CLEAN LIVING—sel. From Leviticus 11-15
(Preacher: Begin with “Things Moms would probably not say...” on YouTube or Powerpoint…
End the list with… “Let me smell that shirt. Yeah, that’s good for another week.”
And, “Don’t bother cleaning your room. It makes the rest of the house look dirty.”
In Leviticus 11-15, there are over 30 verses that include the word “clean”, and over 70 verses that have the word “unclean.” Why? Is cleanliness next to godliness? Surely there is more to it than that!
When you don’t understand everything in a Bible passage, a good question to ask is, “What do I know for sure?” What can we understand in this passage about God, about people, and about life with God?
1. ALL OF LIFE MATTERS TO GOD
(Preacher: Project a slide with the title, “Which are talked about in Leviticus?” Everything on the slide is talked about: sacrifices, snakes, geckos, rashes, tattoos, infectious disease, etc. If it is still current, a picture of the Geico gecko might be fun.)
Leviticus tells us that everything about us is important to God, including our bodies and the health of our communities.
Read Leviticus 11:1-8. I like bacon! Yet wild hogs are carnivores, and they will eat anything, dead or alive—even human flesh. Carnivores are more likely to pass on disease, and they were prohibited. (trichinosis?) Dead animals were also prohibited; they were not roadkill (like deer hit by a truck), but likely to be diseased.
Read Leviticus 13:1-3. The rest of the chapters lists oozing sores and skin diseases that might be infectious. The priests (since there were no physicians, and no Center for Disease Control) examined the skin and performed elaborate ceremonies, with provisions to verify cleanliness. Read Leviticus 14:1-9. There were similar procedures for mildew and mold.
Leviticus 15 deals with bodily discharges, which might also be contagious. The procedures seem strange to us, but they were similar to the blood cleanup protocols that are followed today.
Some of these rules make little sense to us, but they taught the people to take God’s commands seriously.
When the rock group Van Halen toured, their standard contract required a bowl of M&Ms backstage, from which all brown M&Ms had been removed. The band was not being petty; they were testing the promoters. Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth explained in his autobiography that the band was the first to go into smaller markets. They pulled in with nine 18-wheelers, and sometimes the stage supports or electrical system would not support the demands of a heavy rock band. The stipulation of no brown M&Ms tested the promoter’s commitment to detailed preparation, to ensure the safety of the crowd.
Some of the stipulations in Leviticus might be like that. God was testing whether his people would take his commands seriously, because if they were disobedient in the small things, they would be disobedient in the big things.
Even if we don’t understand every rule in Leviticus, the clear message is that God cares about every aspect of life. He cares about our diet and our health. He cares about the health of the community, including safe housing, environmental pollution, and access to healthcare. It is safe to assume that God is concerned about broader issues of health and welfare, like drug abuse, obesity, epidemics, and (as we will see later today) maternal health.
2. ALL OF LIFE CAN BE MADE CLEAN BY GOD
In this section of Leviticus, the focus is not on sin, but on uncleanness. Sins must be forgiven; uncleanness must be healed and made whole.
If you read Leviticus 11-15, you will read some puzzling things, especially relating to sex and procreation.
Read Leviticus 15:18-24. These are natural bodily functions, which are not sinful. Proverbs 5:18 is quite graphic: “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.”
If the emissions were not sinful, why were they considered to be unclean? There were some practical benefits of hygiene, and effect of these commands was to give women a break during their menstrual periods.
Yet in Leviticus, there is a bit of a sense that sex is dirty. It was not that way in the Garden of Eden; Adam and Eve were free, and full of delight in each other. After they sinned, however, things were not so perfect. God told Eve that she would have pain in childbirth, and “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Despite the impression we might get from movies, sexual encounters are not always perfect. The uneasiness is not only physical; individuals are not perfectly cherished, loved unselfishly, and united in perfect, whole-person harmony. For too many people, there is baggage from the past: abuse, promiscuity, or insecurity. For too many, there are impure thoughts and images, or habits and addictions. Too often, there are power struggles, insensitivity, selfishness, or lack of commitment.
The curse due to sin was passed on in childbirth, which was a painful reminder to a woman of the corruption of all of humanity. Yet Leviticus provided a solution to her uncleanness; she could bring a lamb and a dove to the priest, to make atonement, and she would be ceremonially clean. (See 12:1-8.) The uncleanness in the world was no longer on her.
