Power and Light
I guess you could say this is about the guys who keep the light and power on.
When people are reading the Bible through, I tell them, “Don’t be surprised if you bog down about Exodus 21 through Leviticus to Numbers 8 or so.” This is the most mind numbing material I can imagine, instructions for building the tabernacle in the wilderness and for carrying it about from place to place. There are detailed descriptions of items in the tabernacle and long lists of offerings.
My advice: skim it or skip it until later.
It baffles me to read in my study Bible notes that Jewish children are often introduced to their faith beginning with Leviticus.
Today, for example, my read through passage was Numbers 1-8: the census, the order of march, the Levites broken down into the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merarites.
YAWN
If you’re Moses or Aaron, you get good parts in the play:
The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things, so that he and his sons forever should make offerings before the LORD, and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever.
1 Chron 23:12-13 (NRSV)
The Aaronites pack up every item: the altar, the firepans, the snuffers, the bowls, and so on, placing everything in its covering of fine leather. Then the Levites get to carry it.
But here’s where it gets dicey: if they happen to look at it or touch it, ZAP! They’re dead meat.
Most of Raiders of the Lost Ark is Hollywood CGI. But in depicting the holy (that which is contained within the ark) as more deadly than an A bomb, the movie is true to the Old Testament.
The ark is properly transported by poles run through rings at its corners. When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, however, he brought it on a cart. The result:
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.
2 Sam 6:6-7 (NRSV)
So, here you are, roaming the desert, listening to stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, Rachel and their brood. Your job in the salvation history of your people?
Carry some leather packets around on poles. But never touch or look at what’s inside or die instantly.
BORING DANGEROUS
How’d you like your resume to read: I carried a leather packet around the desert for 20 years, period.
But, in fact, they saw it differently.
Those packets, carried about on poles, represented for the people the presence of God, leading the march.
[God] said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And [Moses] said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
Ex 33:14-16 (NRSV)
Psalm 16 is often considered the testimony of the Levites, who had no land in Israel; the Lord was their inheritance:
5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.
7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
10 For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11 You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Psalms 16:5-11 (NRSV)
I’m a full decade past the retirement age of the Levite (Num 4.47). I gave my working life to the church. And I can tell you, there is no place on earth more haunted by demons. It collects stinkers and hum dingers by the bushel.
So I’ve done a bit of reframing. I did my time in the church. It often felt like Leviticus reads, lugging people’s baggage around the wilderness.
But I gave my heart to the Lord and to the good souls I always found here and there, inside and just as often outside the camp.
Let me tell you: it’s enough, way more than enough.