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LEVITICUS 21 AND HOLINESS

In the previous chapter we began a consideration of explanations for why we find within the Bible itself a movement from excluding to including eunuchs. In Leviticus 21 we find another exclusionary passage and more clues as to the reasons behind such exclusions.

As you may know, the Levites were the one tribe out of the twelve tribes of Israel that served God as priests. The title of this biblical book, Leviticus, literally means “about the Levites” and the book details the rules and regulations they were to follow regarding worship and making sacrifices. In my NIV Bible, the “Introduction to Leviticus” says, “Although many of the rules were given only for the Levites, the purpose of all the laws that were given was to help the Israelites worship and live as God’s holy people. A key statement for the entire book is ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (Lev. 11:44, 45).¹

In the twenty-first chapter of Leviticus we find examples of some of these laws. Here I include much of this chapter so we will have a feel for the context of verse 20, a verse that might be used to exclude trans women who have had genital surgery or who take hormones from ordination, if taken out of context and misunderstood.

¹The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, ²except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother….

⁵“‘Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies. ⁶They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because they present the food offerings to the Lord, the food of their God, they are to be holy.

⁷“‘They must not marry women defiled by prostitution or divorced from their husbands, because priests are holy to their God. ⁸Regard them as holy, because they offer up the food of your God. Consider them holy, because I the Lord am holy— I who make you holy.

⁹“‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire….’”

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁷“Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. ¹⁸No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; ¹⁹no man with a crippled foot or hand, ²⁰or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. ²¹No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. ²²He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; ²³yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’” (Lev. 21: 1–23)

Such rules and regulations sound harsh and insensitive, even prejudicial to our twenty-first-century ears. Imagine telling someone seeking ordination they cannot be ordained because they have an eye defect requiring them to wear contacts or glasses, or because they suffer from lameness caused by severe arthritis! Ye t this was the ancient Israelites’ experience of what it took for God’s priests to be holy.

CHRIST FULFILLED THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW

In the same way the church no longer uses this passage to bar very short people, people who are blind or who wear corrective lenses, or people who have arthritis from ordination, this passage should also not be used to bar medically transitioned trans women from ordination. The reason the church no longer uses this passage as part of its requirements for ordination is because the New Testament reveals that, through Christ, the requirements of the Old Testament law have been fulfilled (see Acts 15, Galatians 3, Hebrews 8–10). Consequently, Christians no longer observe all the requirements of Old Testament Law, which is why denominations now have no qualms about ordaining people who wear glasses, or have arthritis, or who use a wheelchair to get around. A growing number of denominations also have transgender individuals among their ranks of ordained clergy, including the United Church of Christ, Metropolitan Community Churches, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the American Baptist Convention.²

A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF PURITY AND HOLINESS

Now let us return to the question “Why do we find all these exclusionary rules and regulations in the Old Testament?” In the previous chapter I suggest that one possible explanation for this is that, due to the ancient Israelites’ fears for their national security and their cultural survival, they may have only been able to hear the kind of rules that they thought would keep them safe—rules that excluded anyone who was not just like them. However, as time went by, God showed them “the most excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31).

Within the Bible itself we likewise see God reveal “the most excellent way” in regards to what it means to be holy. The laws in Leviticus suggest that God maintained God’s holiness by remaining separate from anything that might “contaminate” God’s purity. Consequently, in order to be like the God they served, the Israelites also had to set themselves apart from anything impure, anything different, anything that might contaminate them. Examples from the Leviticus 21 passage of contaminants included:

•Attending a funeral (being in the presence of a dead person)

•Shaving one’s head

•Marrying a divorced woman

•Any sort of physical defect

However, when Jesus came, he taught and modeled a deeper, more profound way of understanding holiness. Jesus taught that it is not the things that people come in contact with on the outside that defile them and make them unclean or unholy, but the thoughts and actions that arise from inside them.

¹Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ²“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

¹⁰…Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. ¹¹What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”…¹⁷“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” (Matt. 15:1–20)

Likewise Jesus taught and demonstrated that, in spite of what it says in Leviticus 21, people with physical defects should not be considered impure, unholy, or sinful just because of their physical realities. This difference between what Jesus believed regarding holiness and the prevailing beliefs of his day are clearly portrayed in the ninth chapter of John’s Gospel.

¹As ( Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ⁷“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

Christ demonstrated this new teaching, this deeper understanding of holiness in every aspect of his life. Much to the disapproval of the religious leaders of his day, Jesus even ate with “sinners and outcasts”— those considered to be impure according to the holiness teachings found in Leviticus!

Thus, within Jesus’ life and teachings we see the unfolding of a deeper understanding of what it means to be holy, just as we saw, in the previous chapter, a development in the Israelites’ understanding of God’s inclusive nature. Consequently, we see that these verses that were once used to exclude eunuchs from God’s assembly and people with crushed testicles from God’s service can no longer be used in that way today. Indeed, the ongoing revelation of what it means to be holy is good news for the arthritic, the visually challenged, the vertically challenged—and for medically transitioned trans women seeking ordination or wanting to keep their ordination, as well.