sacrifice

Just Deserts and Just Desserts

/ JJS / 1 Comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 43; 149, Ezekiel 39:21-29, Philippians 4:10-20, John 17:20-26

Have you heard the term “food desert?” A food desert is generally understood as an area – usually urban, usually economically distressed – where circumstances limit people’s access to affordable, nutritious food. Picture an inner city neighborhood loaded with overpriced convenience store snacks, but no groceries with fresh produce. Because the available food is junk, people living in food deserts are commonly both overweight and undernourished.

Paul had never heard of food deserts when he told the Philippians he had “learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need” (Phil 4:12).  He did recognize that we never have so much abundance that we don’t still need Jesus. We can grow fat on the riches of the world, but they will never give us true life. Yet even a small taste of the Bread of Life will leave us satisfied. Like Paul, we will “[learn] to be content with whatever [we] have” (v 11).

We’re all familiar with the practice of giving something up for Lent, a symbolic fast demonstrating our solidarity with Christ’s forty days in the desert. An equally important but less frequently observed tradition is almsgiving, or giving to people in need. Our Lenten sacrifice has more meaning when these practices go hand-in-hand. It’s not our business to judge anyone’s sacrifice, but there is a qualitative difference between giving up chocolate because it dovetails with weight loss goals, and giving up a daily five-dollar latte and donating the money to a food bank instead.

Our wilderness fast with Christ is a time of spiritual growth. The deeper we sink our roots into that desert, the more Living Water we will find.  Desert plants are biologically efficient and waste little energy on unnecessary processes, yet when resources allow they produce stunning blooms. Which of our resources could be put to better use in deserts both spiritual and nutritional? What sacrifices can we make so others might blossom in the love Christ calls us to share? Time and again the prophets remind us God loves mercy above sacrifice, but sometimes we must sow sacrifice to reap mercy.

Comfort: Like Paul, you can learn to be content under all circumstances.

Challenge: Learn more about food deserts and how you can help. What sacrifices of time and money might you be able to make to help people with little access to nutritional food?

Prayer: Gracious and merciful God, I thank you for all things you have given me. Help me understand which are mine to use, and which you have entrusted me to share with others in need. When my hunger for food is satisfied, may I feel even more strongly a hunger to share the Bread of Life with the world. Amen.

Discussion: On what do you spend a lot of time and energy which gives you little to no nourishment in return? Do you think it would be possible to reprioritize that time and energy?

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God Will Provide the Lamb

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 96; 147:1-11, Genesis 22:1-18, Hebrews 11:23-31, John 6:52-59

Abraham was one hundred and Sarah was ninety when Isaac, the son God promised them, was born. How must Abraham have felt when God asked him to offer his son as a sacrifice? Abraham neither objected to this request nor delayed in responding; he set out with Isaac the next morning for Moriah. This is the Abraham who laughed when God told him Sarah would conceive a child. The Abraham who took down kings to free his people. The Abraham who challenged God not once, not twice , but six times to spare the citizens of Sodom. Yet when asked to make a burnt offering of his son, he complied without argument. Why?

On the way, Isaac asked his father where the sacrificial lamb was. Abraham replied: “God himself will provide the lamb.” We might read this as an attempt to deceive Isaac, but we must remember this is the Abraham who spent many years arguing with God about what was possible, only to be proven wrong time after time. Obedient as he had become, could this Abraham have believed for a moment God would renege on the promise Isaac represented? Tradition tells us Abraham passed God’s test because he was willing to kill his son. Is it possible he passed the test because he trusted his God not to take his child? That he finally trusted God enough not to argue, but to risk being wrong? If so, “God himself will provide the lamb” sounds less like a comforting lie and more like a prayer of self-reassurance. In the end, God spared Isaac and did indeed provide a ram. Abraham’s descendants formed a great nation.

How often have we hesitated to commit ourselves totally to God because we fear what we may be asked to sacrifice? God is not a despot demanding sacrifices out of cruelty or insecurity, but until we trust him enough to risk the annihilation of submission we keep part of ourselves from him. Whatever our faith strips away from us needs to go. Whatever our faith has in store for us is greater than we can imagine.

Comfort: God is faithful, always.

Challenge: Read through today’s passage from Genesis a couple times. The first time imagine yourself in Abraham’s place. The second time, imagine you are Isaac hearing the story for the first time.