Of course, the offering of a lamb or a dove did not change the fact that life was not as it should be. Uncleanliness was everywhere: infectious diseases, but also infectious attitudes. Leviticus provided only temporary relief from the uncleanness of life.
The prophet Ezekiel lived several hundred years after Moses. He saw in Leviticus a picture of the condition of the people of Israel. They were defiled by their sin, but God would provide a way of cleansing:
Ezekiel 36:16-29 “The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they DEFILED it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman's monthly uncleanness in my sight. So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had DEFILED it with their idols… I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will CLEANSE you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your UNCLEANNESS.”
The uncleanness of Leviticus is almost like a parable about the corruption that is in the world. Life is not as it should be: disease, unclean animals, and the best gifts of God polluted by sin. Life is not as it will be: in the kingdom of heaven, there will be none of those diseases, and none of the brokenness.
The fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy began with Jesus, who was born to a woman named Mary. Luke 2:22 says, “When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses [Leviticus 12], Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord…and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” Mary was made clean through a sacrifice.
In his ministry, Jesus confronted uncleanness, and healed those who were oppressed by it.
“A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. [This was addressed in Leviticus; she was permanently unclean.] She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” (Mark 5:25-29)
“A man with leprosy came and knelt before Jesus and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." (Matthew 8:2-4)
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (Matthew 4:23)
Jesus was not limited to external cleansing; he made the whole person clean. In John 15:3, Jesus said to his disciples, "You are CLEAN….You are already CLEAN because of the word I have spoken to you.”
Then, in a final, once-for-all sacrifice, Jesus made atonement for the core of the corruption of humanity, to bring true healing.
In his life on earth, Jesus gave people a taste to the kingdom of God, in which all people are clean and free from the curse. Someday, when Jesus returns, his kingdom will be fully revealed, and all of God’s people will be clean, healed, and renewed.
In Revelation 19:6-8, we read, “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”
3. OUR LIVES CAN BE “CLEAN” NOW.
Read Leviticus 11:44-45. “Be holy as I am holy.”
God is holy, which literally means “set apart.” God is beyond any other, above any other in power and wisdom, love and care, faithfulness and purity.
God’s holiness means that he is separate from all that is unclean or corrupted. The prophet Habakkuk said, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” (Habakkuk 1:13)
God’s people are holy, because a holy God chosen them as his own, delivered from slavery in Egypt, and set them apart as special to him. Because they are holy, they must separate themselves from uncleanness.
How should they be holy? The example is, “Do not make yourself unclean by any creature that moves upon the ground.” Is it really about snakes?
Dr. James Dobson told a story about his young son praying one night, at bedtime. They had been talking about dirty movies, and Ryan prayed, “God, keep us from dirty movies, where people are spitting all the time.” That would be a start!
Some of the commands in Leviticus are rather superficial. The people were like children, learning the basics of what it meant to live a clean life.
Leviticus focused on external cleanliness, but Jesus went deeper: “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:15-23)
God wants us to be clean. He cares about what is in us: our thoughts, our emotions, and our desires. He cares about the sore spots, the diseases of the heart. He cares about the “discharges” that come out of us, through our mouths and our actions.
If we are going to have clean minds, we can’t feed on unclean garbage. We must avoid taking in the “snakes,” being careful about what we take in through our eyes and ears. We must take action to eliminate unclean thoughts and desires. We must bring any hidden uncleanness into the light, confessing it to God, and seeking his help in becoming clean.
How can we do that? Ezekiel revealed it, long before Jesus made it real:
“I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws…you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your UNCLEANNESS.”
The HOLY SPIRIT is God in us; he helps us to be holy, as God is holy. He cleanses us from impure thoughts and desires, heals our brokenness, and motivates us to live holy, healthy lives.
God the Father has chosen us as his own. God the Son has died, so that we can be cleansed through his blood. God the Spirit purifies our hearts, and renews us as children of God, redeemed in Christ.
The Spirit helps us as we pray, so let us do that now:
PRAYER: (Preacher: Here are some suggestions for prayer)
Healing: physical, emotional, spiritual…harm done, sin chosen, oppression of evil
Purity within: every thought and every desire washed and purified by Christ
Clean thoughts, fresh energy, renewed emotional strength, pure love, wholesome desires
Clean habits, healthy routines, better relationships
Impact on our world…healing grace, helpful words, purifying movement of your Holy Spirit through us
