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Removing the Squeegee Men

Rev. Doug Pratt — February 28, 2010
 

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Wading Through the Swamp

In the classic spiritual allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, written almost 400 years ago by Puritan pastor John Bunyan, we follow the adventures of a man named Christian as he travels through life towards the “Celestial City” of heaven. Early in the book, after making the bold and confident decision to leave his home in the “City of Destruction” and seek the Lord, his travels take him right into a nasty swamp, called in the Old English “The Slough of Despond” [slough meaning “swamp” or “bog”]. He and his traveling companion find themselves up to their waists in impenetrable mud and slime. The companion decides to turn around, and somehow crawls his way out of the mud heading back home; but Christian decides to press on, and finally makes it to the other side of the swamp.

Through the centuries many Christians have set out with great resolve and determination on the journey to read all the way through the Bible. But early on, after the exciting adventures of Genesis and Exodus, they run into a swamp called the Book of Leviticus: page after page of laws and rules and regulations, as boring as reading the Florida State Legal Statutes or the Presbyterian Book of Order. And like the Slough of Despond, Leviticus has caused many travelers to turn back in despair.

That is where we are right now, in our through-the-Bible reading program for 2010. Our feet are just starting to feel the grip of ooze and mud around them. So it seems to me an appropriate time to talk together about this part of God’s Word, to try to help you gain some perspective on it—and maybe even to show you a path through the swamp that will keep your momentum from getting “bogged” down.

The Reading from God’s Word

Our text for this morning is from Leviticus, chapter 19.

The LORD also said to Moses, ²“Say this to the entire community of Israel: You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. ³Each of you must show respect for your mother and father, and you must always observe my Sabbath days of rest, for I, the LORD, am your God. ⁴Do not put your trust in idols or make gods of metal for yourselves. I, the LORD, am your God.

⁵“When you sacrifice a peace offering to the LORD, offer it properly so it will be accepted on your behalf. ⁶You must eat it on the same day you offer it or on the next day at the latest. Any leftovers that remain until the third day must be burned. ⁷If any of the offering is eaten on the third day, it will be contaminated, and I will not accept it. ⁸If you eat it on the third day, you will answer for the sin of profaning what is holy to the LORD and must be cut off from the community. ⁹“When you harvest your crops, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. ¹⁰It is the same with your grape crop — do not strip every last bunch of grapes from the vines, and do not pick up grapes that fall to the ground. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners who live among you, for I, the LORD, am your God.

¹¹“Do not steal.
“Do not cheat one another.
“Do not lie.
¹²“Do not use my name to swear a falsehood and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
¹³“Do not cheat or rob anyone.
“Always pay your hired workers promptly.
¹⁴“Show your fear of God by treating the deaf with respect and by not taking advantage of the blind. I am the LORD.
¹⁵“Always judge your neighbors fairly, neither favoring the poor nor showing deference to the rich.
¹⁶“Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.
“Do not try to get ahead at the cost of your neighbor’s life, for I am the LORD.
¹⁷“Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives.
“Confront your neighbors directly so you will not be held guilty for their crimes.
¹⁸“Never seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”

Leviticus 19:1-18 (NLT)

I want to accomplish two things through this message. The first is to provide some background and understanding to help you make sense of this book of Leviticus, and to see why it is included in God’s Word. The second task will be to speak directly to an issue we all face: the role of discipline and of God’s laws in the life of the Christian.

The Context of the Book

God directly revealed these words through Moses to His people, the newly-born nation of Israel. For some 400 years they had been nothing but a collection of blood-related slaves. Their culture and traditions had been crushed by the oppressive pagan society of Egypt; their civil liberties had been denied by the tyrant Pharaoh; their self-esteem had been trampled; there had been no opportunities for education, for leadership development, for personal growth. What career path does a slave have? How can parents raise children with any optimism, knowing that their kids and grandkids will face a future just as miserable as their past?

