Their Holidays? Or Ours?

"These are the Lord's appointed feasts, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies..."
Leviticus 23:37

Their Holidays?  Or Ours?
By Rev. William Dohle

Have you ever been to another country during a holiday??

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to travel to India for a semester abroad.  The whole experience changed my perspective on everything.  Religion.  Faith.  Life.  What is clean and what is dirty.

But most of all it changed my view of holidays.

It may come as a shock, but the rest of the world does not celebrate the same holidays we do.  Next Monday is Labor Day in the United States...but the rest of the world doesn't care.  At the end of October is Halloween(my favorite holiday)...but that isn't celebrated everywhere.  And even the sacred Christmas is just another working day in some parts of the world.

But just as they don't celebrate our holidays.  We don't celebrate theirs either.

In India, we were present for their holiday of Diwali.  This Hindu holiday is a feast day to celebrate the coming of light.  In many ways, it mirrors the Winter Solstice event and even Christmas itself.  Indians celebrate it by decorating their homes in bright colors.  They float candle-lit boats down the river.  And they send each other gifts and cards.

"Happy Diwali!"  They say!

As an outsider with a group of outsiders, we tried to fit in.  But you could tell that this wasn't our holiday.  This was theirs.  As much as we tried to celebrate with them.  As many Diwali cards I sent out from India to my relatives back home, it still wasn't my holiday and I haven't celebrated it again since.

This foreign feeling is the same feeling I get when I read the 23rd and the beginning of the 24th chapter of Leviticus.  This is a strange land...with strange holidays.

The Hebrews here are instructed to celebrate seven feasts to the Lord.

• The first is celebrated weekly.  The Sabbath or Shabbat.  The day of rest from creative work and a day to dedicate to God.
• The second is Passover...the celebration of the people of Israel's release from bondage.
• The third... First fruits.  A sort of Harvest festival if I'm not mistaken.
• The fourth...the feast of weeks.  A day to remember the poor.  "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field...Leave them for the poor and the alien."
• The fifth...The Feast of trumpets.  "Do no regular work on this day."
• The sixth...The Day of Atonement.  A day to atone for the sins of the people
• The seventh...the Feast of Tabernacles...a time to remember how the people lived in tents so many years.

Many of these feasts are spoken of in the Gospels because all of these feasts were celebrated by Jesus himself!  Look for yourself throughout the Gospels and see how they follow these ancient holidays.

I've always wondered... why don't Christians celebrate these holidays too too?  If so many take the Bible as the "inerrant Word of God" and "divinely inspired"...then what about these verses here?  Shouldn't we be joining our Jewish brothers and sisters in a few weeks as they celebrate the Day of Atonement?  And then shouldn't we be crafting our tents outside for the Feast of Booths?  When did God tell the church, "Forget the Jewish holidays.  Make up your own instead!"?

Most Christians set aside these verses in the Law.  They just don't apply to them.  Instead, we have other holidays that we celebrate.  Christmas.  Easter.  Fourth of July.  Halloween.  Civic holidays and religious ones combine together for us and we fall out of step from what Leviticus instructs.

Are we disobeying God here?  Does God care?  Does it bother him that we are not following these commandments?

Personally, I not sure God really cares WHAT holidays we celebrate.  I think he calls us to celebrate!  To lay aside what we normally do for a time and to do something different is important to God.  I think God calls us to celebrate...and to remember.  And we Christians can do the same in our own ways too.  In fact, we can use the same outline of holidays to fashion our own...

