Always err on the side of love and acceptance

The most important message I picked up from today’s readings overall is always err on the side of love and acceptance.

My primary takeaway from each of the passages was this:

• Leviticus 17 & 18: The prohibition of consuming the blood of animals, and a long list of sexual prohibitions. 
• Luke 10: The parable of the Good Samaritan: a demonstration of Jesus’ instruction to love my neighbor as myself. When in doubt in any situation, always err on the side of love and acceptance.
• Psalms 54: An appeal to God, who is just, and thanksgiving for rescue.
• Proverbs 23: “Apply your heart to discipline and your ears to instructive sayings.”

Today’s chapter in Leviticus reminds me that this book provides us with around 600 ways to not break the ten commandments, in the time of the people this book was written for. There’s a lot of micromanaging going on in  Leviticus. Sometimes the rules are practical and serve to protect the health of the people in a time when they didn’t have any idea about micro organisms, germs, and how diseases were spread. But some of them are just micromanaging. I think it is pretty widely understood that having sex with your closest relatives is a really bad idea for a variety of reasons (sexual abuse of children creates trauma that many never recover from; producing children resulting from sex with siblings concentrates abnormalities in the gene pool and can cause genetic disorders, both mental and physical; and sex with relatives slightly farther removed from siblings can cause serious family dysfunction and negative drama). They were definitely on to something with those laws, even if they were merely social taboos without any scientific understanding behind them.

However, the rule against men having sex with other men seems to have been a purely social taboo among the Israelites, while same-sex relationships were fairly common among other peoples throughout the world at that time. There are literally no reproductive concerns with homosexuality, and the health concerns (sexually transmitted diseases) are no different than those associated with heterosexuality, unless there is promiscuity involved. Homosexuality is still a controversial topic in the church today. However, in December of 2023 “Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, … a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.” (AP News, December 19, 2023) This was a result of same-sex unions and same-sex marriage being legalized in the United States and in nearly half of all European countries. Many of the people in same-sex unions and marriages are Catholic. It becomes difficult to reconcile Leviticus 18:22 with modern sensibilities, especially when the divorce rate among male same-sex couples is half that of heterosexual couples. I predict that the Catholic church will eventually sanction even same-sex marriages, but not for a long time, due to its slow, plodding approach to significant change.

Verses like Leviticus 18:22 are the reason Jesus came to us. When asked what the greatest commandment was, “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Luke 10:27-28) The lesson in this is that when we find ourselves with what may seem to be contradictory instructions, we should always err on the side of love and acceptance, loving our neighbor as ourselves. The Pope preaches this with great regularity, and has proven himself to be expert at reconciling issues as controversial as this one with Jesus’ instruction to “love thy neighbor.”

The Bible is full of old books that began as oral traditions and were eventually set down in writing, over thousands of years. While God is timeless, the social traditions and taboos started by the Israelites around 3,200 years ago are not. If the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart,” (Hebrews 4:12), then it is able to help us adapt our sensibilities as the human brain evolves over time to understand the mysteries of the Universe through science and advanced social development. We have evolved beyond the vast majority of archaic practices of the bronze age, during which the books of the old testament were written. The archaic practices we continue to hold onto are usually those like the ban on same-sex relationships in Leviticus 18:22, for no better reason than it was written down in the 700s BCE. However, the word of God–the spirit of God–is alive and active, and way ahead of our slow, plodding human development.

When we feel the need to judge others for who they choose to love, we should STOP and remember what Jesus told us to do in Luke 10:27-28, and err on the side of love and acceptance. Who someone else chooses to love is not hurting us. What we should take away from that is that they chose to love. That’s what Jesus told us to do: choose to love.

That is what Jesus teaches in this chapter of Luke when he tells the parable of the good Samaritan. He presents a scenario in which a dying man on the side of the road is the mortal enemy of the man walking by who ultimately rescues him. That is an example we are all to follow. Our neighbor is anyone in need. In the United States, we take this directive so seriously that in all fifty states we have what is known as a Good Samaritan law. In Montana (my state of residence), the law states that “Any person licensed as a physician and surgeon under the laws of the state of Montana, any volunteer firefighter or officer of any nonprofit volunteer fire company, any search and rescue volunteer, or any other person who in good faith renders emergency care or assistance without compensation except as provided in subsection (2) at the scene of an emergency or accident is not liable for any civil damages for acts or omissions other than damages occasioned by gross negligence or by willful or wanton acts or omissions by the person in rendering the emergency care or assistance.” (Montana Code Annotated 2023)

What a wonderful world it would be if every last one of us felt the same urgency about being a good Samaritan in all situations in which a person is in need, not just the immediately life-threatening ones.

Coincidentally, Psalms 54 reminds us that when we are the ones in need of help, God often sends that help to us through strangers: “But now God is coming to my help, the Lord, among those who sustain me.” (verse 4) Conversely, we are often the help that God sends when strangers pray for help. We should be ever mindful of opportunities to help others, whether in a life-threatening situation, or in a non-life-threatening desperate situation, or simply as someone who provides comfort and uplifts others who are down. Sometimes we need the help; sometimes we are the help.

In Proverbs today, we get some good, specific recommendations throughout the chapter for how to “Apply your heart to discipline and your ears to instructive sayings.” (verse 12)

That’s what I got out of it. What did you get out of the readings today?

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This post is part of the series, “Read the Bible in a Year.”

To see other posts in this series, go to the Chronological Index of Read the Bible in a Year Posts.