You must keep the Israelites separate from things that
make them unclean (Leviticus 15:31).
This is, I’m afraid, a rather difficult reading pertaining
to infectious skin diseases, mildew and… discharges. Let’s bring this to where we
live.
A while back some people I know were quarantined in their
apartment because of viral pneumonia – complete with a sign on their door and
everything. The health department hadn’t gotten a handle on the infection and
didn’t want it spread to the schools where the kids attended.
When’s the last time you heard about meningitis spreading
through a college dorm? With all those kids living in close contact, that’s one
of the health concerns of the 21st century… a fertile breeding
ground for germs and disease.
Here we have the account of thousands and thousands of
people traveling through the wilderness in close community – anything infecting
one member could easily and quickly spread to others. Two things which scared
any Ancient Near East people were leprosy and mildew. Infected people could not
cohabit with healthy people, and infected homes could not be inhabited at all.
So, in a sense, once these things got rooted in a group of people, this very
effectively broke community, and God’s all about community.
That was then; this is now. What infections can break our
God-given community in the church? Immorality? Gossip? Dissension? Resenting
those in leadership?
TODAY’S MEDITATION
What can one person do to
guard against anything that threatens community?
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