Not for your sacrifices… Psm. 50
I’ve just spent a week on vacation. We stayed home so it was very relaxing. As we rested we painted a floor, rearranged a laundry room, cleaned the garage, worked in the yard, and painted interior trim. It was so much better than the beach! Who needs Disney World when you can paint trim?
Although we did quite a bit of work, it was nice to be home. I enjoyed the relaxed pace, and the chance to read for an hour or two a day. In fact, it was so nice… I have a deal for you. What if I stay home from now on? I’ll enjoy my relaxed days, and in exchange for visiting the hospitals, doing funerals, pastoral counseling, committee meetings, staff meetings… in exchange for weekly preaching, and teaching, I’ll increase my tithe to 25%. How does that sound? Ok, how about 30? 50? (I thought I’d start with you before I propose this to the personnel committee.)
I have a feeling, you can’t be bought. For no matter how much I tithe, no matter how much I sacrifice my income, there are certain inherent duties. A trite but true, truism: there are some things money can’t buy.
At the heart of Psalm 50 we find God’s clear condemnation of those who think they can buy their way out of life’s duties. The currency they hope to use is religious ritual. The one they hope to bribe is God. The religious economic model is common.
The heart of it is in verses 7-10:
Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you:
I am God, your God.
8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
9 I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
10 for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
The people to whom God is speaking are religiously observant, they follow the letter of the religious law, but their hearts don’t follow their feet.
What does God need with a dead animal…? The cattle on a thousand hills belong to God. Better empty hands at the altar, than empty hearts. Sacrifice, as some rabbinical teachings on this passage say, is a means to an end. The end is to repent and draw close to God. If the sacrifice is an empty act of ritualistic habit, or an attempt to win some favor, it isn’t biblical sacrifice. If the sacrifice is a physical act of a quid-pro-quo economical exchange, it isn’t biblical sacrifice.
Even the pagan Plato recognized this. Socrates is having a conversation with Euthyphro about holiness. It seems that his conversational partner thinks that worship is a kind of economic exchange. We do for God, and God does for us. Socrates asks: So …”Euthyphro, piety (holiness) is an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another?
Euth. That is an expression which you may use, if you like.
Soc. But I have no particular liking for anything but the truth. I wish, however, that you would tell me what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts. There is no doubt about what they give to us; for there is no good thing which they do not give; but how we can give any good thing to them in return is far from being equally clear. If they give everything and we give nothing, that must be an affair of business in which we have very greatly the advantage of them.”
The Hebrews understood what Plato came to realize. Worship is not an exchange. It is an expression of ultimate devotion, or it is nothing.
The Hebrew word for sacrifice is “korban” which derives from the root (Korba) meaning to come close, to draw near. This idea is decidedly not in our English word for sacrifice. Think back to early Hebrew worship. The idea was that God was geographically present in the center of the temple. To draw near to the temple, to draw near to intentionally worship at the altar was to sacrifice. It was to approach the mystery, and to draw nearer with heart and mind, bringing a representative of your love and devotion, a sacrifice. Without the love and devotion, the Psalmist says, it’s just a cow.
Every human action can become perfunctory and all of our actions can loose their meaning. We must be careful, God says in this Psalm, to not treat worship as an economic exchange. No matter how sacrificial your offering, if it isn’t about drawing near, being close, expressing your thanks to God… God says, don’t bother. I want your love, not your mindless rituals.
