Sacrifice & Thanksgiving

Sermon for the Second Sunday After Pentecost

St. Monica and St. James | Washington, DC

Pentecost +2, Proper 5, Track 2

Hosea 5: 15-6:6

Ps 50:7-15

Rom 4:13-25

Matt 9:9-13,18-26

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“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

Our lectionary readings plunge us into a place of creative tension. Through this mornings lessons, several complementary themes rise to the surface: the relationship between judgement and reconciliation... righteousness and justification... mercy and sacrifice...

This is a familiar tension point. Striving toward the right arrangement between God’s divine action and our human action is a balancing act that is interwoven throughout scripture. And though the writers of our sacred text continually engage this creative tension, it remains unresolved.

It’s for this reason that throughout Christian history the content and mechanisms of faith have so frequently been set-up in opposition to one another. Whether its a debate over faith versus works, or belief versus practice, the dynamics of faith are so often arranged as though they are somehow in competition with one another. It is not too dissimilar from the modern impulse to differentiate between spiritual and religious.

And this is just how we find the writers of these lessons—wrestling within this creative tension with the question of what faith looks like? It is the very same question that remains ever present in our own lives. Just what is the shape of a faithful life?

Matthew’s Gospel offers a simple resolution, or at least so it appears from the surface—“mercy, not sacrifice.” This is the quality of faith that God desires. In claiming these words from Hosea, surely Jesus is dismissing ritual sacrifice as a means of expressing faithfulness? It must be a rejection of rigid religiosity and its punitive strictures... All that really matters is loving relationship; love is all you need.

The inconvenient problem with this interpretation though is that love is not accidental.

Healthy relationship depends on some shared agreements. And outside the context of relationship with another, genuine and life-giving accountability is limited at best. If we desire a flourishing community or spirituality, we will most likely experience neither without steadfast intention and commitment.

Perhaps then, with this instruction, Jesus invites those gathered around him into something more than a simple understanding of faithfulness. “Go and learn what this means,” he instructs, evidently suggesting there is something more to our understand about mercy and sacrifice.

The ancient world held a very different understanding of sacrifice than most modern conceptions. In its modern usage, notions of sacrifice tend to conjure feelings of loss. It is a kind of willful suffering. Sacrifice is understood as a self giving —which is typically achieved through some form of noble bravery or deadly altruism. And this conception of sacrifice is typically synonymous with violence.

But this is not the understanding held by Jesus. For Jesus and the audience he addresses, sacrifice was more often defined by notions of gift and atonement. Sacrificial ritual was an expression of thanksgiving, and its aim sought to preserve relationship —bringing restoration to times of fragmentation.

This of course is the central concern of Hosea and the fiftieth Psalm—seeking and preserving right relationship. Now, both describe a situation where God is exasperated. The depth of love experienced is really little more than a fleeting morning fog. It comes and goes like the morning dew, because the quality of this relationship is fickle—and faithfulness is quickly forgotten once it is no longer convenient.

Rather than denouncing sacrifice though, God simply has no need for it in this context. Offerings divorced from true morality are a futile endeavor. Transactional rituals are appalling—yet God does not reject the people in their distorted practice of sacrifice... Because what God desires is a love that blossoms through steadfastness.

And this is precisely the function of sacrifice. A life shaped by patterns of thanksgiving deepens its quality. The expression of gratitude—in addition to being an offering to God—is a gift to both ourselves and to others. Recognizing our need and God’s provision expands our capacity to also seek the wellbeing of others.

Living with a deep abiding love for God, ourselves, and our neighbors shapes us in faithfulness. And with time any apparent tension between mercy and sacrifice slowly fades and instead begins to resemble one of reciprocity.

A similar ironic quality is present in Jesus’ response to the Pharisees.

In defense of sharing a meal with social outcasts, Jesus suggests that those deemed “sinners” are precisely who he has come to call. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” This is no doubt true when taken at face value, and yet... how often is it those who seem perfectly secure in their lives who are actually the ones in the position of greatest need?

The more effective we are in convincing ourselves we are completely self sufficient persons makes it all the more painful when reality inevitably catches up with us.

Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing is not a zero-sum game. He does not come to offer abundant life to either the so-called righteous social elites or to the so-called sinners who are socially despised. His proclamation of new life is for all those in need of wholeness—whether they recognize this their need to be made well or not. This of course includes each and every person in this story, and each and every one of us gathered within and outside these walls this morning.

So, what then is the shape of a faithful life?

Thanksgiving nurtured by steadfast love. Ethical action that cultivates right relationship. Spiritual vitality made possible through religious discipline; and religiosity given meaning through spirituality. Everything, everywhere, all at once.

Faithfulness is bringing the fulness of our human experience as an offering to God —with all of our frailty and need, hope and despair, joy and love.

That we might know the mercy of this wholeness, may we offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Amen.