The biblical stories themselves testify that the Israelites were just one small tribe struggling for survival among other tribes, some of them much larger, that were fighting for the same territory they wanted to occupy. This means that the laws in Deuteronomy were given to people who struggled with the fear of being wiped out by their neighbors.
Those of us who have lived through or studied recent American history are familiar with the kind of exclusionary mentality that such fears create. Not so many years ago, when Americans felt threatened after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it became national policy to exclude Japanese Americans. Consequently, thousands of these innocent, loyal U.S. citizens were rounded up and sent to internment camps. Even more recently, after 9/11, we heard many stories of Middle Eastern– looking individuals who experienced harassment and detainment as a result of the fear that gripped our country. Likewise, we may have heard stories of first, second, and even third generation immigrant parents wanting their children to “marry their own kind” to help preserve their culture so it does not get lost in American culture, that is, become blended in with the “larger tribe.” Such thinking is humorously portrayed in the movies My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 1 and 2! These are contemporary examples of exclusionary actions that have resulted from threats to national security and cultural survival.
These examples help me understand the thinking that may have given rise to the exclusionary laws found in Deuteronomy and also in Leviticus. (See the next chapter for more about this.) Obviously the writers of the Old Testament believed they were writing God’s words to them and God’s will for them. Yet the New Testament reveals through Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, through the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Gentiles that inclusion, not exclusion, is God’s will. Consequently, these ancient Israelites may have been hearing God’s word to them through the lens of their own fears, so they wrote that it was God’s will that they exclude others…a perspective God later corrected through Isaiah, Jesus, and the Acts of the Holy Spirit.
This is not to say that the Bible is not God’s Word, that it is merely the words of people. No. I suggest this perspective because the Bible itself testifies that God can only give God’s people what they are able to accept. This principle is revealed in 1 Samuel 8 when God tells Samuel that God’s intent was to be Israel’s one and only king. However, because Israel rejected Yahweh and served other gods, Yahweh allowed them to have a human king. In the same way, perhaps God was aware that, because of their fears and insecurities, the Israelites would only be able to accept exclusionary, “circle the wagons,” “take care of me and mine” rules and regulations, so God allowed that, as a less than best option. Then, in the fullness of time, God revealed God’s true intent, through Isaiah and through the Word made flesh: God’s intention to include all people in God’s assembly, to include foreigners and eunuchs, the Gentiles, and the gender variant.
This is just one explanation for why we see in scripture a movement from the exclusion of eunuchs in God’s assembly to the inclusion of eunuchs in the family of God. In the next chapter I will suggest another possible reason for this change. While these speculations have value, the most important thing for us to keep in mind is that a significant change did occur; the Ethiopian eunuch, a member of the gender variant, foreign outcasts described in the Old Testament, was welcomed as a baptized follower of Christ in the New Testament.
4
LEVITICUS 21 AND HOLINESS
In the previous chapter we began a consideration of explanations for why we find within the Bible itself a movement from excluding to including eunuchs. In Leviticus 21 we find another exclusionary passage and more clues as to the reasons behind such exclusions.
As you may know, the Levites were the one tribe out of the twelve tribes of Israel that served God as priests. The title of this biblical book, Leviticus, literally means “about the Levites” and the book details the rules and regulations they were to follow regarding worship and making sacrifices. In my NIV Bible, the “Introduction to Leviticus” says, “Although many of the rules were given only for the Levites, the purpose of all the laws that were given was to help the Israelites worship and live as God’s holy people. A key statement for the entire book is ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (Lev. 11:44, 45).1
In the twenty-first chapter of Leviticus we find examples of some of these laws. Here I include much of this chapter so we will have a feel for the context of verse 20, a verse that might be used to exclude trans women who have had genital surgery or who take hormones from ordination, if taken out of context and misunderstood.
1The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, 2except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother….
5“‘Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies. 6They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because they present the food offerings to the Lord, the food of their God, they are to be holy.
7“‘They must not marry women defiled by prostitution or divorced from their husbands, because priests are holy to their God. 8Regard them as holy, because they offer up the food of your God. Consider them holy, because I the Lord am holy— I who make you holy.
9“‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire….’”
16The Lord said to Moses, 17“Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’” (Lev. 21: 1–23)
Such rules and regulations sound harsh and insensitive, even prejudicial to our twenty-first-century ears. Imagine telling someone seeking ordination they cannot be ordained because they have an eye defect requiring them to wear contacts or glasses, or because they suffer from lameness caused by severe arthritis! Ye t this was the ancient Israelites’ experience of what it took for God’s priests to be holy.
CHRIST FULFILLED THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW
In the same way the church no longer uses this passage to bar very short people, people who are blind or who wear corrective lenses, or people who have arthritis from ordination, this passage should also not be used to bar medically transitioned trans women from ordination. The reason the church no longer uses this passage as part of its requirements for ordination is because the New Testament reveals that, through Christ, the requirements of the Old Testament law have been fulfilled (see Acts 15, Galatians 3, Hebrews 8–10). Consequently, Christians no longer observe all the requirements of Old Testament Law, which is why denominations now have no qualms about ordaining people who wear glasses, or have arthritis, or who use a wheelchair to get around. A growing number of denominations also have transgender individuals among their ranks of ordained clergy, including the United Church of Christ, Metropolitan Community Churches, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the American Baptist Convention.2
A DEEPER