You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
One of the books I read, while not working, this week was Godwin’s “Team of Rivals” – a biography of Lincoln and his cabinet. Lincoln’s Secretary of State was William H. Seward who got his first real look at slavery as a 34 year old man on a vacation to Virginia. A powerful passage in the book has haunted me, for in his journal he describes encountering a group of slave children chained together on the road outside Richmond. “Ten naked little boys, between six and 12 tied together, two by two, their wrists, were all fastened to a long rope and followed by a tall gaunt white man, who with his long lash whipped up the sad and weary little procession, drove it to the horse-trough to drink, and thence to a shed, where they lay down on the ground and sobbed, and moaned themselves to sleep.” The children had been purchased and were on their way to be auctioned. (Godwin, p. 78)
How is it that good church going, hymn singing, offering making, deacon working, missionary supporting Christians could look on such a thing and not do everything in their power to stop it?! How is it that people who “accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior,” could see children in chains, mothers sold as cattle, fathers chained like dogs? How is it that on Sunday morning good Baptists could put their money in the plate and on Monday put their money on a bid for a human being? I’m not sure, but I am sure that God was looking at such things with a tear in his eye.
But let’s not act as if this Psalm only speaks to those of 3000 or 150 years ago. How is it that these decades later, we’ve still not found an answer to the problems of East and North Saint Louis? How is it that today, 100s of children are killed in violence annually?
Is our worship about a real drawing near to the God of love? God might just say to us, in 2007. Keep your perfunctory tithe. I’ve got enough steeples and over-paid preachers. I’ve plenty of buildings named after Jesus, and too few churches following his commands. I own the earth, but it’s your heart I want.
Paul, reflects the vision of Psm. 50:
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
Paul knew that the essence of sacrifice is to draw close to God in love. In effect he said: even with all your possessions, you can’t bribe God. Even if you deliver your body, you can’t bribe God. When you strip away the love, when you remove the drawing near, what you are left with is bull – a bull, an animal, and God has plenty of those.
In today’s gospel, Luke records Jesus telling his disciples to put your treasure in heaven. If you have stock, maybe this week is a good reminder of the truth about NOT letting your treasure be in things that moth, rust, or the Dow Jones can destroy.
Christians all struggle with this command to sell all and give to the poor. In a world of economic need, where we are among the rich, what do we do? The preacher Campolo makes great fun of those who teach that this passage is just about being “willing” to give up all you have. “Jesus didn’t really mean to give it all away, he just wanted you to be willing to do it.”
On the other hand, to give up everything and live on the street isn’t what Jesus asked of everyone. And Paul explicitly says that giving everything up everything, in and of itself, is meaningless. So how does one who wants to follow Jesus live in this age, with authenticity? I think the wisdom of scripture is clear:
1) Know it really is a matter of the heart – ultimate allegiance.
2) Know that the heart must be protected from false value – decide to put your treasure in heaven.
3) Know the only real answer is in the daily struggle to remain close to the God of love.
A few weeks ago I saw a movie called Joyeuse Noel. Jody Clegg’s class was using it for one of their Sermon on the Screen discussions. The movie is about an event that happened on the western front on Christmas Eve in 1914. There were two sets of allied troops, Scottish and French, set off in trenches against their German counterparts. War in those days was fought close. The trenches were so close that when a German tenor came to sing, the French and Scottish could hear the familiar tune of Silent Night. And the Germans could in turn hear the bag pipes. Hearing the music, played and sung by their sworn enemies touched the soldiers at a place their hatred and fear couldn’t reach. The commanders called a cease-fire and the men came out of their trenches.
They shared chocolate, pictures of wives and girlfriends, and champagne. They sang together, and in a powerful moment in the film, the worshiped together. And when Christmas was over, they went back to their respective trenches. Except, something had changed… it was no longer possible to look at the enemy in the same way. It’s hard to kill someone you’ve just shared a meal with. When you draw near, you can’t remain unchanged.
The authorities were incensed by this behavior at the front. They understood, the only effective killing army is the one who believes their enemy is inhuman. The powers that be, know that human love, cultural understanding, genuine empathy, is an acid that will destroy the chains of war and the power of hate that pulls it. The most painful moment in the film is when an English bishop claims that the army is the very sword of the LORD, sent to do God’s business… the business of killing the enemy, in the name of the one who taught us to love our enemies.
Hear these words. They are harsh, but they end with hope:
You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done and I kept silent;
you thought I was altogether like you.
But I will rebuke you
and accuse you to your face.
