November 6th

Leviticus 17:1-18:30, Mark 14:17-42, Psalm 31:9-18

Believe it or believe it not, there is quite a bit of sex in the Bible, and a lot of it seems to be here.

At first reading it would appear that God is labouring the point somewhat as he lists all the people that you can’t sleep with. But we need to remember back to the first few weeks when all the men seemed to have more than one wife. Because the families are a bit complicated it is not enough to say “don’t sleep with your sister”, it needed a bit of explanation, so hence the length of the list.

The other thing that we might think is that this is all a bit gross – who would want to sleep with their mum?!?!?! But God makes it clear at the start that this is what the Egyptians have been up to for ages and as whole generations of Israelites grew up in Egypt they may have though it was normal. There may be parallels today about what happens around us where society thinks is normal and what is actually right before God. But here God sets out what is right.

This also reminds the importance of being right with God and being right with each other. Being in community and in relationship with God means that we have to treat people right and not offend them which is why they had to stay away from certain groups of people sexually. It would not have been good to offend different members of the family sexually and so accordingly such things were avoided and the people had a good relationship with God. This is almost secondary though, the main reason for these laws was it was just wrong!

We can never forget the last supper though and what it lead to. We may feel as though there are things in our lives that have been very “wrong”. God wants us to stop doing them but the bread and wine of the last supper symbolise the forgiveness of sin brought by Jesus.

The first half of the Psalm is all quite negative, the second brings the psalmist back to God. If it is all a bit rubbish, and it all feels very “wrong”, remember the last supper and put your trust in God.