“And the priest should dip his finger into the blood, spatter that blood seven times before the Holy One, before the sacred curtain” (Leviticus 4.6).
Leviticus isn’t an easy read for an animal lover. It’s…graphic. Whole chapters are devoted to the method of slaughtering some innocent animal who will be given as a sacrifice—sometimes for thanksgiving, sometimes for reconciliation—on behalf of a community or an individual. It seems callus, superior, as if the creatures of this earth must somehow perish to satisfy God.
There’s nothing original in Leviticus at least as far as sacrificial offerings go. The surrounding communities and nations of the period practiced the same; so, it shouldn’t surprise us to find the apparent injunctions and instructions in Scripture. The Children of Israel were still getting to know this God who had brought them out of bondage. What they knew of the Divine came from the world around them. Why would their deity be different from any other?
We know differently though, don’t we? We have the words of the Prophets who spoke for the One who said They have no use for bulls, sheep, birds or grain. We have the life of Jesus who showed us a God who rather than needing sustenance from us provides it from Themselves. We know that sacrifices of blood and flesh are not necessary. Don’t we?
It’s at the cusp of summer as I write this. Over the past couple of weeks, ten people were killed in a grocery store by a gunman so full of fear that violence seemed the logical response. Just days ago, nineteen children died in a school shooting committed by someone just reaching adulthood. Between now and when you read these words, there may be more blood spilled. But I am certain nothing will have been done.
Already, this early in the year, there have been wildfires out west, and before this is posted I’m sure more acres will have been turned to ash amidst the drought and heat that grow more and more common. But factories will continue to run, oil companies will release record profits, and we’ll be reminded that this is the price of progress.
And those millions of lives lost in this pandemic? Aren’t those just the sacrifices we have to make for our freedom, and our economy.
Perhaps we’re not as removed from this book as we’d like to think. Maybe its rituals and its divisions and its bloodshed are warnings about the gods we choose to serve. Perhaps these twenty-seven chapters are meant to reveal more about us than about the deity they were written to serve. It’s possible that we were meant to be bothered, disgusted, even offended by the brutality found in these pages.
Because, if we are, we might turn and look at what we have chosen to sacrifice and upon what altar. We might look about and find rituals and words repeated again and again. We might find the doorways and curtains of our common and sacred places stained with blood.
We may even begin to consider the god we serve.
Holy One, open our eyes to the sacrifices our idols demand.