So Leviticus and the rest of the laws of God were spelled out for Israel as gracious gifts of their Redeemer and Deliverer, the Lord God. A modern-day parallel might be the current challenge facing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan: how to go from slavery [or a feudal and lawless society] to freedom and a democratic government in a single generation. The laws laid out in the Bible (in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) would serve as the foundation for their national life—directly comparable to the impact of our Constitution and Bill of Rights upon the newly-born USA.

The broad outlines of Israel’s constitution are as follows:

•  The nation will be one that is ruled by Law, not by the whim of an absolute dictator who could act one way today and the opposite tomorrow. Even the mighty kings that would eventually come to the throne of Israel would be strictly bound to follow the laws—just as our own Presidents are.
•  The laws of Israel would be a direct reflection of the character and heart of a Holy God. None of these laws are arbitrary, and none of them are corrupt or evil; all of them are designed to demonstrate Who God is, and how He deals with human beings.
• The people of God, as they obey the Law, will themselves become more and more holy in reflecting God’s character. The word “holy” actually means “different” or “separate.” Men and women who love God and serve Him in this world, in every generation, are supposed to be different and distinct from the unbelievers around us. We are His witnesses, designed to show to the watching world what a difference God makes in a life that is surrendered to Him. This is confirmed in our current text: “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:1).
•  God’s Law deals with the details of life, not just the broad issues, because the details matter. Every area of the life of the people of Israel was important to God. Obedience, discipline and faithfulness in the seemingly-small things pay great dividends.

We have seen this principle demonstrated in our own times: that taking care of the little things has a big impact. I came upon an example of this as I was reading the memoirs of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York. When he took office he knew that the rampant, out-of-control crime wave had to be stopped. Here’s what he had to say about that challenge:

We attacked crime immediately, but we knew it would take time to show results. And reducing the number of crimes was not enough; people had to see an improvement, not just hear about it. We had to get people to be safe and feel safe. That’s how we got the idea of eliminating the squeegee man problem.

In New York, in the early ’90’s, some petty criminals came up with a new scam. They would go up to cars stopped in traffic, smear filthy rags over the windows, and then demand money from the motorists to squeegee them clean so they could see. It wasn’t a horrible crime, but it made people feel that the city was lawless and out of control. So Giuliani ordered his police to crack down on the “squeegee men,” to round them up and get them off the streets. In a couple weeks, people noticed the difference with relief. Then the mayor moved on to clean up other areas of the city—graffiti, condemned buildings, public lewdness, and so on. And it created an atmosphere of greater respect for the law, and greater safety. Giuliani sums up the lesson this way:

If someone had told me that, by starting with removing the squeegee men, we would end up reducing crime by some 5,000 felonies per week, I would have strongly doubted it. But that’s the power of taking care of the details: several small victories achieve a great result.

The principle holds for our personal lives as well. When we are disciplined and faithful to God’s Word in the little things, it creates a spirit and attitude that carries over to the big issues. But if we are neglectful of the seemingly-small matters—our language, our temper, our thought life and fantasies, etc.—they can lead to much bigger weaknesses. Leviticus may seem picky in its attention to detail. The reason is that God wanted to drive home the lesson that the little things matter.

The Main Sections of the Law of God

There are four primary sections of the Law of God, as revealed to the people of Israel in Leviticus.

