Denim Faith #1: The Butcher and Baker

2015/08/09
Christ Church, Mountain Top

Series:
Denim
Faith: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Lunch Pail Crowd, and Leviticus

Call
to Worship, Psalm 9.11-20

Children, Mark
4.1-9 (parable of the sower)

Message,
Leviticus 7.1-17

Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band song, “Little
Mountain Church House”

Leviticus

      The death trap for thru-reading the Bible

Strange practices

      7 chapters on butchering (and baking) for
sacrifice

      Who you can and cannot have sex with

      Rules for fair fights

      Bodily discharges and ritual uncleanness

Follows
immediately on Exodus’ – tabernacle specs and construction

      Leading into tabernacle worship (sacrifice
& priesthood)

Eugene
Peterson: Suspicious that the preacher who focused on tabernacle worship actually
knew nothing of butchering (The Pastor)

My
favorite butchering story – the deer brains

Strange thinking

      Analogical

      Particular

When
combined, extensive analogies, unexpected directions

      Ellen Davis – farmer and farm, harvest and
haircut

      Letter to the Hebrews – Christological

Paterius
(ACCS, OT III, 170):

That
fire is perpetual that is never extinguished on the altar. The altar of God is
our heart. Fire must always burn in it, for the flame of charity must always
burn on it for God…. The priest who feeds the fire on the altar and puts wood
on it each day is each one of the faithful. To keep the flame of charity from
going out in himself, he does not cease to gather both the examples of the
elders and the testimonies of Holy Scripture…. And the command is good, to
gather wood each day in the morning.

Give the best

      “without blemish”

      “choice flour” (grain offering, Lv 2)

      “the fat” – the best part (the mighty,
wheat, the earth)

      “blood” – the life of something, actually
has voice

All
fat is the LORD’s.  17 It shall be a
perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your settlements: you must
not eat any fat or any blood (3.16-17)

      ANTI-consumerism

            Don’t “suck the life”

      “dressed in all our Sunday best” rather
than

      “for what few coins the congregation could
afford”

            These sacrifices are above and
beyond the tithe!

      God’s gift to us: “For God so loved the
world that God gave….”

      The Butterball Thanksgiving Turkey Hotline

            Give the best, not the worst

Community

      Meal – worship includes food

            Eucharistic celebration

            How we eat day to day

            Eating WITH others

Salt:
You shall not omit from your grain offerings the salt of the covenant with your
God; with all your offerings you shall offer salt (Lv 2.13)

                  Persian term for traitor:
“faithless to salt” (Fausett’s Bible Dict)

                        Harming someone who has
eaten your food

                  Eating together is the way you
make covenant

                  Symbol of being incorruptible,
lasting (FBD)

      Importance of the rapidly disappearing
family meal

      “dinner on the grounds”

            “many were the souls that were
revived”

      Discipleship modeled, Paterius: “examples
of the elders”

            Becoming an “analogy” of those we
honor/respect in the Lord

Receive the gift

      God has made provision to deal with our
guilt and sin

      God has made provision to connect us in
life-giving, in community