Pancakes, Strangers, & BBQ: What I Learned About God’s Favorites from Reading Leviticus

Post Author: Elaine Murray

Every January, I start off the year full of hope, perhaps like the rest of you, setting out in a new direction. One of my annual “fresh starts” is the intention of reading the Bible through the year. I begin in the beginning (cue Fraulein Maria, “A very good place to start…”) with Genesis. The poetry of God speaking creation into being over watery chaos always helps me to see the frozen January world with fresh eyes, marveling at the natural systems at work and play, promising myself I’ll honor the Sabbath differently this year.

By late-January, I’ve made it through the drama of Exodus and am waist-deep in the laws and regulations of Leviticus. That’s usually where I fall off the wagon and pick up again during Lent or when I’m craving some Gospel later in the year. But this year was different. The Spirit graced me with a lens of humor with which to read these rules and I found myself listening alongside Moses and Miriam for what the Lord required of that wilderness people.

Instead of verse-after-verse of sacrifice this bull in this way, and splash the blood over here and there and on your head and your neighbor’s toes…I heard a God who loved the fragrance of sacrifice. In my CEB translation, each paragraph about sacrifice ended in this way: It is an entirely burned offering, a food gift of soothing smell to the Lord.

A soothing smell: your grandma’s perfume, bacon sizzling on a Saturday morning, the scent of a baby’s head resting on your chest, popcorn at a movie theater, the fresh-cut grass of a baseball stadium. Leviticus describes the offerings God would be soothed by because this wilderness has been hard on Them too. Hardening Pharaoh’s heart, sending plague after plague, proving through miracles how deeply devoted They are to the liberation of Israel, only to be met with lots of complaints and doubts; assuaging the people’s fears, God drafts a covenant with them of mutual care.

The instructions for sacrifice reveal a God who loves the smell of charred beef and grain mixed with oil, sizzling on the griddle. Pancakes and barbecue? That’s a religious rite I can get behind!

We often quit reading Leviticus for lots of reasons besides just boredom. It’s got some of the most damaging, weaponized texts in the whole bible, often used to vilify people in non-heterosexual relationships. But Leviticus devotes a lot more time and energy to the things God deems most important: care for immigrants and the right ways to sacrifice.

What if we read Leviticus like God’s version of Oprah’s Favorite Things List? Oprah updates her list every year, so what was cool and hip in 1998 is passé now. It doesn’t mean the almighty Oprah changed her mind, but time marched on, circumstances shifted, and in each new time and place, there’s something to be excited about.

What were God’s favorite things in the season of wilderness, when They marched with the chosen people through wilderness, trauma recovery, and into a land God had promised?
Pancakes (grain sacrifice), BBQ (animal sacrifice), and kindness to strangers.

We may not be an agricultural society anymore, but we have our own sacred cows whose fiery destructive aroma would be pleasing to the Lord. The immigrant and stranger in our midst will always be a test of our hospitality and holy memory: can we recall what it was like at any point in our collective history to be an outsider, a stranger in a strange land? Out of that memory and imagination, we must act with empathy towards the ones who need kindness now.

“When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34, CEB.

God gave these instructions as a means of grace, a way of caring for the people They loved who had been through…a lot! What pleasing smells are getting us through seasons of “a lot-ness”? What values will we continue to live into, even when times are hard, like caring for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger as the Israelites were commanded in the wilderness?