Here we find another list of sins and their appropriate punishments. The majority - child sacrifice, cursing a parent, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and performing occult practices - are punishable by death. Others - consulting a medium, incest, and having sex while a woman is menstruating - require the offenders to be cut off from the community. Two further offences - sleeping with an aunt, or marrying a brother's wife - would leave the guilty parties childless. Some of these laws are still practised in certain Eastern countries, but they no longer apply because Jesus has already accepted the punishment on our behalf, whoever we are and whether or not we believe it. It is therefore our responsibility to make our voices heard and stop these archaic sentences being carried out. It is easy to shy away, citing religious or cultural differences, but no one deserves to die for a sin they have already been absolved of by the highest Judge there is.
There is, however, something from this passage which does hold true. We "must not live according to the customs of the nations" in which we live. That doesn't mean we must distance ourselves completely or reject non-Christian culture for the sake of it. God transcends that which we label 'Christian' and there is much in this world that is good and beautiful, and we miss out if we condemn ourselves to living like hermits. What it really means is that we must build our lives on God's law, then embrace the world only as it fits with that design. God sets the colour scheme, and we choose the decoration to match.
Now we have some more rules for priests. They must not make themselves ceremonially unclean for any but specified close relatives, they must not shave their heads or the edges of their beards, they must not blaspheme and they may only marry virgins. They may not serve while they are ceremonially unclean, and they may not eat the offerings while they have skin disease. The high priest may not make himself unclean for anybody, make public displays of grief, or leave the sanctuary. In essence, the priests must remain holy because they enter the presence of God. God has already told the people they must be holy, but here He really rams it home to the priests. They are granted the privilege of coming closest to Him and with that comes responsibility. They must try even harder to keep themselves pure. Priests no longer have that exclusive access to God, but they still have a special responsibility. They are acting as very public representatives of God, and so they have a duty to do their best to set an example, both to their congregations and to the wider community. Unfortunately bad press travels faster than good press - the Catholic Church will attest to that - so it is important that we recognise the good work out minsters to and support and encourage them in that.
There is another rule for priests that I wanted to give a little more attention to - no man with a defect or disability may serve as a priest. He may eat the holy food, and so he will still be supported, but he may not present the offering or enter the sanctuary. Again, this is to do with the need to to be holy and clean in God's sight. Calling somebody unclean because of a physical condition over which they have no control may seem grossly unfair, and barring them from certain work because of it sounds very much like discrimination, but it does have an interesting theological implication. If sickness and disability make a person unclean, which I suggested in an earlier post really means 'not like God', then sickness and disability cannot come from God. They were never part of His design for us. So where do they come from? I would suggest that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they gave Satan permission to work in this world, and every time we sin, we give him permission to stay a little longer. In accordance with his destructive nature, he has brought all sorts of harmful things into the world, including physical pain and impairment. That is why Jesus healed with the words "Your sins are forgiven" - the illness was not a punishment for a specific sin, but it was the result of the general existence of sin. It's also why God gave this rule. He didn't reject those with deformities or disabilties, and He ensured they were still provided for, but those conditions were the result of the Fall and so He could not allow them into His presence. Things have changed though. We are each healed of our uncleanness, if not the hurts of our physical bodies, and so that barrier no longer exists.
Along the same lines of thought, God then reminds Moses that all sacrifices given to Him must be without defect in order for them to be accepted. God is pure and whole, and so He can only accept that which is the same. The only exception is in the case of a freewill offering. This offering had no legal or ritual purpose, it was simply an offering given of the person's own free will. I think the person's willingness to give without being prompted pleases God so much that He will accept whatever they have to bring. If you ask somebody for a cup of coffee, you tell them how you like it; but if somebody unexpectedly hands you a mug, you don't complain if they forgot the sugar.
Finally for today, God reminds the people of the festivals He has already set up - the weekly Sabbath, or day of rest; the Passover meal to mark the Exodus; the Firstfruits to commemorate the first of the harvest; the Feast of Weeks seven weeks later; the Feast of Trumpets, which is a day of rest commemorated with trumpet blasts; the Day of Atonement, when the people are made clean; and the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people live in booths in remembrance of their time in the desert. The festivals themselves are very particular to that culture, and so there is maybe not a lot we can learn from them. We can see, however, that God loves a party. He wants us to stop and remember Him and all He has done for us, but He also wants us to stop and relax and simply enjoy ourselves. What a great boss.
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