we have the right to condemn the homosexual or anyone for that matter based on the same laws that we ourselves are breaking?!  Absolutely not!

We have nowhere to stand in our judgement!  Nowhere at all.  We are like the crowd who brought a woman to Jesus to stone her for adultery!  Jesus turns to them and says... "Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone!"

Perhaps we should require the same from those who wish to condemn our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.  Have they sinned against the Book of Leviticus?  Do they follow perfect kosher laws?  Are they clean in every way according to its guidelines?  Do they eat forbidden foods?  Do they enjoy it?  Have they shaved their faces?  Or cut their hair?  Do they wear clothing of two different cloths?

What do they think of these laws?  Do they "apply to them"?  Do they repent when they eat their ham sandwich or shrimp cocktail?  Or have they reinterpreted them to mean something different?

And if they are permitted to reinterpret the law to protect their diet, aren't we permitted to do the same to protect our gay brothers and sisters?

God, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.  Forgive us!  Help us not to judge others but to love them instead.  Amen.

Holy Distractions

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.  Lamentations 3:32

Holy Distractions
By Rev. William Dohle

Are you one that can be distracted from a project easily?  Perhaps by someone walking through your door?  Or by some other event?  Or do you press on with your projects, despite all the distractions around you?

What distractions urge you to turn away from what you SHOULD be doing?

I'd like to say that I'm not distractable...but I know that's not true.  It's too easy to be distracted from what I should be doing.  Television is a great distraction.  The latest book.  A video game I just HAVE to finish.

Most of the time we think of distractions as things to be avoided.  Distractions are bad, we say.  But sometimes distractions can be good.  Sometimes distractions are really pointing you away from what you shouldn't be doing at that moment and pointing you toward what you should.

For instance, this week as I pondered my blog on the 18th and 19th chapters of Leviticus, the world erupted in violence.  In two short weeks, violence has broken out in the Middle East and in the Ukraine.

Thinking on this, I decided I had two choices.  I could say:  "Down with the world!  I will not mention or respond to the violence I hear about and see in the world around me.  The Bible is my guide and I will follow the text.  If the Bible doesn't talk about it now, than neither will I!"

Or... I could respond this way... "The Bible is not my guide, but the living Word of God.  Only in conversation with the world will I truly know where I should go with this."

What should I do?  Concentrate on the text?  Or...put aside the text and respond to the world?

Such a hard question has plagued my denomination (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) for nearly a decade.  In that time, we have been distracted by so many internal struggles, all seemingly "important", that we have lost sight sometimes of what we should be doing.  We have focused so much on them, making them our focus, that the message of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, and his call to follow and live as he did has become a distraction to us.

Yet, even in Scripture, we read of Jesus setting aside "the plan" to show compassion.  "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:36)  You might say that compassion WAS Jesus' plan and that may be true too.  But if so, how often have we set aside Jesus' plan in favor of our own?

So...what should we do?  Follow our internal schedule?  Or allow ourselves to respond with compassion to others, even if it distracts us from our plan?

I choose the distraction.  I choose the compassion.  And this is what I have to say.

This week I have heard of terrible fighting in the Middle East.  And I have read some terrible plattitudes about the fighting here in the states.  I have heard of Israel's march into the Gaza Strip and of the thousand or so civilian Palestinian casualities.  I have heard Israel's moral stake in the fighting and seen images of the pain that stake has caused.  I have followed the news.  And I have heard first hand accounts.

A friend of mine, Rabbi Daniel Bogard, is in Jerusalem now with his family.  His attitude and response to the violence is something I long to follow.  In his response, he holds the spirit of Christ within him.  In the midst of the conflict in Jerusalem, Rabbi Bogard posted this(I think he also wrote this as an article in the Peoria Journal Star):

"If there is any truism that I have come to hold in the Israel/Hamas/Palestine/Arab conflict, it is that none of it is simple or clean or clear. "Israel is the Most Moral Army Ever", "Israel Targets Civilians", "There Never was a Palestine", "The One Video You Need to Watch", etc... all share the same failing, which is pretending like there exists a simple moral clarity in a situation that deeply lacks it.

"I pray that we can open our hearts wide enough to include prayers for all of those kids who wake up scared in the night — Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab."

This is what I want to be distracted by... compassion!  Not the temptation to judge one people over another.  Not the urge to see things in black and white.  Not the drive to somehow win or come out on top.  But to see both people as people and, as Rabbi Bogard says, open our hearts wide enough to include prayers for all kids(or all ages) who wake up scared in the night--Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab.

May we be distracted to act by such compassion just as Jesus was!

Compassionate God, pour us out to the world as hearts ready to love and care and help all who come to us in need.  Give us eyes to see both sides of every conflict as fellow human beings.  Amen.

Blood: Life Liquified

"...the life of every creature is its blood."  Leviticus 17:14

Blood: Life Liquified
By Rev. William Dohle

I am a meat-eater.  I admit this.  My diet consists each meal(except breakfast...usually) of some form of meat coupled with a couple veggies, a starch, and some bread to fill us up.  That's just what we eat.  If you came to dinner unannounced at my home you would find these things offered to you too.

I am no vegitarian.  (Nothing against them, I just love to eat meat instead).  I eat beef, pork, chicken, turkey.  I've been known to eat antelope, elk, bison, and deer.  And I'll try just about any meat you set in front of me.

So, when I say that the most annoying thing to do when you're cooking hamburgers is to make sure the blood is all cooked away...you understand where I'm coming from.  Blood is nasty to cook away.  It fills the plate where my ground beef sits.  It's buried within the meat I am cooking.  It's the way I determine if something is cooked or not.  "Is it bloody?"  Yes...and it's not cooked properly.  No...it's ready to eat!

