Purity

"Did you wash your hands?"
How often do we hear that question? We have hand wipes, hand sanitizers, fist bumps (to replace dangerous physical contact). The news media regularly has medical snippets on germs. The primary concern is germ avoidance and germs, we are told, are everywhere!!!! (and kitchens are worse than bathrooms). Not long ago the local news lady did a special report where they did all manner of swipes and cultures in the news room and video taped how often the three reporters touched there faces. The message was clear. Touching, even yourself, is a bad idea. One might think that our hands are the most toxic site around!

Our borderline germ-phobia is probably a good model for understanding the ancient covenant. Unfortunately, the word most often used (clean/unclean) is too familiar to us to be useful. We use the term clean constantly. And it is a hygiene word for us. I want to say it is our reaction to the word which is useful. The ancient Israelites were very aware of pure/impure as something larger than a soap and water issue. They reacted to ritual impurity the way we do someone sneezing in our face.

There are two kinds of things in the ancient Biblical world: holy and unholy. This extends to Jesus' day and beyond. Holy things are associated with God. They are "other." The primary referent of Holy is God. In fact, He is "Holy, Holy, Holy!" As we recently have written, such holiness is dangerous to humans. It is life-giving and death-dealing. One way it is described is "light" and another is "fire." Both images are helpful. We know in limited and controlled environments light and fire are good and helpful. But when too bright and too hot (and it is a quick trip from enough to too much with either of them) it becomes uncomfortable and deadly. If holiness of God is like light and fire, we understand why we have to be very, very, very careful dealing with the divine. Like the sun, get too close and you are toast.

A derived meaning of the word holy refers to people, places, and things which are associated with God or dedicated to God. Moses is told to take off his sandals because he is on holy ground. The priest is holy because he is consecrated to God's service and the altar and articles of worship are also holy. According to The Book God says this, not humans. The Israelites believed that God was the driver of this understanding. To be holy is to be consecrated to God. Therefore, a third level of meaning flows out of the word. Because people are holy, they need to be holy. Consecrated to God, His people are expected to act in accordance with His will. Certainly, this meant, most importantly, to be people of love, justice and righteousness. Holy people are moral. It also meant that the worship was dedicated to (YHWH) God alone, no idols, no other gods. And the worship process was highly formal and God laid down the parameters. Ritual purity matters to God very much in the Torah. Very much. We God-believers and Bible-readers have to deal with that fact.

When the holy God chose to "live among" the people, it was potentially dangerous. Like (weak analogy alert) a nuclear reactor, the power of God in their midst was also a mortal threat. Regularly God decides He is going to snuff them out. Meltdowns (nuclear or divine) are devastating. What is being conveyed here (in the actual Biblical text) must be read with care. A concrete, simple reading portrays a God who gets mad and kills people. My guess is the simplistic portrayal of God is more a factor of the people writing then the God being written about. God is too complex for our language to capture or our words to convey. So He speaks to us on our level (and their context was the context of these words). If we see the text as providing a helpful story to explain something more mysterious and larger (God is big!) then we probably will not get bogged down with the troubling questions (is God just a giant man?) which plague so many wonderers and doubters in our age.

The revelation is this. God is holy. How can such holiness mix with people? And it also makes clear, this is bigger than morality. One's liturgical standing also matters. There are lists of animals which are clean/unclean and lists of situations (woman's period, dead bodies, mold, to name a few) which render one unclean. The Bible does not explain why this is the case. And it is baffling to us. As I say in class, "we are fine with an adulterer going to communion, but not someone with a runny nose. We excuse sin, but not germs." And we have no qualms about a woman on her period coming to communion. So why did they have a problem?

First of all, they understood impurity to be communicable. If You are unclean and you touch Me, then we are both unclean. And unclean/impure was associated with death and decay (shed blood). If God is life, then such things are not acceptable in God's presence. Because we operate with a different set of assumptions (and we are not superior, look at the news and evaluate our society if the "new and improved" idea is perculating in your mind) we think they are silly. I do not know that our assumptions are better. Maybe our hyper-individualism blinds us to corporate realities. Maybe unclean people do pollute the land. Maybe everyone is not an island. Maybe we are a body. Much of what "we think" today is not true.  In fact, I am alive long enough to know that some things which "all the smart people know" are now relegated to "only idiots think." [My new diet is difficult in part because it runs counter to what I learned in the 80's which had undone the health suggestions of my 60's childhood, for one very easy example: margarine anyone???] Assumptions, unfortunately, are assumed (never explained) so we can know but not understand why the Bible says what it does. But here is the take away.

The goal is to keep the land pure so the holy God can remain among us. And the sacrifices were done to keep the land clean. However much we differ from the ancient content of this, we can and should embrace the idea. God is mobile. He comes and goes (in the Bible), whatever that means (mystery)... We need to make sure we are not driving Him out. Clean and unclean are the religious version of germ/ungermed (infected). It is not just morals. It is about the whole life: What is godly? what is ungodly? It is best to read the text with that in mind. Applying it to today, well that is an even tougher translation task.