• The first...we too can celebrate a Sabbath and put God first one day a week, laying aside our own cares.
• The second...there's nothing to say we can't join our Jewish neighbors in celebrating Passover with their Sedars.  The Jews I've met are more than happy to invite us into their celebration.
•  The third...First fruits.  I think Thanksgiving fits perfectly into that category, so long as we remember that we need to give thanks more than we need to shop.
• The fourth...the feast of weeks.  What if Christmas day was a day to remember the poor and to stop in the middle of all our gift unwrapping to pray and to help and to give to those who are in need.  Whoa!  That sounds...radical!  But isn't that what we say Christ did for us?
• The fifth...the Feast of Trumpets...I've always liked the idea of Marti Grau.  What if we made it a point to celebrate life...even before the lenten fast.
• The sixth...the Day of Atonement... Many Christians celebrate the whole season of lent, 40 days, as a time to repent and that is good.  But the Day of Atonement for us should be Good Friday when we remember that atonement was made once and for all.
• The seventh...the feast of Tabernacles.  Did you know that the Holy Spirit came one year on this very feast to "tent" among us?  What if we took this time to think on the ways that God is already here.

I think this list is a start.  A start to a pattern for all of our lives.  May we know the grace and mercy of God that we may walk confidently through all that life brings.  Happy Holidays!  And happy ordinary days too!

God of the holiday and the ordinary, give us reasons to celebrate and worship you.  Open our eyes to your holy presence, both in and out of our holiday celebration.  Amen.

To Make...or Break...a Job Description

Consider them holy, because I the Lord am Holy--I who make you holy.  Leviticus 21:8

To Make...or Break...a Job Description
By Rev. William Dohle

I have learned one thing in my 26 years of being a working person... job descriptions are important!

It's important to know what you are responsible for doing...and what you're not.  It's important, not only for your benefit, but also for the benefit of others.

Suppose your doctor believes that his or her job is to do everything their nurse would have done.  Would that be a good use of her time?  Or your dentist who can't find time for your aching tooth...because he has to sweep the sidewalks outside of his office.  Or the teacher...who abandons your child to prepare lunch in the cafeteria.

Job descriptions are important.  It's important to know where you are suppose to be and what you are suppose to be doing.  And if someone growls at you about not doing something, you can just point back to your job descriptions and say, "See...THIS is what I'm suppose to do."

Job descriptions date back even to biblical times.  Even to the book of Leviticus.  Here we have an entire chapter and a half on what the job of a priest is and what they're suppose to do.  Here's what the Bible says about a priest...

• Must not make himself ceremonially unclean. (Lev. 21:1)
• Must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their breads or cut their bodies. (Lev. 21:5)
• Must not marry prostitutes or those who've been divorced. (Lev. 21:7)
• The high priest must... not let his hair become unkempt or tear his clothes.  The woman he marries must be a virgin.(Lev. 21:13
• Must not have any defects.  Must be perfectly healthy with no skin diseases. (Lev. 21:16-23)

There are others...and reasons for these...given in Leviticus.  The overall reasoning behind why a priest must be this way is...

The priests are to keep my requirements so that they do not become guilty and die for treating them with contempt.  I am the Lord who makes them holy.(Lev. 22:9)

Now, we might look back on these and think they are ancient garbage.  Why should we care how the priests were required to be?  That was thousands of years ago!  Or we might think of them as sacred Scripture...but still not know what to do with them.

Either way, these job descriptions help us understand other parts of Scripture.

Like the story of the Good Samaritan!  Jesus tells a story about a priest and a levi who pass a man robbed by thieves on the other side.  Why didn't they stop?  Because it wasn't in their job description!  Because they were both commanded to not make themselves ceremonially unclean and stopping to help someone who might die on them would defile them  and prevent them from doing their job.  Of course they passed by the man!  They would be breaking God's commandment if they had stopped!

These ancient job descriptions too can help us see our own job descriptions in a better light.  They can help us ask ourselves: "Are the jobs we doing for the glory of God and for the work of his kingdom?  Or are we being required to do something that is immoral or unloving toward someone?"

Job descriptions are not unbreakable laws.  In fact, they can and should be broken when love dictates another way.  When certain German pastors in World War II did not believe their job description imposed on them by the Nazis was life-giving to their Jewish brothers and sisters, they rebelled and acted against it.  Many of them, including Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, lost their lives fighting against what the Reich considered their job description.