22 "Consider this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue:
23 He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me,
and he prepares the way
so that I may show him the salvation of God."
Our religious rituals are but a means to this end: Giving our heart to the God of love.
Although we did quite a bit of work, it was nice to be home. I enjoyed the relaxed pace, and the chance to read for an hour or two a day. In fact, it was so nice… I have a deal for you. What if I stay home from now on? I’ll enjoy my relaxed days, and in exchange for visiting the hospitals, doing funerals, pastoral counseling, committee meetings, staff meetings… in exchange for weekly preaching, and teaching, I’ll increase my tithe to 25%. How does that sound? Ok, how about 30? 50? (I thought I’d start with you before I propose this to the personnel committee.)
I have a feeling, you can’t be bought. For no matter how much I tithe, no matter how much I sacrifice my income, there are certain inherent duties. A trite but true, truism: there are some things money can’t buy.
At the heart of Psalm 50 we find God’s clear condemnation of those who think they can buy their way out of life’s duties. The currency they hope to use is religious ritual. The one they hope to bribe is God. The religious economic model is common.
The heart of it is in verses 7-10:
Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you:
I am God, your God.
8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
9 I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
10 for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
The people to whom God is speaking are religiously observant, they follow the letter of the religious law, but their hearts don’t follow their feet.
What does God need with a dead animal…? The cattle on a thousand hills belong to God. Better empty hands at the altar, than empty hearts. Sacrifice, as some rabbinical teachings on this passage say, is a means to an end. The end is to repent and draw close to God. If the sacrifice is an empty act of ritualistic habit, or an attempt to win some favor, it isn’t biblical sacrifice. If the sacrifice is a physical act of a quid-pro-quo economical exchange, it isn’t biblical sacrifice.
Even the pagan Plato recognized this. Socrates is having a conversation with Euthyphro about holiness. It seems that his conversational partner thinks that worship is a kind of economic exchange. We do for God, and God does for us. Socrates asks: So …”Euthyphro, piety (holiness) is an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another?
Euth. That is an expression which you may use, if you like.
Soc. But I have no particular liking for anything but the truth. I wish, however, that you would tell me what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts. There is no doubt about what they give to us; for there is no good thing which they do not give; but how we can give any good thing to them in return is far from being equally clear. If they give everything and we give nothing, that must be an affair of business in which we have very greatly the advantage of them.”
The Hebrews understood what Plato came to realize. Worship is not an exchange. It is an expression of ultimate devotion, or it is nothing.
The Hebrew word for sacrifice is “korban” which derives from the root (Korba) meaning to come close, to draw near. This idea is decidedly not in our English word for sacrifice. Think back to early Hebrew worship. The idea was that God was geographically present in the center of the temple. To draw near to the temple, to draw near to intentionally worship at the altar was to sacrifice. It was to approach the mystery, and to draw nearer with heart and mind, bringing a representative of your love and devotion, a sacrifice. Without the love and devotion, the Psalmist says, it’s just a cow.
Every human action can become perfunctory and all of our actions can loose their meaning. We must be careful, God says in this Psalm, to not treat worship as an economic exchange. No matter how sacrificial your offering, if it isn’t about drawing near, being close, expressing your thanks to God… God says, don’t bother. I want your love, not your mindless rituals.
You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
One of the books I read, while not working, this week was Godwin’s “Team of Rivals” – a biography of Lincoln and his cabinet. Lincoln’s Secretary of State was William H. Seward who got his first real look at slavery as a 34 year old man on a vacation to Virginia. A powerful passage in the book has haunted me, for in his journal he describes encountering a group of slave children chained together on the road outside Richmond. “Ten naked little boys, between six and 12 tied together, two by two, their wrists, were all fastened to a long rope and followed by a tall gaunt white man, who with his long lash whipped up the sad and weary little procession, drove it to the horse-trough to drink, and thence to a shed, where they lay down on the ground and sobbed, and moaned themselves to sleep.” The children had been purchased and were on their way to be auctioned. (Godwin, p. 78)
How is it that good church going, hymn singing, offering making, deacon working, missionary supporting Christians could look on such a thing and not do everything in their power to stop it?! How is it that people who “accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior,” could see children in chains, mothers sold as cattle, fathers chained like dogs? How is it that on Sunday morning good Baptists could put their money in the plate and on Monday put their money on a bid for a human being? I’m not sure, but I am sure that God was looking at such things with a tear in his eye.
