Jonah 04 – The Price of Grace

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. ² He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (Read the rest of the chapter, here.)

A tale of a sibling spat

This chapter reminds me of a time when my youngest sister, Carmen, and I were fighting. I can’t remember about what, but I must have gotten the upper hand in the argument, because Carmen went to complain to our parents. I hovered outside the door to hear if she would malign me, and what they would say. I don’t remember what Mom said, but clearly Carmen didn’t like it and told her to shut up – something we never said to our parents. I waited for Papa to lower the boom. All he did was look up briefly and say tersely, “Don’t talk like that to your mother.” I was so angry! If it had been me or my brother, we would have been in so much trouble! But Carmen, the youngest, only got a brief verbal reprise. Not exactly the vengeance, if you will, I was hoping would be brought to my whining, obtrusive, clearly out-of-line-in-so-many-ways little sister.

To be clear, I love my sister dearly, but I was not her biggest fan at that moment. I was even more mad when I saw she didn’t get punished. I felt much like Jonah did, sitting in a snit up on that hill, acting all holier-than-thou while really doing nothing to improve anybody’s situation. I don’t know why Carmen didn’t get in trouble that day. No one does, actually. None of my other family members remember this incident. So all I can do is conjecture. It’s possible that Papa was just tired, though I doubt it because that sort of disrespectful language was never tolerated in any other instance. So perhaps she was having a hard day and Papa was cutting her some slack. Perhaps I was really in the wrong and had pushed Carmen to the limit in our argument leading up to this little story, and Papa knew it, and wasn’t going to hold it against either of us, because that’s what siblings do sometimes.

Whatever the reason, how much easier would it have been for my parents to come down hard on my sister, yelling and blustering and sending her to her room? And how much of their own frustration would be expended (because I now know just how much frustration you suffer as a parent) if they had then turned their anger towards me for goading my sister into such a state in the first place? They would have been justified in doing so: neither Carmen nor I were behaving very well in the above scenario.

God, the patient parent

It is easy to be angry. It is easy to shout at, to shut out, to punish. And in some cases, all those things are justified – needed, even. But it is so much harder to be patient, to be loving, to be forgiving. Let’s look at this chapter again: By all rights, Nineveh should be destroyed. We don’t get to learn much about what condemned Nineveh in the book of Jonah, but in Nahum (another book devoted to prophesy against Nineveh), we learn that the city “plots evil against the Lord,” that it is a “city of blood, full of lies,” and a place of “endless cruelty.” To sum up, they were bad, really bad. God sending Jonah to warn them is kind of like the divine equivalent of a parent saying “you shape up or so help me…God?” Perhaps that analogy falls apart a little, but you get the main thrust of it. Here’s the twist though: unlike most children (or at least, unlike my children), they listened. Nineveh showed repentance, and God showed mercy. The fact that God spares such a terrible people after one little act of repentance clearly rankles Jonah, who storms off in a huff to sit on a hill and see what will happen to the city, much like an older brother sick of the leeway given to a younger sibling.

God has every right to be angry at Jonah now. Jonah basically back-talks to God (complaining about God’s greatest virtues, compassion and love, in just the height of irony). Then he waits to see if God will change their mind and actually strike Nineveh down, like Jonah thinks should happen. Jonah clearly thinks he knows better than God, and is just waiting for God to get with the picture. The hubris of his thinking is just like that of a teenager, don’t you think? I, at least, remember being thirteen and just knowing that I knew better than my parents. Again, God would have every right to turn Xyr anger against Jonah. Instead, God turns this into a teaching moment with the vine. Yet again, with what must have been accompanied with a deep cosmic sigh, God is patient.

Patience is the price we must pay for Grace. Perhaps it is easier for God to be endlessly patient, tapping into endless grace, being the Almighty and all. For me, it is a daily struggle. How much easier would it be to meet harsh words with more of the same? To yell at the kids every time they make a mistake? To look out for nobody’s needs but my own? I would have the satisfaction of saying exactly what I want to say when I want to say it…but not much else. Eventually, that sort of behavior would push everyone away, and I’d be left with an empty life, devoid of love.

My NIV study notes on this chapter close out with an additional line of scripture from Ezekiel: ” ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ ” We see that in Jonah, as God saves literally everyone from beginning to end: the sailors and captain; Nineveh’s people, king, and even livestock; not to mention Jonah himself. Maybe not everybody is worthy of our grace (let alone God’s) as we see fit. But what we think doesn’t matter: God gives us all that grace anyway. And if God can spare a city so full of sin and hate and murder as Nineveh, can’t we spare a little more grace for our neighbor? I think it is our duty to try.

