" . . . and things of this sort befell me": Reading Leviticus

I found Leviticus pretty rough going--especially the lengthy section on the particulars of burnt animal offerings. And the God character is still huffing and puffing and refusing to conform to any of our contemporary warm and fuzzy notions about Him.

And then I came to the 10th chapter, which begins with a startling narrative about two of Aaron's sons who bring "alien fire" before the Lord, and, because of this offense, God kills them on the spot.  Moses tries to explain to Aaron why this was necessary, but, of course, his words don't quite seem to hit home. As the Bible says, "And Aaron was silent."

Then Moses starts to insist that Aaron and his remaining sons eat a meat sacrifice in the proper place and the proper way as an offense offering in order to atone for the wrong that their family has done.  And it's at this point that Aaron speaks:

"'Look, today they brought forward their offense offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and things of this sort befell me. Had I eaten an offense offering today, would it have seemed good in the eyes of the LORD?' And Moses heard, and it seemed good in his eyes."

I notice something interesting about this rather poignant passage.  One of its messages seems to be that Moses' relationship with his brother Aaron trumps priestly law in some way.  Moses did not continue to insist that Aaron and his sons make further sacrifice, nor did he chastise.  Rather, he simply "heard."

I find it significant that there are echoes of Genesis 1 here; and notice how that echo moves from "seemed good in the eyes of the LORD" to "seemed good in his [Moses'] eyes."

I am reminded of one of my favorite Miraslov Volf quotes: "Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performance may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance."

I was also thinking about one of James Luther Adams' observations about covenant: "The covenant can include a rule of law but it is not fundamentally a legal agreement. It depends on faithfulness, and faithfulness is nerved by loyalty, by love . . . Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go."

And such was the love, it seems, between Moses and Aaron.