Scripture: Leviticus 10: 6-11 and Matthew 5: 13-19

Sermon: Transforming Rituals

Topics: rituals, rhythms, responsibilities

Preached: September 17, 2000

Rev. Mike Abma

Leviticus 10: 6-11

And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, ‘Do not dishevel your hair, and do not tear your vestments, or you will die and wrath will strike all the congregation; but your kindred, the whole house of Israel, may mourn the burning that the Lord has sent. ⁷You shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, or you will die; for the anointing-oil of the Lord is on you.’ And they did as Moses had ordered.

8 And the Lord spoke to Aaron: ⁹Drink no wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons, when you enter the tent of meeting, that you may not die; it is a statute for ever throughout your generations. ¹⁰You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean; ¹¹and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through Moses.

Matthew 5: 13-19

‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

14 ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. ¹⁸For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

This morning I would like you to think about what it must have been like to be a priest in the Old Testament. Leviticus is the Bible book that gives us the best overview of what a priest was expected to do. But how many of us know much about Leviticus?

It is filled with long lists of the different types of offerings priests were to make.

It is filled with all kinds of laws about what was clean and what was unclean, what was holy and what was not.

We don’t read much from this book because the things in it seem so foreign to us, so far removed from us. We haven’t a clue what they have to do with us, here and now.

If I could summarize the task of a priest in one short clause, I would say that they were in charge of maintaining the rituals in Israel. They were in charge of maintaining the rituals that reminded Israel of their deliverance from Egypt and that reminded Israel of the law given to them at Sinai. We Protestants tend to scoff a little at the word ritual. We tend to be at least a little suspicious of it. But it is obvious that God regarded ritual as very important.

CORRUPTION OF RITUALS

In Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu are reckless in performing their priestly rituals. That recklessness cost them their lives. In the aftermath of their death God reminds Aaron about that importance of ritual, the importance of honoring Him in the details of life. Aaron and his remaining sons are reminded that the priests are to be models of holiness to the rest of the nation. Through the rituals they performed, the priests were to be role models of holiness.

A brief look at Israelite history shows that whenever the priests and Levites neglected this task of being teachers, role models of holiness, the nation suffered. But whenever the priests and Levites took their task seriously, the nation was faithful.

* At the end of the book of Judges, the priests and Levites were no longer role models of holiness and the people did whatever they pleased.

* in the era of the kings, the nation slid downhill when the priests and Levites were unfaithful, but the nation became more faithful when the priests and Levites took their role seriously, as was the case during the reforms of a king like king Josiah.

* Read the prophet Malachi and his biting indictment of the priesthood, and you know just how seriously the Lord regarded the rituals of the priesthood.

With the Sermon on the Mount we have a radical newness:

There is a new priest on the scene: Jesus is the New Priest, the new Rabbi.

There is a new law: Jesus is introducing a revolutionary way of

understanding the law.

There is a new mountain: this is not Mt. Sinai, but a New Mountain from

which God

shows us the way of holy living.

What I have always found amazing about this teaching of Jesus is how many times he says, do not be hearers only but also doers. It is almost 1 in every 6 verses that repeats that theme: don’t simply listen but let my words transform your life.

FAITH FORMATION

What does this say to us this Education Sunday?

In the Kingdom of God we are not simply called to instruct people, young and old, about the Christian faith. We can teach people all about the Bible, all about our Christian doctrines. They can know it all yet still believe none of it.

In the Kingdom of God we are most concerned about faith formation.

We are most concerned about helping to shape people’s lives so that they are followers of Christ.

To do this we need to first transform them from being citizens of the world to being citizens of the Kingdom of heaven.

And then we must help them conform to Christ.

The best way this transforming-then-conforming process works is by modelling.

We teach more by what we do than by what we say.

Now the things we do on a very regular repetitive basis are called rituals.

Our rituals reflect who we really are and what we really hold dear.

HOMEMADE RITUALS

Take a simple ritual in our home.

In our household Shirlene and I read stories to our children before bed. Right now Lydia wants to read Arthur Gets the Chickenpox. She picks that book to read every night. Now some nights I might have a meeting and am in a hurry. So I try skip a page here and there. But Lydia isn’t fooled.

Some nights I am so tired or bored I’m practically falling asleep reading the book. No problem. Lydia has the thing memorized. If I start to doze off, she wakes me up and tells me exactly where we are in the story.

The thing is, Lydia let’s us know that we can’t mess around with this ritual.

There is a good reason for that. This bed-time reading ritual is important.

It creates a certain amount of predictability, stability and security in Lydia’s life.

It creates an environment in which she knows she is loved.

It allows her to sleep soundly at night.

When I think back to my own childhood I can’t remember getting a bedtime story. With 9 kids in the house, I can see how that would have been pretty hard for my parents to pull off.

But there were still definite rituals.