Prayer: Pray the Prayer of Dedication below, thinking about what it might cost you.

Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work. I give you my feet to go your way. I give you my tongue to speak your words. I give you my mind that you may think in me. I give you my spirit that you may pray in me. Above all, I give you my heart that you may love in me your Father and all mankind. I give you my whole self that you may grow in me, so that it is you, Lord Jesus, who live and work and pray in me.

Discussion: What have you given up – voluntarily or involuntarily – only to discover something better was waiting?

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Dear Jesus … Define Rich

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 96; 147:1-11, Obadiah 15-21, 1 Peter 2:1-10, Matthew 19:23-30

One of the favorite ornaments on our family Christmas tree is in the shape of a letter to Santa. Its message is short: “Dear Santa … Define good!”

“Good” is one of those terms which can seem eternally undefinable. Good compared to whom? When a rich young man asked Christ what good deed would guarantee him eternal life, Jesus replied, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.”  After pressing Jesus on the matter, the young man left grief-stricken because Jesus told him to sell all his many possessions and give his money to the poor. When Jesus then told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” they wondered if anyone could be saved. Jesus responded with a warning and reassurance that God made it possible.

“Rich” is another one of those words which seems to reside on a sliding scale. Most of us define “rich” in terms of wealth which definitely exceeds our own. How rich do we think the young man was? How many possessions is “many?” These concepts are skewed by the community and culture in which we live.

I consider my family to be solidly middle class, but compared to say the billions of people in the world without safe access to toilets, we are almost obscenely wealthy. During conversations about relative wealth, some friends and co-workers have suggested that it isn’t fair to compare first- and third-world standards. It’s almost as if they (and, I must admit, I) are reluctant to admit that in the overall scope of the human family, we are – as a fellow churchgoer described us in a way that was less than flattering – rich as $#!%. Of course to some other friends struggling to get by, that fellow churchgoer enjoyed a highly enviable level of comfort.

Since it’s all relative, the question then becomes not do we think we are rich, but does Jesus think we are rich? If we can consider his conversation with the young man to be an indicator of that standard, the threshold seems to be whether we retain anything we could part with to better follow him. We should probably be pretty aggressive about answering that.

Do we need to part with absolutely everything? Jesus didn’t require that of everyone around him. Do we need to be willing to part with anything that stands between us and Christ? Absolutely.

We may not be able to agree on a textbook definition of “rich” … but valuing something more than we value Christ is a price too high for any of us to pay.

Comfort: The most valuable thing we have was given to us for free.

Challenge: Consider donating to WaterAid or similar charities which help deliver clean water and facilities to people living in poverty.

Prayer: Merciful and loving  God, teach me to appreciate what I have in terms of how I might spend it to help others in need. Amen.

Discussion: In your opinion, how rich is too rich?

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Someone Needs The Wood

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 56; 149, Nehemiah 13:4-22, Revelation 20:1-6, Matthew 16:21-28

You may have heard the expression, “Get off the cross; someone else needs the wood.” It’s generally used in response to someone who engages in showy, unnecessary, and/or self-inflicted martyrdom – probably over something trivial. It also implies the person is casting themselves in the role of a victim.

When Christ told his disciples “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” was he asking them to become victims? Perhaps if the only way we can define victory is through someone else’s defeat, we might think so. But the sacrifice Christ calls us to make is not just martyrdom to prove our loyalty to him. As his sacrifice was not for himself, but for others – for the world – so our own cross is not just about us.

In places around the world, simply declaring one’s faith may lead to a figurative or literal cross. In most of the western world, however, we are free to slap crosses on buildings, merchandise, jewelry, and even our own bodies without experiencing any real persecution. Since sacrifice is central to the Christian tradition, in the absence of actual crosses we manufacture persecution when we are forced to share public space and accommodation with people who do not believe or behave as we do.

Every year Christian culture warriors want us to believe a cheery utterance of “Happy Holidays” in the local big box store serving people of all faiths (and no faith) is an offense we need to confront with an aggressive “Merry Christmas” that represents Christ in an extremely poor light. It’s not enough to live our values, we want to force others to observe them as well. Did Jesus ever force anyone to do anything? We do it to accomplish the mental contortion necessary to bully our way to victimhood.