But let’s not act as if this Psalm only speaks to those of 3000 or 150 years ago. How is it that these decades later, we’ve still not found an answer to the problems of East and North Saint Louis? How is it that today, 100s of children are killed in violence annually?
Is our worship about a real drawing near to the God of love? God might just say to us, in 2007. Keep your perfunctory tithe. I’ve got enough steeples and over-paid preachers. I’ve plenty of buildings named after Jesus, and too few churches following his commands. I own the earth, but it’s your heart I want.
Paul, reflects the vision of Psm. 50:
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
Paul knew that the essence of sacrifice is to draw close to God in love. In effect he said: even with all your possessions, you can’t bribe God. Even if you deliver your body, you can’t bribe God. When you strip away the love, when you remove the drawing near, what you are left with is bull – a bull, an animal, and God has plenty of those.
In today’s gospel, Luke records Jesus telling his disciples to put your treasure in heaven. If you have stock, maybe this week is a good reminder of the truth about NOT letting your treasure be in things that moth, rust, or the Dow Jones can destroy.
Christians all struggle with this command to sell all and give to the poor. In a world of economic need, where we are among the rich, what do we do? The preacher Campolo makes great fun of those who teach that this passage is just about being “willing” to give up all you have. “Jesus didn’t really mean to give it all away, he just wanted you to be willing to do it.”
On the other hand, to give up everything and live on the street isn’t what Jesus asked of everyone. And Paul explicitly says that giving everything up everything, in and of itself, is meaningless. So how does one who wants to follow Jesus live in this age, with authenticity? I think the wisdom of scripture is clear:
1) Know it really is a matter of the heart – ultimate allegiance.
2) Know that the heart must be protected from false value – decide to put your treasure in heaven.
3) Know the only real answer is in the daily struggle to remain close to the God of love.
A few weeks ago I saw a movie called Joyeuse Noel. Jody Clegg’s class was using it for one of their Sermon on the Screen discussions. The movie is about an event that happened on the western front on Christmas Eve in 1914. There were two sets of allied troops, Scottish and French, set off in trenches against their German counterparts. War in those days was fought close. The trenches were so close that when a German tenor came to sing, the French and Scottish could hear the familiar tune of Silent Night. And the Germans could in turn hear the bag pipes. Hearing the music, played and sung by their sworn enemies touched the soldiers at a place their hatred and fear couldn’t reach. The commanders called a cease-fire and the men came out of their trenches.
They shared chocolate, pictures of wives and girlfriends, and champagne. They sang together, and in a powerful moment in the film, the worshiped together. And when Christmas was over, they went back to their respective trenches. Except, something had changed… it was no longer possible to look at the enemy in the same way. It’s hard to kill someone you’ve just shared a meal with. When you draw near, you can’t remain unchanged.
The authorities were incensed by this behavior at the front. They understood, the only effective killing army is the one who believes their enemy is inhuman. The powers that be, know that human love, cultural understanding, genuine empathy, is an acid that will destroy the chains of war and the power of hate that pulls it. The most painful moment in the film is when an English bishop claims that the army is the very sword of the LORD, sent to do God’s business… the business of killing the enemy, in the name of the one who taught us to love our enemies.
Hear these words. They are harsh, but they end with hope:
You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done and I kept silent;
you thought I was altogether like you.
But I will rebuke you
and accuse you to your face.
22 "Consider this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue:
23 He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me,
and he prepares the way
so that I may show him the salvation of God."
Our religious rituals are but a means to this end: Giving our heart to the God of love.
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