I bet you read today’s passage and thought: what on earth has this got to do with worship? It’s just another long list of one tribe getting particular towns to live in…. which is nice for them, but not sure what it has to do with me!
The reason is that this is the tribe of Levi – the very last to be allocated their inheritance. This tribe is the one dedicated entirely to serving the Lord as priests: in other words, to manage Israel’s worshipping life. As a result, they were freed from having to work the land: hence they were allotted towns to live in (with no land, as such). From this point, the other eleven tribes all gifted a tithe (a tenth of their produce) to provide food for the tribe of Levi, so they could devote themselves to leading God’s people in worship.
It is a reminder that, for all the practicalities of establishing a functioning society – including the cities we looked at yesterday – Israel was first and foremost to be a worshipping community. A twelfth of its population (roughly!) was dedicated for this very purpose, and the remaining 90+% of the population was expected to provide for their daily needs, in order to achieve this.
For us, too, worship takes first place. We are made to worship our Lord – and worshipping is when we are most fully human, fully alive. Of course, worship is not just what we do in church: it is about giving God his rightful place of honour and glory through the whole of our lives. The other tribes’ tithe was just as much an act of worship as what the priests did in the temple – something of which later prophets were keen to remind the Israelites.
So we, too, worship God in our work, in our marriages and family life, in our kindness towards friends and neighbours, in the way we speak and in what we think. It’s all worship!
It is healthy, though, to set aside time to focus fully on worshipping God. You’re reading this now, so you already know the value of dedicated time each day! A worshipping heart leads to a worshipping life.
May God grant us grace for our hearts to be renewed in worship, that our lives would likewise be dedicated to him. Amen, come Lord Jesus!