1. The Sacrificial System. God laid out an elaborate and detailed plan for the people to deal with the inevitable sins and broken relationships of human life. Through the sacrifice of innocent animals to pay the price for their own actions, the people were reminded constantly that disobedience of God has consequences—and that an innocent victim can be substituted for the guilty. All of this system was designed to point the way to the once-for-all, supreme sacrifice Jesus achieved on the cross for us. With the completion of His death and resurrection to win the victory for sinful people, all the Old Testament sacrifices became irrelevant—which is why Christians no longer are obligated to follow those laws.
2. High Standards for Spiritual Leaders. The priests and others who served the Lord and the people through worship and sacrifices were specially set apart, and required in their dress and their actions to live to the highest levels of holiness. Though the particulars of the priests’ tasks were changed with the end of the temple sacrifices, the principle remains valid for the Church today: those who are called to positions of leadership and service are expected and required to live holy and godly lives.
3. The Dietary and Sanitary Laws. These requirements, reaching to the most routine daily tasks, were designed for two reasons: first, to set apart the Jewish people and reinforce that they are to be holy and separate, to the glory of God; second, to protect them from all kinds of physical problems (for there are many good and wise principles of nutrition and health built into these laws for eating and washing—which we have only come to understand in recent years as we have discovered more about diseases and how they spread). These laws were also abolished in the New Testament, though again they reflect much wisdom in how to care for ourselves.
4. Laws for Human Relationships. All of these principles, including many found in our text in Leviticus 19, lay out truths that apply to marriage and family, to property rights, to conflict resolution, and to other essential aspects of human society. And we Christians believe that these continue to be wise and valid principles for us to follow today.

What connects together all of the laws and principles of living found in the Old and New Testaments is a common thread or motivation. And Jesus, the greatest moral teacher the world has ever known, summed it up brilliantly in Matthew 22. He was asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” [Jesus] replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love, for our Lord and our fellow humans, is what the Old Testament laws are really about. That’s the heart of all of God’s commandments to us: that we be motivated not by fear or by obligation, but by loving Him and loving others.

The Role of Discipline in the Life of the Christian

Finally, I want to say a word about the role of the Law [discipline] in the lives of Christians today. Clearly, many of the detailed commandments and regulations no longer relate to us. But that does not mean that the moral and ethical principles and directives found in Scripture are irrelevant. We also cling passionately, as New Testament-era Christians, to the principle of “salvation by faith alone.” We are not made right with God, granted forgiveness of all our sins, and given the precious privilege of a personal relationship with Jesus because we’ve done anything to earn all that. No obedience to the Law, no religious acts or pious thoughts bring us salvation. It is all by God’s grace, received through faith.

What, then, is the purpose in having rules of conduct and moral direction? The purpose of the laws of God is to provide discipline to us. They give us wisdom to guide our choices, they provide boundaries in which our Lord wants us to live, they protect us. Discipline is, of course, something our human nature resists. Parents discover this before their children are very far along: we are all natural-born rebels who don’t like rules and instinctively test the limits. This is what we humans have done since our distant forebears Adam and Eve. When we’re given a rule or law or command—like “don’t eat the fruit from that tree”—we find ourselves wanting to do exactly that!

And so it is in order to help us resist sin and train ourselves in godliness that God gives us moral laws. He knows how life works best, and He wants to guide us into that path for our own good. Every loving mom and dad sets rules and limits and boundaries for their children’s good. Don’t run with scissors. Don’t touch the hot stove. Don’t play in the street. Don’t smoke dope. Don’t listen to that degrading music. Don’t stay out past midnight. Are these rules cruel? Not when we understand their purpose and motivation. They’re loving and compassionate. External discipline is imposed upon us for the ultimate purpose of helping us to develop internal discipline. The rules and laws and boundaries train our behavior until righteousness becomes our natural pattern and until our moral muscles become strong.

In the classic film Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, the young Forrest is taken by his mama to a doctor to correct his crooked legs. The doctor prepares some custom braces for Forrest to wear to help train and strengthen him. Forrest is required to wear them all the time. They help him to walk, and as they do so—unknown to him—they are strengthening him inside. One day some bullies start to chase Forrest and, for the first time ever, he starts to run. As he runs, the braces fall off—and, like a miracle, Forrest finds that he can now run all by himself. In fact, he goes on to become a champion long-distance runner and football player. And all because those external braces gave him the strength to grow his legs from the inside out!

Conclusion

Our Heavenly Father has given us the Ten Commandments and all the other moral laws in the Bible out of love for us, to help train and guide and strengthen us. Ultimately it is His intention that we obey Him not out of fear of punishment, but out of “loving Him with all our heart and soul and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.” May the Lord help us daily to grow in that way.