“‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.
“‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
“‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
“‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
“‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. - Leviticus 26:1-13
The sense I get from this passage is God saying to his people: everything that you are looking for in the "good life" is found with me. The passage starts with not setting up idols, images or sacred stones: gods that you establish yourself. The passage then continues by reminding his people to give attention to the places and times that were uniquely God's, sabbaths being a weekly time away from the work week and the sanctuary as a place away from the work places. The author is saying: don't let things worm their way into the spaces that were designed only for the worship of God. This is the first three commandments restated.
There is a real temptation when there is a lull in your life or life is a bit boring to look for something more exciting than God--something to spice it up, whether it is relationships, accumulation or accomplishment. But the wisdom of this passage is really saying: live your ordinary life and stick close to me and that will be enough to have the good life--not the spicy life that you concoct in your imagination as desirable. I'll take care of the big stuff, God says, like the harvests, the wild animals, the armed enemies. You stick close to me.
As Solomon wrote:
I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. - Ecclesiastes 3:12:13
No comments:
Post a Comment