Focusing our attention on a cross no one asked us to build and draping ourselves in a shroud of victimhood may prove our loyalty to Christianity™ but not to Christ. The victory and sacrifice of the cross we are meant to carry is found in humility and service. In the absence of persecution, we are still fully capable of making loving sacrifices: patience, kindness, charity, not insisting on our own way, giving from our excess (and sometimes our basics) so others may have enough … all that Bible stuff.

Deep faith and witness don’t need to be branded with the cross like some product logo; when it’s real, people will want it without having to be sold on it. Tearing it down to give the wood to someone in need may be the biggest sacrifice of ego we can make.

Comfort: With Christ as our savior, we are never victims.

Challenge: Don’t look for reasons to be offended. Look for reasons to be merciful.

Prayer: O Lord, I put my trust in you. Thank you for the love that frees me from all other needs. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever played the victim, maybe without realizing it until later?

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The Field

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 42; 146, Nehemiah 12:27-31a, 42b-47, Revelation 11:1-19, Matthew 13:44-52

Imagine you’re in the city on a gray, windy day. The first hesitant drops of rain have started to fall and of course you don’t have an umbrella with you. There are nine blocks between you and home, but if you cut across that big, overgrown lot which has been empty for so long the “For Sale” sign has faded to a whisper of a suggestion, you can cut a few of those off.  The downside is the tall buildings to the north and south of it creating a wind tunnel, so you pull up your collar and pull down your hat as you step into the tall grass.

When you’re about two thirds of the way across the wind parts the grass around what looks like – but surely could not be – a gold bar peeking out of the ground. It surely could not be, but you veer off course to see what it is. And it is indeed a gold bar. And while you’re crouched down to dig it out, you notice another one buried a little deeper. And another.  You wander the field and realize it is literally littered with gold which can’t be seen from the street or the buildings – only by someone crouched in the dirt and tall weeds.

What to do?

If you’re like the man Jesus describes in today’s analogy about the Kingdom of Heaven, you kick dirt over all the gold you can see, empty your bank account, pawn your guitar collection, and sell some plasma until you can make a cash offer on the lot as is. No thank you, you tell the realtor, cleaning it up won’t be necessary.

That’s where the Kingdom of Heaven is. Hidden in a run-down lot in the declining part of town where no one expects to find it. Except it’s not gold, it’s an opportunity to be loved and to love. And while it can still be hard to find it’s not hidden in the dirt; it’s buried in the hearts of people who can’t believe they have treasure inside them. And it’s not your bank account you have to empty (though maybe you will), but yourself – of pride, anger, fear, hate, and selfishness. That’s the price of admission to the Kingdom.

When you find this treasure, what will you do with it?

Further reading:
For thoughts on Psalm 42, see God Will Wait and Deep Calls to Deep.

Comfort: The Kingdom is available to everyone.

Challenge: When you find it, seize it – regardless of the cost.

Prayer: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1)

Discussion: What’s the most precious thing you’ve sacrificed to attain?

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Gift Receipts

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 67; 150, 2 Kings 4:8-37, Acts 9:10-31, Luke 3:7-18

Have you ever received a gift you didn’t request or want, but which you didn’t feel comfortable returning? Something like a piece of art which you really don’t care for, but made especially for you by a loved one. Or maybe you’ve been given a pet you weren’t ready for. Suddenly we have to decide whether that sculpture has to be on the coffee table all the time or just when Aunt Molly visits, and whether we can afford next month’s planned vacation and a pet sitter.

The prophet Elisha gave an unexpected gift to a Shunnamite woman who had prepared a place for him to stay when he traveled. The childless woman was past the age when she expected to bear children, but through the power of God Elisha told her she would conceive. When her son was older he one day returned from the field with a mysterious headache, and died sitting on his mother’s lap. The woman was left with anger and grief over the loss of something she had never expected to have. Fortunately, Elisha was able to restore the son to life.

A disciple named Ananias was given an unexpected vision from God. Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Christians, was laid up blind and Ananias was to visit him so his sight could be restored. Ananias’s response was basically, “Really Lord? This guy?” but God reassured him Paul was to be an instrument of great evangelism. Sight restored, Paul started with a bang and so angered the Jews with his preaching that they plotted to kill him. The disciples had to sneak Paul out of town in a basket lowered through a hole in the city wall. Paul would turn out to be a difficult gift to wrangle for years to come.

