Jerusalem
Notes from two talks by David Pileggi,
Rector, Christ Church, Jerusalem
October 18th
This city of Jerusalem is a confusing city of smoke and mirrors. Names and labels are misleading. The Tower of David has nothing to do with David. The Temple Mount is not a temple. Mount Zion is not a mountain; it’s a small hill with bad sightseeing ratings on Trip Advisor. These linguistic slights of hand twist-and-turn through the cityscape.
Jerusalem’s history and location are not central to the world as its champions would trumpet. Geographically Jerusalem is a dead end. It’s off of the Via Maris, the ancient trade route that runs north and south that connects Europe and Asia to Africa. Jerusalem is a small hill town that is out of the way. It has no special minerals, no seaport, and no notable supply of fresh water.
So why is Jerusalem special?
1. Jerusalem is central.
Historically it was a politically neutral city, joining the tribes of Benjamin and Judah--a no man’s land of the Jebus people, for whom it was named Jerusalem. But this is minor. Jerusalem is in the middle of the hill country of Judea, average of 2500 feet elevation, 15 miles east is desert and Jordan River, and Mediterranean is west, 35 miles away. Europe, Asia, and Africa are joined in this country. International cross-roads where empires have wrestled for control of this country.
Morton Smith, in Jesus the Magician, 1978, figured out that between 165 BC and 63 BC 100 military campaigns happened in this country. The Jews were left wondering why all these bad things happened to good people.
Answer? If you want to be the Light of the world you don’t want to be in an isolated place like the hill country of Turkey; so why God put his people in this dangerous place was the maximize their Light show, and increase the signal strength of His people’s broadcasting router from heaven’s ISP. He made them dependent on Him for water as well as safety. Jerusalem was in the middle of all this mix and mess.
2. God chose Jerusalem because it was an insignificant nothing, a tiny mountain village.
When David conquered this city in 1000 BC, maybe 1000 people lived here. He took a nothing city, like our individual nothing little bodies, and sculpted it into a something (Ps 139) for His own glory’s sake.
But God’s house must be maintained collectively by the purity and holiness of his people. Holiness comes by set-apartness, and goodness, and obedience to his commandments. Purity comes from being clean from washing in a special container or mikvah. Oceans, rivers, fresh water from a natural source like rain, will also do.
Any impure life form or activity that represents death or entropy must be revitalized with cleansing. Impurity scripturally has to do with contact with death. Touching a dead body makes for impurity. Sex, skin disease, menstruation, signs of physical decay, are all expressions of impurity and must all be trumped by God's clean liveliness as expressed in ritual immersion. Jacob Milgrom, leading rabbi scholar on Leviticus, speaks of death or the fear of death being a uniting principle of impurity: touching dead animal, menstruation with egg dying, sex with wife is about semen dying, idolatry, and immorality, and bloodshed by murder—all are expressions of the seat and source of impurity.
3. Jerusalem is a place of sacrifice.
Sacrifice makes you close: korban means sacrifice in Hebrew. Korbat means to honor or be close. Korav means a relative. All of these Hebrew words have the same root. When you sacrifice you honor whomever you are sacrificing for and so you become close, like a relative.
Relationship of substance and intimacy comes from giving something valuable. This must cost you something. Sacrifice is the opposite of “Gimme, God.” Instead, sacrifice is: “Give thee, God. “ This can be in the form of your tithe, and beyond that, your offering. An example of this, for the Jewish observant, involves buying the first-born son back from priest, since the first-born son belonged to God. Sacrifice also is understood in Jewish culture to occur within the entire community, together as a collective, with gifts that are generous and not stingy.
The goal of sacrifice through holiness and purity was simply to know God. Nothing else is an end in itself. High priest is to be a walking temple where the man himself meets and knows God. Jesus is the perfect Priest who mediates between God and man, knowing both intimately.
Jesus, through his Spirit, now allows us to be priests as well. We also, through holiness and purity brought by sacrifice, celebrate Chanukah, a renovating of the house of the Lord. This daily renovation is a continual process that allows us to live out our peculiar, special priesthood.
