A Diet for Spiritual Schizophrenics (Clean and Unclean)

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which a person loses grip on reality. They see the world incorrectly. Their perceptions of reality are inconsistent.

There is a sense in which we can become spiritual schizophrenics. How often do we see Sunday as full of God but lose sight of Him the rest of the week? Wouldn’t it be a better grip on reality if we were constantly mindful of God in the world He created?

There is a treatment for spiritual schizophrenics. It’s not a pill or some sort of therapy, but a diet.

Leviticus 11 is that diet and it is also a prime example of why I refer to Leviticus as the Bible’s weirdest book. According to Leviticus 11 you are good to eat crickets but stay away from restaurants that serve rock badger and barn owl.

This chapter reads as a long list of clean and unclean foods. But as weird as it sounds, this diet is a brilliant treatment for spiritual schizophrenics. How so?

The answer comes in verses 44 and 45.

Leviticus 11:44–45 ESV

For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

From those verses let me explain why this diet is a treatment for spiritual schizophrenics.

This diet helps spiritual schizophrenics get a grip on reality (God is ever present).

One of the problems with spiritual schizophrenics is that we come into church on Sunday with our minds on God, but we leave here and think very little of Him the rest of the week. Talk about losing a sense of reality.

While God has Israel in the wilderness, He’s going to be pretty hard to forget. When you wake up every morning and there is a pillar of cloud by day that turns into a pillar of fire at night, seeing God in reality isn’t an issue.

But once they get into the promised land and begin to spread out, they may lose this sense of reality that God is present. So what does God do to make sure that they have to be mindful of Him everyday? He puts them on a diet.

The reason for the diet is that it makes them ever mindful of God. Notice, the first sentence of verse 44. “For I am the Lord your God.” It’s not about beef or pork. It’s about Him.

For those of you who live with someone who has dietary restrictions or food allergies, you know that it impacts the whole family.

A few years ago we realized that Kiley was lactose intolerant. Shannon used to make some family favorites that involved cheese or milk in the ingredients, but we adjusted.

Most recently, Kiley has found that her body does not process gluten. We learned that lactose intolerance and gluten allergies often go hand in hand. This gluten thing has really changed our diet. Whatever we eat, we are mindful of her.

Leviticus 11 is like taking your son’s friend who has food allergies on your family vacation. You adjust the menu. You accommodate his dietary needs. It forces you to make other choices. You’re mindful of him at every meal.

The first 10 chapters of Leviticus are about how one is to behave at the altar. It is about how the priest is to be prepared. It is about how to bring an offering and be mindful of God.

Leviticus 11 means that you now have to be as mindful of God at the kitchen table as you are at the Tabernacle altar.

The diet greatly expands the borders of holiness from the Tabernacle to the table.

What are the things you do to increase the borders of holiness in your life from this room to your living room? From church to work? From Sunday to Monday?

The Word of God is not something you should only hear on Sunday. Perhaps it needs to become a part of your breakfast routine as well. Church should not be the only place people pray. Your kitchen table should be a place where your family brings thanks, praise, and petitions God for needs.

This diet helps spiritual schizophrenics be mindful of God as an ever present reality.

The diet helps spiritual schizophrenics with their decisions.

When you have a dualistic sense of reality it’s tough to make decisions. Spiritual schizophrenics will hold certain moral values on Sunday that they don’t hold for the rest of the week.

It is theologically significant that the creator instructs His images that there are some things he created that are good for you and some things He created that are not. In Leviticus 11 God labels the difference between those things as clean and unclean (This also destroys the arguments people make for making marijuana morally acceptable. They will say that it is a naturally occuring element in the world God created. Let me remind you that arsenic is also a naturally occuring element in the world God created. but just because it is created by God doe snot mean that it is good for you).

The idea of clean and unclean helps a spiritual schizophrenic be as mindful of his choices away from the tabernacle as he is of his choices at the tabernacle. The Levitical law was specific. If you want to bring something to the altar it must be this kind of lamb, or bull, or a flour of this quality.

But what about the table in your home? What about dinner tomorrow night?

Are you going to be as worshipful and considerate of God on a Saturday night as you are on Sunday morning?

Raise your hand if you think it would be inappropriate for me to show a movie clip in my sermon that used profanity, violence, or nudity?

Well yeah, we are at church. That wouldn’t be good.

So what were you watching last night? If it is unclean at church what does it turn into in your home? If it’s unclean coming across this screen (big screen at church) then why is it not unclean coming across your phone screen?

There is an interesting discussion taking place in 1 Corinthians 10. Paul is responding to concerns that people in the Corinthian church are eating meat offered to idols. In their congregation there were Jews and there were Gentiles. Some people were very mindful of Leviticus 11 and some people were snacking on bacon in the middle of the service. There was a lot of division and controversy brewing.