There was the ritual of the daily rhythm:

* breakfast was always with the whole family. It began with a prayer and ended with Bible reading and a prayer.

* coffee was always at 10 am.

* lunch was always at noon. It began with a prayer and ended with a Bible reading and prayer.

* tea was always at 4.

* supper was always again with the whole family at 6. Again, like all meals, it began with a prayer and ended with Bible reading and a prayer.

These were the daily rituals:

Then there were the weekend rituals of Saturday night and Sunday:

Each Saturday night it was the Saturday night bath then the shining of our Sunday shoes

while we watched Hockey Night in Canada.

Each Sunday

it was off to church Sunday morning,

soup for lunch,

and then church again in the afternoon.

When you are a kid, you don’t always like these rituals.

Sometimes we even protested that these were empty rituals.

But nevertheless these rituals shaped and formed each member in my family.

That is what rituals do, they help shape and form us.

Rituals leave imprints on the soul.

In James McBride’s autobiographical The Color of Water, he writes about how his family survived growing up in New York with a black father and a white mother. He writes about how hard it was. But the one thing he credits with keeping the family together through all the rough times was the ritual of going to church every Sunday. That ritual was an anchor in an otherwise often turbulent life.

RESPONSIBILITY OF RITUALS

The question isn’t whether we have rituals. We all have our rituals.

The question is whether our rituals are God-honoring or not.

Do the daily rhythms of my life show that I love God, that I love my neighbor, that I am a good steward of God’s creation?

It is through our rituals that faith is formed.

It is through rituals that faith is passed on.

No wonder Jesus stresses so often in this Sermon on the Mount that the important thing is not simply hearing his commandments.

It is not even in learning his commandments.

The most important thing is actually doing them, practicing them, living them day by day.

Christians through the ages have known this.

In the mid 19^th century Benjamin Jacobs helped make the Sunday School movement a worldwide movement. But for him Sunday School was never simply about instruction. He said “…children may never study the Bible as diligently as desired. But they will always study the lives of the adults they meet. We must be models of what we desire our children to become.”

What Benjamin Jacobs knew, and what Christians throughout the ages have always known, is that faith is more caught than taught.

We in the Protestant tradition talk about the Priesthood of All Believers.

Now I know that we have generally only understood this in terms privileges:

how we all have the privilege of reading and understanding the Bible;

that we all have the privilege of approaching God in prayer.

But we must remember that being part of the Priesthood of all believers brings not only privileges but also responsibilities.

The responsibility of paying close attention to the rituals of our life.

The responsibility of making sure that the rituals of our life are God honoring.

The responsibility of making sure our rituals leave a holy imprint on the souls of others.

Rituals have the power to leave holy imprints on the souls of others.

When Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Bishop of South Africa, was at Duke University he was asked if there was an event that changed his life.

He said “Yes, most definitely.

When I was a young boy I saw a white man tip his hat and bow respectfully to my mother, a black woman.

This was clearly a gesture of grace, a ritual of respect.

Up until that day I had never seen a white man treat a black woman with so much respect.

That white man was an Anglican priest and it changed my life forever.

Rituals have the power to leave imprints on the souls of others.

WHAT ARE YOUR RITUALS?

I ask you this morning, “What Are Your Rituals?

* If going to church every week is a ritual, know what that means:

it does not mean we go to church because we feel like it,

not even because we have chosen to do it.

We go to church because this is part of the ritual of our faith,

part of our transformation from being a citizen of this world to being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven

a ritual that is part of our conforming to Christ.

* When at church we go through the rituals of worship:

we sing the songs in the liturgy,

we join in the responsive readings

and we warmly greet the people around us

not because we always feel like it;

not even because we have chosen to do it;

but because these are rituals,

part of our transforming from the world and our conforming to Christ.

* If daily prayer — in the morning, at meals, before bed – is part of our

ritual.

remember why we do it

not because we feel like it — because we don’t always feel like it.

not because we chose to — because sometimes we’d rather chose not

to.

We pray because this is part of our daily ritual:

part of our transforming from the world and conforming to

Christ.

Rituals need to show that we are being transformed from being citizens of

this world to being citizens of God’s kingdom.

And rituals need to show that we are being conformed to Christ.

CONCLUSION

The Challenge of forming faith in the lives of the young children who came

forward,

the Challenge of forming faith in the middle schoolers and high

schoolers,

the Challenge of forming faith in the person sitting next to you right

now,

Is not only the task of the Instruction Committee.

It is not only the task of the teachers who were commissioned.

This is the responsibility of the whole priesthood of believers,

It is the responsibility of every single person here.

That is why Jesus said,

“Whoever practices and teaches what I command will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Prayer:

Lord God,

Make us not only hearers but also doers of your word.

May the rhythms and rituals of our life

be planted on the firm rock of your grace, truth and love.

In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.