Of course this very act of eating blood is in violation of letter of the Law described in the 17th chapter of Leviticus.  Here, God explicitly says:

"Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood--I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people.  For the life of a creature is in the blood and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life." (Leviticus 17:10-11)

Blood is life.  It is life liquified.  The only time that life is allowed to end, according to Leviticus, is when it makes atonement for one's life.  The life of an animal takes the place of the life of the person.  "Life for life."  Any other time, that blood is sacred.  It is not to be eaten but drained away and covered with earth.

"Any Israelite of any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth." (Leviticus 17:13)

Today, Jews follow this commandment by eating Kosher which basically means that a Rabbi has certified whether the animal has been humanely killed and whether the blood as been properly disposed of.  Without such certification, one never knows if eating this piece of meat will violate the commandments found in Leviticus 17.

For this reason, many Jews decide to eat a vegetarian diet.  Staying away from eating the blood of other animals makes keeping this commandment easier.

As a Christian, my tradition has interpreted this text figuratively and metaphorically and not literally.  In the bread and wine of communion, I believe we receive the body and blood of Jesus in the bread and wine.  Why the blood?  Because, as Leviticus says, the blood makes atonement for one's life.  In the blood of Jesus, given in communion, we take that life into ourselves.  By eating and drinking in that meal, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.  A death that frees us from sin and death.  A death that atones.

We may still eat the blood of animals, thus violating the letter of the law here in Leviticus, but, in seeing the blood as life-liquified and taking that blood into ourselves in communion, we are participating in the atonement of sins that dates, even back to Leviticus.  Through Communion, we are reinterpreting this Law to speak to us today, giving us access to Christ through his body and blood.

So, come to the table!  Meat-eaters and vegetarians alike!  Come and eat and drink the bread and wine which is the body and blood of Christ Jesus given to atone for you!

Give me a deeper appreciation of life, Lord, in all its forms.  Thank you for the life you give me in the blood of Christ my Lord.  Amen.

A Sense of Us

“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.”  Leviticus 16:34

A Sense of Us
By Rev. William Dohle

Twenty years ago, or so, I journeyed on a college program to India for four months.  Before I left, I had taken some classes to prepare myself for what I would experience.  A "History of South-East Asia" class to bone up on my history.  A "Religions of the World" to help me experience the religions there better.

But nothing could prepare me for what it was like being an American in a Third-World country.

Everywhere we went and everywhere our bus stopped, we were watched.  Crowds of people would flock around us, everyone with their hands outstretched for a handout.  People would crowd into you, look up at you, and speak to their friends in their native tongue, most likely about you.  Stores charged us more.  Cab drivers tried to take advantage of us.

All because we were white.  And all because we were American!

Once word got out that a group of American college students were at the YWCA where we stayed in Madras, we had cab drivers lined up on the streets it seemed.

A few of our group didn't look quite as stereotypically American as others of us did.  They were treated differently.   But, wherever we went, we were all treated with respect, and dignity, and even awe.  There's something about being an American that attracted or repelled people, at least in India.

And why not?  America does some great things!  We protect the innocent, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and fight for the freedom of people we've never even met.

America does some great things.

But in other places, our reception wouldn't have been as good.  Other countries hate Americans, not because of what we do as individuals to them, but what WE do as a nation to them.  America is not known in all parts of the world as a loving, Christian nation.  America sins too.

America doesn't always do right in the eyes of the world.  We are not perfect.  We have not always treated others as they ought to be treated.  We have used our power for ill as well as for good.

What do we do with these, and many other, sins we commit as a nation?

Traditionally we have dismissed them or swept them under the carpet.  We have defended our nation with our last breath, avoiding, ignoring, and passing over the sins of our past and present, casting everything we do as good and righteous in the world.

But when we do, we lose something.  We lose forgiveness.

The ancient Israelites knew this to be true.  That is why God commanded each year that Israel celebrate a "Day of Atonement."  A ritual that would cleanse, not only individuals of their sins, but the community as well.  Each Day of Atonement the priest would take a goat and lay his hands upon its head.  Then the priest would name the sins of the community, describing how they had disobeyed and dishonored God.  Then they would force the goat out of the community.  Carrying the sins of the people, it would wander the wilderness, exiled as the people should be exiled for what they did.

This Day of Atonement, continued to this day by our Jewish brothers and sisters, not only releases individuals of their sins but the community as well.

Oh that we had such a ritual in America.  Can you imagine it?  Gathering with fellow Americans, we could gather to name our sins and the wrongs we have done as a nation.  We could tell of how we have polluted Creation, ruining our land and the lands of others.  We could speak of our consumerism and the need to always have more.  We could tell of the pain of domestic violence and our inability to stop what is right at our doors.

We could go on and on with all the sins we have a nation have committed.  We could hear from Native Americans, how we still isolate them on reservations.  We could hear from others outside our country who have lost loved ones when bombs have fallen on their homes.  We could hear from soldiers at home who feel abandoned by the country they fought for.

And our sins would be many.

But then, at the end of this, as we pushed our goat out to live in Yellowstone or something, we could hear the reassurance of forgiveness and grace and life.  We could hear that our sins have been forgiven and that we have been given the ability to change.  Through our repentance, we can be given life.

Would we sin again?  Of course.  Would that fix our problems?  Absolutely not.  But it would bring life and a sense of Us, as the ancient Israelites had so long ago.

May we remember that we represent, not just ourselves and our families, but our nation too.  May we repent our our collective deeds that, through repentance, we may find forgiveness of sins and life.

As a member of this nation in this community, I have failed and sinned with everyone else.  Lead us, Lord, that we might find new paths to walk.  Forgive us when we stumble and embrace us.  Amen.