‘Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Leviticus 19:2)

At a recent mid-week meeting for prayer and Bible study, one of our deacons spoke to us from this too little known passage in Leviticus. It was a brief study, easy to follow and strangely moving. There were things I had not noticed before: ‘Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father’ - note the unusual order, ‘mother’ first. But why? When father is out at work, mother can too easily become the butt of children’s rude and defiant behaviour. Or perhaps, as one commentator puts it, ‘If the father is the head of the family, the mother is the heart.’

Understanding God’s Law

Those who understand the Law in the Old Testament in a wholly negative way would do well to read this chapter, especially the words in verse18, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, cited by our Lord in Matthew 22:34-40. A practical example of such love is given in verses 9 and 10, where the edges of a cornfield are not to be cut, but left so that the poor may glean. Likewise in the vineyard, fallen grapes are to be left on the ground. ‘You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner’ ie the stranger passing through who has no land of his own. Here the law is kind and generous, and marked by love. So the many ‘charity boxes’ that are rattled under our noses have a claim on our generosity.

A further example of the law being applied lovingly is found in verse 13, in the matter of wages and financial responsibility, ‘You shall not oppress your neighbour or rob him.’ That can be done in subtle ways, ‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.’ Not only being just but being thoughtful to others, as the advert puts it, ‘We do right with you.’ Again, not taking advantage of someone in a hidden deceitful way, ‘not putting a curse on the deaf or a stumbling block before the blind’ (verse 14). Rather, ‘fear God’, who sees and hears every injustice and every hidden act of malice.

‘Charity begins at home’

How timely all this is to us in an age when acts of injustice and greed are perpetrated on a vast scale. We may shake our heads and ‘tut’ at greedy bankers, but how open, honest and considerate are we with each other and with our neighbours? It is said that ‘charity begins at home’, but so does right dealing and kind-heartedness. We are to love God and love our neighbour. The two great tables of the Law belong together. Whoever loves God with all his heart will love his neighbour. The gospel makes us such people. 

 

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