So, how should we take these job descriptions here?  As suggestions?  As an outline?  Perhaps we should keep these in the back of our minds as we read through the rest of Scripture, for every priest from this time through the time of Jesus, knew Leviticus 21 by heart.  Every priest knew how they were suppose to act, according to God's law.  Perhaps we should take this as background knowledge as we explore the ways God's people followed and broke this ancient job description.  Because God's word doesn't end with job descriptions.  This is only the beginning.

God of all, you direct our lives through the Scriptures and in life.  Give us boldness that we might question and discern and so enter into the conversation you have with all of humanity.  Amen.

No Public/Private Split!

"Keep my decrees and follow them.  I am the Lord, who makes you holy."  Leviticus 20:8

No Public/Private Split!
By Rev. William Dohle

Most of us live in a divided world. There is the world of the public. The world of "out there", where you dress your best, act your best, and think only state-sanctioned thoughts.

And then there's the world of "in here". The private world. Here, in the company of friends, or even just with your own family in your own home, you can "be yourself". The demands placed upon you by the outside world have no meaning. And much of what we do falls under the "who cares" category.

These two worlds each have their own rules. In the public realm, we live by the rule of work and society. In our private realm, we live by the rule of family and kin. True, many of the rules correspond and the public realm has a stake in what goes on at home. (Otherwise there would be no such thing as domestic violence!)...but there is a sense when, unless you're breaking a public rule, the public has no say in what you do in private.

This division does not exist in Scripture!

In the Bible, there is no division between what you do in private and what you do in public. They are one and the same.

The Bible, particularly the book of Leviticus, has many rules that deal with what we do in private. Sex in particular gets lots of attention.

• If a man sleeps with his father's wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death...(20:11)
• If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire.(20:12)
• If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death...(20:15)
• If a man lies with a woman during her monthly period and has sexual relations with her...Both of them must be cut off from the people. (20:18)

There are, to my counting, twelve different laws and punishments revolving around sex.

But there's more. More intrusions on our private life. Consider these...

• 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...Leave them for the poor and the alien. (19:9)
• Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.(19:13)
• Do not go about spreading slander among your people.(19:26)
• Do not hate your brother in your heart.(19:17)
• Do not mate different kinds of animals.(19:19)
• Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.(19:19)
• Do not wear clothing of two kinds of material.(19:19)
• Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edge of your beard. (19:27)
• Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. (19:28)

Notice how many of these have something to do with our private life!? How many of us, if someone came to criticize us about one of these, would tell them: "It's none of your business! I can do what I want to do here!"

But that's the point, I think, about all these laws. All of these things are God's business. Just as all of our lives are God's business. True, he gives us a measure of choices. We can do one thing or another thing. We can follow him here and deny him there. He gives us choices, but God always has a preference for us. And that preference is repeated again and again in this litany of laws.

God says, again and again, this phrase:

"You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own." (20:26)

These laws are given to Israel to separate them from the nations. And they do! If you follow these laws as most Orthodox Jews do, you will be separate from your neighbors. You will organize your lives, eat different things, and even organize your private life differently than your neighbors.

What might we, Christian Gentiles, learn from this litany of laws? Perhaps we might take away a deeper understanding how God works in the world. Perhaps God is not just a God we greet and meet and hear about on Sunday mornings or whenever we decide church is convenient for us to attend. Maybe God has a stake in what we do after church on Sunday mornings and how we rise on Monday morning. And what we buy at the grocery store on Tuesday night and how we party on Friday night. And what we wear to the office that day and how we comb our hair. And what seeds we plant in our field even and who we choose as a spouse. Maybe God has a stake in all of those decisions. Maybe God is interested in what we do privately to love our neighbor as he does about how often we worship.

Or maybe...just maybe...everything we do, in word and deed, we do to the glory of God.  Privately and publically.

That's something to remember...to note.  That's something to take to heart.  In public...or in private!