October 20th
Prayer: “Lord, cause your scriptures and your spirit to bless, challenge, and transform us…”
Jerusalem was the house of God, the Temple. Holiness is connected to obedience to God’s Word, not only for blatant, honky-tonk sins, but also quiet ones like greed or envy. Leviticus 18-19 talks about the in’s and out’s of holiness, what to do and not to do: no idols, sexual immorality (chapter 18), no sacrifice outside of specific ways, leave gleanings for the poor (spiritual and social gospel here), no lying, swearing, deceiving, holding back wages of hired man overnight, no stumbling blocks of others, no slander, nothing to endanger another; however, do rebuke neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt—and many others
Exodus 29 (and many other chapters in Torah) speaks of preparation of sacrifice in the tabernacle, the preparation of priests. The Temple is consecrated by God’s glory. The purpose of priesthood, Temple, and purity laws is so God can have fellowship with his people. The purpose of bringing his people up out of Egypt was not to have nationhood, or to be free, or to have a great time and enjoy the fruit of the land but to have fellowship with God. Salvation is not about just being a fire escape from hell; we are saved to be in relationship with God through Jesus of Nazareth. Union with Christ, in Him, John 17:3, is the goal. “Be here now with me”; this is what Jesus requires and desires for us.
Places can be made holy and consecrated to God. Worship also creates holiness in people. Holiness in the Temple had to be approached in a specific, worshipful way on the part of his people. We set the Sabbath aside and make it holy through our own actions. Holiness isn’t magic, forcing nature to do what you want through repetition or trickery. Holiness is aligning our actions with God’s purposes and revealed Word.
Ritual in Exodus and Leviticus show how to protect the worshipper from God’s holiness. Holiness is dangerous. You don’t just rush to the communion rail without proper preparation so we don’t end up like Aaron’s sons. Ritual takes the values of community and Temple and teaches these acts to us in a systematic way that is the sanctifying of God’s name: in Hebrew, kedush hashem.
Most important part of ritual is that the worshipper comes in a state of impurity, facing the ritual baths of living water, putting on white robes, barefoot, walking to the Temple mount without money, with ethical purity within and without from acts of repentance and restitution, if appropriate (Psalm 24, clean hands and a pure heart).
When you wash ritually, what you are doing is that you wash off death. The altar could not have metal in it because that was the implement of death. David was a man of death and so couldn’t create the Temple.
Life is in the blood. Life is returned to God when the sacrifice is made. When the priest touches a dead animal he does not become impure because he is doing God’s work; He is bigger than death. Life wins.
People were supposed to come to Jerusalem three times a year, but most folks could only manage once a year or a few times in a lifetime. As Jews spread out geographically their coming to the Temple was once in a lifetime.
Muslims took this idea and created the hajj to Mecca. Muslims don’t get this organizing principle of the scriptures: “be holy for I am holy.” The imitation of God isn’t part of their theological understanding. 1,013 commandments in NT and 613 in Torah were specific ways of implementing the Bible’s organizing principle, “be holy for I am holy”. Holiness brings us into intimacy with God.
If we are grateful, we obediently and joyfully keep His commandments, and the Father comes and lives comfortably within us.
Visiting the sick (Levitcus 19), comforting the bereaved, engaging in lawful marriage, these and many other actions are expressions of holiness. As we imitate God we grow into new dimensions, contours, and textures of holiness. Jesus didn’t do anything unless he imitated the Father.
Repentance involves action not words. If you steal a dollar, you pay back four dollars, like Zacchaeus. King David stole one man’s son and repaid with four sons of his own.
When the system of sacrificing stopped, the Jews had this well in mind - that this behavioral acting out of holiness was still required. Lip service wasn’t enough then or now.
The Jerusalem Temple in the ancient world was the largest religious institution existing at Jesus’ time. Jews and gentiles alike could approach God at their temples around the world. However, only Jewish people understood that moral cleanliness and purity were required to approach a good God who was loving and just. Other religions embody surface sacrifice just to appease a capricious, moody god who might be having an off day and smite them with plague or lightning. We as humans have an incredible need for sacrifice, to have a scapegoat, as a way of expiating sin to each person’s idea of god.
The tabernacle was for God to dwell among us. The heavenly temple and Jerusalem temple were joined in Jewish eschatological understanding.
Christian understanding is different; in heaven our intimate fellowship with God will be so complete that a physical Temple structure will not be needed.
Holiness is graded in degrees: places, things, people that are Spirit-filled, and time itself can be holy, like Shabbat or the calendar (with holidays, holy days, throughout the year). Orthopraxy in this way trumps orthodoxy. You can build God a temple in time, the 25-hour Sabbath, where you facilitate God’s presence by what you do and don’t do. Sabbath liberates us from talking about business, doing secular activities like being an I-slave, checking emails every six minutes, using other technology, watching TV, cleaning yard.
Instead we are free to go to church, spend time with family, be romantic with wife, eat great food with a few glasses of wine, discuss Torah with children, and sing joyful songs.