The more strongly we feel about respecting the giver, the tougher it is to deny a gift we didn’t want in the first place. Isn’t God the giver we respect the most? Not every gift we have from God will be one we desire. It may be inconvenient. Burdensome. Painful even. We need to figure out what to do with it anyway.

Making room for the unwelcome gifts along with the welcome teaches you not every gift is about you, but might be about the grace that is found in sacrificial love. If you’re not going to go out and get it for yourself, somebody has to give it to you.

Comfort: Every gift from God, even an unwelcome one, is a treasure.

Challenge: Ask yourself which of your gifts you are not using, and why.

Prayer: May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him. (Psalm 67:7)

Discussion: What’s the worst gift you’ve given? How did you find out it was a bad idea?

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Blood and Fire

/ JJS / 2 Comments
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The Sacrifice of Elijah before the Priest of Baal, Domenico Fetti, c. 1622

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 51; 148, 1 Kings 18:20-40, Philippians 3:1-16, Matthew 3:1-12

Today’s readings from 1 Kings and Matthew give us two very different perspectives on sacrifice.

When after three years of exile, drought, and famine the prophet Elijah returned to confront the corrupt king Ahab, he had to get past the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal with whom Ahab and his wife Jezebel had aligned themselves. Elijah challenged them to a contest: we’ll each sacrifice a bull, and whoever’s god manages to set it on fire is the winner. To attract their God’s attention and favor, the prophets of Baal marched around their bull until they were limping.  “They cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them.” If anything their bull only grew cooler as evening approached. Elijah was so confident in his God that he soaked the wood four times before offering his prayer. The fire of the Lord consumed the bull, the wood, and the stone and boiled off the water.

In the gospels, John the Baptist is closely associated with Elijah. Like Elijah he wore rough clothing of camel’s hair and a simple leather belt. John survived on a diet of locusts and honey. He was probably a little scary, living on the edge of his community and inviting the wrath of both the Jewish and Roman authorities by declaring the coming of the messiah. John, who would ultimately be imprisoned and executed, suffered for his faith.

Other than the fact that the prophets of Baal followed the wrong god, what differentiated their sacrifices of self-mutilation from John’s self-deprivation?

The prophets of Baal injured themselves in order to entice their god to do their bidding. John suffered because he wanted to do God’s bidding. With all our talk of Christ’s blood and the cross, we Christians sometimes seem to blur those lines. Our God is not one who demands sacrifice and suffering for the pleasure or cruelty of it. Needless suffering is something Christ asks us to remedy – not to perpetuate. Yet there are times we will suffer for staying true to our faith. The prophets of Baal limped and yelled and bled because they believed in a God who needed to be persuaded to want good things for them. We stay true to our God and find redemption in hardship because God’s love is a fire already burning within us.

Comfort: God doesn’t desire your suffering, but when you must God is with you. 

Challenge: Watch Paul Bloom’s video Against Empathy.

Prayer: Loving God, I turn my suffering over to you that you may transform it into redemption. Amen. 

Discussion: Do you think of your own suffering the same way you think of other people’s? Are you more likely to ask “Why me?” or “Why not me?”

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Cross Training

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 96; 147:1-11, 2 Samuel 9:1-13, Acts 19:1-10, Mark 8:34-9:1

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

These words highlight a turning point in Christ’s ministry. All the miraculous healings and signs are revealed to be part of a bigger picture in which anyone who wanted to follow him needed to be willing to share in the sacrifice.

This talk of the cross wouldn’t have had any of the redemptive connotations we associate with it today thanks to our clear hindsight about the resurrection. It would be more like being asked to accompany him to the electric chair or the gallows. The crosses we wear today as jewelry or hang as decorations would have been horrifyingly morbid.

Have time and the marketing of Christianity diminished our sense of the cross in the western world? “Having a cross to bear” usually refers to some personal ailment or struggle, unconnected to any greater salvific purpose. In a predominantly Christian society (about seventy-five percent according to a December 2015 Gallup poll), our faith is hardly risky despite our efforts to spin holiday greetings into a crisis. In a culture where it’s possible to legislatively force others to observe our own values, we are rather more likely to be builders of the cross than its bearers; the dictators rather than the risk-takers.