Forgive me, God, for praising you in public and not in private.  Or privately worshiping  you and publicly denying you.  Unify my heart that whatever I do may be done for you.  Amen.

The Bible Gets Political

"Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land."
Leviticus 25:18

The Bible Gets Political
By Rev. William Dohle

I hate it when songs get stuck in your head.  Like this one...

"Jesus loves me this I know... for the Bible tells me so..."

Just that one line might get a whole song running through your head for the rest of the day.  (You're welcome!)  And what a song to be running through your head.  Beloved as it is, the Bible doesn't explicitly say that Jesus loves you.  God loves you, yes.  John 3:16 talks about God's love for us.  But Jesus' love?  Not so much.  In fact, I have yet to find a reference in all of Scripture that backs this little song up.

Still the excuse "the Bible tells me so" that works for people.  For many people.  In fact, the very idea that the Bible might tell them to do or not to do something is important to them.  Christians live their lives based on what they read the Bible telling them or not telling them to do.  It's just part of being religious.

But what happens when the Bible gets...political?  What happens when pieces of Scripture(many pieces in some cases) support a certain viewpoint?  What do you do with the Bible then?  Follow it?  Or dismiss it?

A good friend of mine from college asked this question of me quite a while ago and I struggled with giving him an answer.  On the one hand, I wanted to agree with him and say, "No!  The Bible doesn't dabble in politics!  Separation of church and state is right in there..."  On the other hand, I knew that was a lie.  In fact, the Bible gets very political, especially when you liken our current events with events that it specifically speaks on.  THEN it gets really political.

Take what is going on with the refugee children from Central America.  I am sure my friend, a Border Officer himself, would have some opinions on what should happen there.

But the Bible also has some specific things to say about foreigners or aliens among us.  And I'm not sure what my friend would say about it...

"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-borns.  Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.  I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:35-36)

Now, this is the first time that the subject of immigration and handling the "alien" among you comes up in the Bible.  But it certainly isn't the last.  Throughout Scripture, God is continually reminding His people that we are to treat others as we want to be treated.  The insiders were once outsiders too.  How would you like to be treated if you were an alien(which you were in Egypt.)  Remember that...and treat them the same way.

In fact, if  you look at the stories of Jesus in the Gospels you find a man who is constantly treating "outsiders" and "foreigners" as though they were insiders, healing everyone from the Centurion's servant to the Cananite's daughter to the countless conversations he had with those good-for-nothing Samaritans.  In fact, Jesus seems more keen on talking to resident aliens than he does talking to his own people!

And to our modern day problems... I know there is no easy answer.  More children in the system only strains the system more.  Taking some children in will encourage others to make the trip.  I get that.  The Bible doesn't say there is an easy answer either.  The Bible stresses compassion.  Compassion in all things!

"...do not mistreat him..."  ... BE COMPASSIONATE!
"The alien...must be treated as one of your native-borns..." ... BE COMPASSIONATE!
"Love him as yourself..." ... BE COMPASSIONATE!
"...you were aliens in Egypt..."... BE COMPASSIONATE!

Do you see a theme here?  The theme is compassion!  There is no reason in the world why a Christian should be seen holding a sign of hatred against these children.  They did nothing to deserve that!  Write letters to your congressman.  Speak at the town hall.  Complain to your friends if you need to.  But do not, I repeat, do not show these children anything but compassion!

Compassion and "love".  That is what is commanded here.  That's what's on God's agenda!

The Bible doesn't flinch at politics.  Nor does it apologize for being political today.  Instead, it speaks its command "Love the alien as yourself" in clear tones that should mark Christians in the immigration debate of the day.  How can we, Americans, do what the Bible tells us to in ways that are compassionate and loving toward our neighbors?  Can we be compassionate, even in our political views?

Compassionate God, you pour yourself out for us, aliens though we are.  May we pour ourselves out to others, even to the outcasts among us, that they may find hope and strength and peace.  Amen.