Leviticus 07 – God’s Constant Desire for Communion

“‘These are the regulations for the guilt offering, which is most holy: ² The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be splashed against the sides of the altar. ³ All its fat shall be offered: the fat tail and the fat that covers the internal organs, ⁴ both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys. ⁵ The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord. It is a guilt offering. ⁶ Any male in a priest’s family may eat it, but it must be eaten in the sanctuary area; it is most holy. (Read the rest of the chapter, here.)

Forbidden Fat, Forbidden Blood

Let’s start with a word about the latter half of the chapter, where the blood and fat of the animal are yet again expressly forbidden. Actually, it’s not much of a word, but more of a pointing you in a direction of where I and others have talked at more length about this specific restriction. First, the work of Mary Douglas informed most of my thinking of fat as a metaphorical covering: a protective barrier between mundane humanity and the dangerously powerful divinity of God. You would not want to consume something with that much symbolism, that much power, but rather, dedicate it to God. You can read more about that in my post on Leviticus 03. As to the special sanctity of blood, I wrote about that while discussing Romans 03, and have to once more give a shout-out to Almost Heretical for informing these ideas.

7:1 “which is most holy”

I want to spend today talking about the first part of the chapter, specifically verses 7:1 and 7:15, because they truly emphasize God’s desire to be reconciled to us and in communion with us.

7:1 reads “These are the regulations for the guilt offering, which is most holy:” (emphasis my own). Let’s refresh our memories: The guilt offering is made after someone intentionally commits a sin or a crime. This is slightly different than the sin offering, which seems to apply mostly when someone sins unintentionally. There is some mention of unintentional sins in stipulations regarding the guilt offering, but by and large it applies to: restoring property that has been stolen or extorted (see 6:4-5), breaking faith with a community member (6:1-3), or providing restitution for holy articles that have somehow been carelessly treated (5:16).

The guilt offering is being made by someone who has committed the gravest of errors: an intentional sin against God, and now is looking to make right. Whoever is offering a guilt offering has broken a divine covenant, violated a divine agreement, and, quite likely, is in danger of execution: Nadab and Abihu presented the wrong fire to God (in violation of their contracts as priests) and were literally burned to death, as just one example of such violations from here in Leviticus.

But look what we are told: this offering, the offering that restores said sinner to God, that restores them to life, is the most holy offering. The thanksgiving and fellowship offerings, that thank God for Xyr gifts to us, are not the most holy. The sin offering, which is, in comparison to the guilt offering, just a little expression of mea culpa, is not the most holy. No, the offering that restores a sinner to God is the most holy. Of course it is nice to be thanked for your gifts, or apologized to if someone steps on your toe, but what is really soul-healing is to have someone who has wronged you offer a heartfelt apology (and restitution). And we see that reflected in the fact that the guilt offering is the most holy of all the offerings. God leaves that doorway to forgiveness open for us, even here in the book of rules that modern Christians like to deride so often. The guilt offering is the most holy, because it restores our communion with God.

7:15 “leave none of it till morning”

7:15 falls in the Fellowship Offering Recap section. It reads, “The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning.” Now, certainly this is partially a practical consideration: in an era without refrigeration, meat only lasts so long. But I’m here to tell you, it can last til morning. Maybe I’m a lazy housewife, but I often leave a chili or roast on the stove overnight and just reheat it at lunch the next day. No one has gotten food poisoning yet. So that practical consideration only goes so far.

I think it again shows God’s eagerness to be in communion with us. When you are presented with a gift, who wants to wait to open it? Waiting to open your gift is the hardest part of Christmas as little kid, right? Well, God, being in charge, can say “no waiting on these thank you gifts, we’re going to enjoy them right now!” When we come bearing gifts and thanks to God, God receives them graciously and effusively, because God enjoys being in communion with Xyr creation.

God delights in you

“The Church,” however you conceive that to be historically or institutionally, has done a good job of making people feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness. The Church as done a good job of hiding God’s joy in us and God’s desire to be with us. The church would often have you believing that you are scum, and nothing you could do would bring pleasure to God, that we can only bring God anger and sorrow and then repent in whatever pathetic way possible in the hopes that we won’t be thrown into hell. I will agree with them on one thing: that our actions can bring God sorrow, and probably anger, too. When we turn against each other, when we abuse God’s creation, even when we fail to take joy in what is given to us (take a look at Ecclesiastes to see how God wants us to be joyful) – that is an affront to God.

But I hope that these two verses discussed today help highlight exactly how much God loves us, and loves being with us. When we recognize the error of our ways and turn to God (and whomever else necessary) and say sorry, and work to do better, we are restored in God’s eyes, and God is delighted. When we say “thank you” for the gifts God has given us, God is there to hear it, and is delighted.