Picking up the cross represents willingness to sacrifice everything to follow Christ and love God. For most of us it’s not lifted overhead in a single clean-and-jerk motion, but through a lifetime of spiritual exercise. These words marked the end of disciple boot camp, the end of being toy Christian soldiers, and the beginning of putting that training to use. We train not to be the kind of soldiers who kill for a cause, but who will die for it. When we surrender to the weight of the cross, the demanding yoke is made easy, the difficult burden made light.

Comfort: Giving up your life sounds scary, but it’s liberating.

Challenge: Pay attention for crosses. When you see them, reflect on what they represent.

Prayer: Gracious God, give me the strength to let go of all that might stand between me and you.

Discussion: Other than the cross, what Christian symbols are meaningful to you and why?

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A Love/Hate Relationship

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 123; 146, Joel 2:3-11, Revelation 19:1-10, Luke 14:25-35

Today’s word from Luke is a tough one. A large crowd was following Jesus, and he turned to them and said:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple […] None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

If he was trying to thin the crowd, that probably worked. Not only is it daunting … it’s confusing. This is the same Jesus who tells us to love our enemies – our enemies – telling us to hate our loved ones. Who is going to sign up for that?

Fortunately, we have plenty of examples where Jesus used exaggeration to make a point, so we can take a step back to get some perspective. If we are going to claim to be disciples – that is, students and followers – of Christ, every other priority must place a distant second; a matchstick behind a bonfire; a puddle beside the ocean.

Discipleship has a cost. In a predominantly Christian culture, the need to pay that cost may feel far less urgent than in Jesus’s time, or in other cultures. If we want to, we can live our lives in almost exclusively Christian circles. But there’s a difference between following Christ and following Christians. Christ came for the sick, not the well, so to follow him we must often travel outside our safe spaces. Many fellow Christians aren’t going to want you to go. They may discourage you out of concern for your safety, or possibly because they don’t want to be reminded they aren’t paid up. And when that’s the case, we may have to leave them behind.

Whatever the cost, following Christ means following truth and love. We are called to shed the people and things that keep us from taking that journey. At the end, we won’t need the things, and we will come full circle to love the people again in a better way.

Comfort: Wherever Christ leads you, he will be there with you.

Challenge: Make a list of things you need to let go of to better follow Christ. Which one can you let go of this month?

Prayer: Merciful God, grant me the strength to be a true and faithful disciple of Christ. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever felt relief from letting go of something – a relationship, a possession, a feeling? If so, what was it?

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Truth and Consequences

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 104; 149, Job 38:1-17, Acts 15:22-35, John 11:45-54

For decades Judea was a fairly independent kingdom, but shortly after Jesus’s birth it fell directly under Roman administration. The Romans, aware of many Jews dissatisfied with the increasing restrictions, clamped down ruthlessly on any sign of insurrection. When a messianic, rabble-rousing Jesus grew yet more influential after raising Lazarus, the political climate had Jewish leaders worrying “the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”

We might be quick to judge the Pharisees (aren’t we always?), but the responsibility of protecting a nation against a threatening force strains ideals to the breaking point. Since the desires to keep people safe and to maintain personal power are not mutually exclusive, motivations become murky. This does not excuse the plot to kill Jesus, but it does put it into context. However, despite the Pharisee’s best efforts to appease both the Jews and the Romans, a Jewish revolt in 66 AD ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and her temple.

The Pharisees illustrate a valuable lesson: how we defend a thing can be as important – maybe more so – than the thing itself. If our methods to defend a family, institution, or nation fundamentally alter its character – for example, covering up a scandal to avoid exposure rather than practicing the integrity we preach – we are left with a diminished thing that may no longer even be worth defending. How hard do we have to search for churches that have undermined their own moral authority, democracies that respond to threats by restricting personal liberties, and businesses which trade ethics for the bottom line? Not far enough. And in almost all cases, leaders somehow justified to at least themselves and often their people that survival was worth the cost.

Yes, the world demands compromise, but Jesus teaches us to face the consequences of integrity. He tells us it’s better to show up to heaven missing eyes and hands rather than let them cause us to sin. That goes for wallets, titles, and flags as well. Jesus paid the ultimate price for our eternal life; don’t sell him short out of fear.

Comfort: Integrity costs us a lot because it’s worth it.

Challenge: See above.

Prayer: God of all humankind, may my decisions be a reflection of your love for me and all people. Amen.

Discussion: What are you willing to sacrifice for survival?

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