Sacrifice And Stuff (Rom 12:1)

Well, this is the last time you are going to hear from Eugene Peterson and myself for some time. Let's make it worthwhile...

Our scripture this morning is found in Romans 12:1. I’m going to read it now:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

As mentioned before, the Lord's Table is - Biblically - an extension of the Passover meal. They are both parallel and intersecting events. Both are meals that occur before a mighty, epoch-changing, redemptive act of God. As much as the redemption of Israel by God through Moses defined the Israelites and Judaism; that is but a starting point for the complete redemption and salvation accomplished by Christ.

Sacrifice is central to salvation.

Sacrifice is God's way of dealing with sin. All of the other self-help projects and movement that we have, or ever will, create - while having some value - will never be enough. All of those can, in ways, make the world better.

But none can accomplish salvation. That comes from God. And God's way of salvation is sacrifice.

Now there was, back in Paul’s day, several religious and philosophic schools out there that resisted the need for sacrifice – or even salvation, for that matter. In their thinking, there was the “spiritual” world and the physical world. The spiritual realm was about ideals; it was wonderful, pure, and more real. But the physical world was about the flesh. It was evil, corrupt, maybe even an illusion. The thought that God, who is spiritual, would become flesh in Christ was not merely hard to understand; it was religiously offensive! That God would deal directly with the physical world … well, it just ‘wasn’t done.’ Such a notion was contrary to what they thought, knew what was true, and … ewe! … it was Bad Form, impolite, nonsense. Crazy talk!

Yet the Bible tells a very different thing about how God works in the world. God is neither repulsed by nor intimidated by the physical world. After all, he created it – and it was good. But – as we know – things went wrong.

The world now needs fixing – and we need saving. We are in grievous mortal peril, we are lost, and we feel the clammy fingers of death around our throats. We need to be saved!

And God’s way of salvation is sacrifice.

Notice that sacrifice always involves "stuff,” “things” - physical material: flour, grain, lambs, goats, incense and structures to put them on, like 'altars.' Leviticus is the Operator's Manual for righteous sacrifice. And sacrifice involves stuff: physical things – even the flesh of animals. Physical sacrifice impacts spiritual realities. That is completely contrary to the spirit of the age that Paul lived in.

We are, by the way, to bring our best "stuff" to be sacrificed. Why? Partly to remind us that the best we can do is not good enough. God has to take it and do something with it. That's part of the anticipation of sacrifice: what will God do with it? Exercising this faith that God can leverage these small things into a great salvation is part of Biblical worship.

But, until Christ came, all of that sacrifice was temporary, transitory, not permanent. Until Jesus became sin for us, having died once for all; sacrifice taught us that salvation was an uncertain thing. We had to trust that God would be pleased with the fragrant aroma of our best stuff being burned up before a priest. Now Christ's sacrifice completes that lesson: all of the sacrifice that we might attempt is useless. It was always about God doing salvation, and it still is!

Sacrifice always involved stuff and in Christ's sacrifice, it was his physical, bodily death through the shedding of his innocent blood. Again, stuff: wood, nails, thorns, body, blood.

No; sacrifice is not an obsolete concept. If worship is rightly defined as the presentation of God's truth and our response to it, then Romans 12:1 helps us see the continuing role of sacrifice even after Jesus' death. Paul implores us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Now that's a twist! No longer do we offer our best. No; now we offer our-selves. Not as an atonement for our sins - because Christ has already completed that. But as a reasonable response to that truth. We sing, "Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord to thee."

Of course, you know the problem with living sacrifices, don't you? Right? Well, they keep standing up and walking off the altar! In the paradox of our salvation in Christ, we are both crucified with Christ and no longer live; yet I now live because Christ who lives in me.

Sacrifice, salvation, and stuff.

That is why Jesus has us remember our salvation using stuff: bread and wine. Without the concrete physical stuff, it becomes easy to drift off into the spirit of our age – which is not unlike Paul’s time. We can drift into a ‘Jesus-as-Great-Example’ gospel. Sure, that is true, as far as it goes; but it does not go nearly far enough. Jesus is more than merely a great example.

