The listing of various laws in Leviticus 19 begins with God telling Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.’”
This command is followed by a lengthy, detailed listing of specific instructions regarding living together in community. There’s instruction about harvesting, where the landowner is told not to glean the fields and vineyard bare, but to leave the gleanings for the poor. Another instruction forbids stealing and lying. Yet another warns against taking advantage of people who are deaf or blind. Also, justice is to be administered impartially. People should not slander one another, nor seek vengeance against one another.
God sums up these instructions with the command “but love your neighbor as yourself” followed by “I am the LORD.” (v.18). I think this means that the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself is not given just because loving one’s neighbor is a good idea or because it makes the community run better. Rather the command is to be observed because loving one’s neighbor is the essence of holiness.
This immediately undermines the notion that to “be holy” means separating myself from others and living isolated as a hermit or monk. Instead, being holy has everything to do with my behavior in community, that is, about how I relate and act toward others in my world. God commands us to be holy because he wants us to stamp upon our society and community the God-like imprint of living together in community with sharing, caring love.
I understand Leviticus 19 to be about compassion for our neighbors, the poor, the travelers, and yes, immigrants. We later hear Jesus summarizing these same teachings in his so-called “Golden Rule” recorded in Luke 6:31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
When Jesus was asked by a Pharisee lawyer about which commandment was the greatest, Jesus answered by quoting two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The latter is a direct quote from Leviticus 19:18. Jesus said that upon these two commandments hang all the Hebrew Scriptures (Matt. 22:40).
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus extends or broadens this command of loving one’s neighbor to also include the enemy. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (5:43-47).
He then concludes that section by saying, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). I believe the word “perfect” which Jesus used, carries the same meaning and weight as the word “holy” used in Leviticus 19. Both words, “holy” and “perfect” beg the question, what does being “holy” or “perfect” look like?
If we listen carefully to God’s commands in Leviticus and the teachings of Jesus in Matthew, we discover that the words “holy” and “perfect” have much more to do with how we act rather than how we look. In other words, our behavior toward one another is of much greater concern to God than our visible outward appearance.
The Scriptures consistently declare that to “be holy” or “perfect” cannot be reduced to a way of dressing or expressed by lugging a Bible with you everywhere you go. Neither does regular church attendance or other religious activities make you a holy/perfect person.
Rather, the imprint of “God-likeness” that God wants us to make on our society happens in our daily acts of loving and providing for others with kindness, justice, mercy, generosity. These are things that we seldom think of as being expressions of holiness. But from God’s perspective, this is the essence of being “holy” and “perfect.”
Today we live in a world divided by religious, political, economic, and racial biases. It is easy for us to embrace Jesus command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in our faith statements but find it difficult when it comes to actual practice. It is more difficult when that “neighbor” represents a social, cultural, or political bias that offends us. And even more difficult when they become the “enemy.”
Nevertheless, God says to us today the same as he said to his people in Moses’ day, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” or as Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
As his people, his followers, we should not settle for anything less than this in our life ambitions, attitudes, and everyday community behaviors. Furthermore, I believe we should hold all our church and government leaders, who claim to be God-followers, to this high bar of unbiased, non-racist behaviors, and choose them accordingly. Can you say “Amen”?
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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – October 14, 2020
Ray M. Geigley
Healing Rays of Righteousness 
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