The answer is pretty long and I would encourage you to go to 1 Corinthians and read the whole thing, but I want to pull out a couple of remarks that teach spiritual schizophrenics this principle of discernment in all things.

1 Corinthians 10:23–24 ESV

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Having a mindfulness of clean and unclean, practicing discernment, helps the people of God be mindful of God and of others in this way.

Just because you are forgiven of everything doesn’t mean you should do everything.

Something may not be wrong, but that doesn’t make it good.

And for rugged individualists like us (which is the attitude that often contributes to our spiritual schizophrenia) we need to be mindful of God in that what’s good for me now may not be best for me later.

If I could summarize how the principles of Leviticus 11 make their way into the New Testament under the blood of Christ and the liberty he brings us from the law it would be this. When God gave them a diet that prevented people from eating pig, He was far less concerned about them eating pork than He was that they be ever mindful to love God and love people.

not about pork or beef, but people - If we got as serious about good choices in daily life as we did when we were on diets - well if I can’t eat this then I can’t lose weight - can’t meet my goal - what if you thought that way about your witness - well if I’m over here chugging a beer, even though I won’t go to Hell for it, there are certain people who won’t hear what I have to say - it may not be sin, but it may be unclean.

And that’s the principle of Lev. 11 as interpreted by 1 Cor. 10. Use good judgment. Practice discernment. Is it good now? Is it good for me? Is it good for them? Where we are in the modern church context is everyone makes their demands and then dares anyone else to question them. The church will never survive like that. We must use love and discernment - have a sense of good and bad that molds to the situation.

And that takes discernment.

The diet helps spiritual schizophrenics understand their identity.

We are one thing at church and another the rest of the week. - Bible doesn’t call it spiritual schizophrenia, but hypocrisy - the Savior hates it.

The second sentence of verse 44 introduces the central theme of Leviticus. If I were to explain this book in one sentence it would be “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” This phrase will be used three more times in Leviticus and then it is quoted again later in the New Testament.

So at this point in the series let’s talk about this concept of holiness that we will talk about more and more as we continue through Leviticus. Holiness, in it’s most basic sense, means that it is set apart for God.

Holiness is transformative.

When God met with Moses at a bush on the backside of the desert he told Moses to take off his shoes because this was holy ground. A space that was otherwise just worthless dirt became the most distinct place on the earth because God was there.

Holiness makes the common, uncommon. The same thing that happened at the burning bush will happen each time they setup the Tabernacle. Dirt will become holy ground. When the walls of the Tabernacle went up the dirt that yesterday looked like everything else becomes like nothing else.

Holiness is possessive.

When something was declared holy that mean that it was God’s. You may be able to borrow some tables from our fellowship hall, but no one could borrow the lampstand in the Tabernacle to light their garden party.

And so in reading Leviticus 11 we learn something of God. He takes otherwise common things in the world he created like rock badgers, cows, catfish, pigs, and crickets and he distinguishes them one from another. These are clean and these are unclean. And His Word over them, defines them.

And so after reading 43 verses of what seems like monotony, think of how profound this is that God looks at them and says, “I’m your God. You be holy because I am holy.”

God declared former idolators who are prone to be spiritual schizophrenics not just clean, but holy. They were his.

It’s not just a sense of food, but a sense of self.

Leviticus 11 says that we cannot think of ourselves separate from Him. His Word has transformed us. And our daily decisions should be reflective of this whether we are at the Tabernacle or at the dinner table.

This diet is important for spiritual schizophrenics because it teaches them something of God, something of the world that they live in, and something of themselves.

The most significant thing that Leviticus 11 does is something I’ve alluded to all throughout the sermon as something important for spiritual schizophrenics. Leviticus 11 expands the borders of holiness from the Tabernacle to the dinner table.

It would have been one thing for the story to end in Leviticus 10 with the death of two priests in a tragic worship fail. If it had then people could walk away and think, man those priests need to be holy. But Leviticus 11 says, so do you. If it had ended at Leviticus 10 people could have said that the priests need to be very mindful of God in the sacrifice. But Leviticus 11 comes along and says and you ned to be just as mindful of him at lunch today.

This is the spirit of the text we find in 1 Corinthians 6

1 Corinthians 6:15–20 ESV

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

If Leviticus 11 expanded holiness from the Tabernacle to the table, think of the expansion of holiness that took place with God placed His Holy Spirit within you!

One of my favorite professors would often say that because the Holy Spirit of God inhabits the people of God that, “Every place where the Christian steps is sacred.”

Conclusion:

Spiritual schizophrenia is a serious disorder in which we end up in hypocrisy. We live in light of God on Sunday, but we forget God in the world He created the rest of the week.

The New Testament does not call for us to reinstitute the Lev. 11 diet, but it does call for us to observe the principle of it. God should be as revered at the table as He is at the Tabernacle and your Thursday should be as mindful of God as your Sunday.