One last thing I want to point out: there are no stipulations on who can bring a guilt offering. You do not have to be white, rich, straight, employed, sober, college-educated, skinny, and with all your shit together. No matter what anyone else tells you, you are not an irredeemable sinner. You may perhaps need to make a proverbial guilt offering or two…or maybe you just need to say thank you more. Or maybe you’ve already done all of that. (Or maybe those things need to be said and done to you by some offending party.) Whatever the case, God loves you, and loves when you turn to Xyr. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. One more time, in case it wasn’t clear: God loves you. Thanks be to God.

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Leviticus 01 – God Loves a Barbeque

⁷ The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. ⁸ Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the wood that is burning on the altar. ⁹ You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord. (Read the rest of the chapter, here)

The book everyone loves to hate.

Let’s spend a little time with the book everybody loves to hate, Leviticus. About the only thing “in style” about Leviticus right now is spending time refuting it. Two of the six clobber passages (passages used to denounce homosexuality) are found in Leviticus. Almost any compilation of “weirdest rules” or “strangest passages” in the Bible samples heavily from Leviticus.

There’s a pervasive need of modern readers to patronize Leviticus. We’ve all seemed to develop a sense of superiority sitting here looking at it, almost four centuries after it was written. Sometimes, that sense of superiority is factually based in the cumulative knowledge that time has brought, but other times I think it’s just a bit haughty of us.

If we take the time to research Leviticus it not only brings the past – in this case, the time of Moses, to life – but also presents us with (you guessed it) even more examples of God’s unending love for us. A book of rules – very specific rules, at that – seems a strange place to look for boundless love. But I’m happy to report I’ve found a lot of it, and I’m excited to share that with you here. Some of the more perplexing verses can be understood in context: obsessive directives about skin diseases and mold make more sense when you remember that this is a time before bleach and antibiotics. But more than anything it is a book about care: God caring for Xyr people, and those people caring for each other and God in return. It is a book of joyous communion.

God loves a barbeque.

And bless my southern little heart, what is a more joyous communion than a barbeque? If you come away from Leviticus learning one thing, let it be this: that God loves a barbeque. The phrase “aroma pleasing to the Lord,” in reference to the animal sacrifices made on the altar, is mentioned three times in this opening chapter alone. I cannot stress enough: God opened this book of rules with a cooking lesson. How to present the meat, butcher the meat, and prepare the meat is all detailed, similar to how a pit master might do. Come to think of it, another name for the first few chapter of Leviticus could be “this is how we eat together.”

I realize that whole last paragraph might come off as a little trite. But really, these opening chapters are a codified invitation to sit at the Lord’s table. And God makes it available to all: If you can bring a bull, definitely bring a bull. Can’t afford that? No worries, bring a ram, or even a bird. Can’t bring any meat? How about a grain offering? God wants us, all of us, with them. Because what is a barbeque without lots of people?

Practical concerns surrounding sacrificial butchery.

I’m also enjoying these opening chapters because, for those of you that don’t know, I am a farmer in my other life. I have herded cows, castrated pigs, and eviscerated chickens. I have carved a pig head, among other things, and make stock from chicken feet. So reading some of the practical instructions surrounding animal sacrifice is particularly amusing. Today’s winning line is verse 1:16, “He is to remove the crop with its contents and throw it to the east side of the altar, where the ashes are.”

First off, the word translated as “contents” is uncertain, according to my NIV study notes. Some translate it as “crop and feathers.” I don’t need to be a Hebrew or religious scholar to tell you that word means “anything you wouldn’t want to eat on the bird.” Having removed thousands of them myself, I can tell you that crops – the “holding stomach,” if you will, on birds, is stinky. As are their intestines and feathers. You do not want any of that burning on your holy altar – it would not be an aroma pleasing to the Lord. (Imagine diarrhea and burnt hair, and that’s probably a pretty close approximation of what burning bird offal smells like.)

I also like that it is further explicitly stated that said gross stuff be thrown away on the east side of the Altar. There are detailed descriptions of how the Tabernacle should be constructed (we’ll get to them when we read Exodus), and my study Bible has a handy little drawing of how the Tabernacle was set up. Sure enough, the east side of the Altar is the farthest side from the Most Holy Place, where the Ark of the Covenant rested. Basically, God is like “keep that nasty stuff over there.” I’ve smelled a gut bucket full of the offal of 100-plus birds. It is not conducive to communing with the Lord.

Alright enough about bird guts, for now. But be prepared: we’re going to talk more about animal entrails in the not too distant future. My writer’s block seems to have cleared, Leviticus is thoroughly enjoyable, and I’m looking forward to sharing chapter two with you all next week. Remember that you are always welcome at God’s barbeque, for God loves us all.

If you are learning from what you read here, please follow the blog so you don’t miss what’s next.  Click the folder icon in the upper left corner of the menu, and you can follow via WordPress or email.  Please also consider supporting the blog through Patreon or Venmo.  Thank you!