Say to them: 'For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD.' – Leviticus 22:3

Today's Scripture Reading (January 5, 2025): Leviticus 22

It is a privilege to be a spiritual leader. However, I have also always believed that the character demands of a spiritual leader are always higher than those of others. The best example of that might be found in the person of Moses. Moses's sin is minor compared to the sins of the people of Israel, yet the penalty is severe. After ably leading the nation for over forty years, Moses is excluded from the list of people who would enter the Promised Land. The sin might have been minor, but the penalty was considerable. It is the caution I give to anyone who declares that they want to become part of Church Leadership because the demands of being a leader are significant. It was a joke that my associate used to tell. She was in it for the money (which, if you saw her paycheck, you would understand was a huge joke), and I was in it for the power (which also is a joke).

I also know from experience that much of the trouble I have experienced as a Pastor has been when I was thought to have violated the demands of Christian character, whether that character violation was accurate or not. Unfortunately, the accusation is often enough when talking about these violations, and we are never considered innocent until proven guilty. 

This law concerns accusations that someone was ceremonially unclean when they came to serve in the Temple. And the responsibility is for the participant to know whether or not he, and again, it was always a he, knew that he was unclean. If he had become unclean for some reason, he needed to declare his uncleanness and remove himself from the list of Levites scheduled for service in the Temple. If an unclean person served in the Temple, and then it came to light that he was unclean, that person must be cut off from the presence of God. 

The word that we have as "cut off" means that the unclean person would have forfeited his ability to serve in the Temple any time in the future. What makes this even more significant is that only members of the Tribe of Levi could serve in the Temple, so being cut off from that privilege meant that the person would lose all of the rights and privileges obtained by being born into the tribe. It would be as if the person was no longer a Levite but was now just one with no tribe and no tribal identity within the nation.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Leviticus 23