We can also drift into a spirituality of ideas about Jesus rather than receiving the very life of Jesus. God does not want us to be merely “spiritual” people; he also wants us to live out our ‘spirituality’ in our physical, every-day life in this world. The bread and cup - these physical symbols - remind us of the sacrifice that is just as real as the stuff that God used to secure our salvation.

Weird “Christians”

Generally, those in the pastorate very much want to interact with people outside their church. We see ourselves not only as helpers but also as those with the ‘treasure in jars of clay.’ We want to help and we have something of value that we want to share. But it gets weird, in some cases.

We got a call from a guy some time ago who initially asked about the church but then had very specific questions. The call was initially fielded by our church secretary who took the name and number of the caller and said she’d gotten rather flustered by him. The questions were getting specific and she did not feel confident to address them.

So I called this guy. It was a very unpleasant conversation with this guy insisting that churches don’t do the things in the Bible. His grammar was poor and his manner both abrasive and confrontational. At one point he said that we should never do things that are not in “the book.” So I asked him about democracy, automobiles, and English – all things that are not in the Bible that he himself participates. Not many people like being drawn into a debate like this. I’m one of those, as well. It went like that for ten minutes.

Finally I asked what church he regularly attends. He said he goes to lots of churches. But I asked; do you attend any one church regularly? No, he replied. I offered, "Then you yourself are not obeying the fellowshipping commanded in the book of Hebrews." (Hebrews 10:25). He was quiet for a second and I followed up with the fact that his whole conversational posture here was argumentative. He denied that – of course – and insisted that he was “just asking questions.” I don’t know about you all, but somebody who tells me they are “just asking questions” is not “just asking questions.” Every lawyer knows that hostile cross-examination is always done “just asking questions.”

He had a theological hot button about being saved. How did it really happen? I quoted the epistle to the Romans – one of the most powerful discussions on our need for salvation in all of scripture. But that wasn’t "good enough" (scripture isn’t “good enough?”); at the same time, he insisted that I find a place in the Bible where people were actually saved because they believed on Jesus and were baptized. I countered, if the Apostle Paul says that’s the way it is, then it is true. The Bible doesn’t have to provide an example – why do you insist on that? Again, a moment of silence.

He sounded like a “discernment” guy and his whole ‘conversation’ was about telling rather than listening. I gently confronted him on his tone, his attitude, and his judgmental posture and suggested that if he wanted to actually engage the truths of scripture then he would need to do more conversing (that is, listening) than broadcasting. That didn’t seem to be likely so I told him that he would not be interested in coming to our church.

I have no doubt that on some discernment website or blog, this nutcase will state that I or my church do not really believe or practice the Bible.

What is really annoying about people like this is their assumption that they know more than they do. Reading the Bible is fairly easy to do for a literate person – fully understanding it takes a lifetime of rigorous, detailed, and humble study. Those who have actually done that report that the Bible is richer, deeper, far more complex and nuanced than they ever imagined when they began. “Great is the mystery of godliness.”

But for people like my caller (and other so-called ‘discernment’ crusaders), the truth is simplistic and must correspond only with what they wish to believe. They can’t imagine that they might be wrong. Humility is not a virtue and certainly not a characteristic they possess. In fact, actual ignorance and lack of education is held up as a strength. These are weird people.

But what is even more worrying is that there are many contemporary ‘Evangelicals’ who can’t tell the difference. I mean, as an example, people who don’t know the difference between a Benny Hinn (heretic) and Charles Stanley (good guy) – they’re both on T.V. It turns out that actual and real discernment among most Christians is not that common. What passes as ‘discernment’ on the internet is a dressed-up version of old-school Neo-Fundamentalism. You know who those are: the people who don’t seem to be for anything but are very much AGAINST nearly everything. I am concerned because there are a lot of shallowly-planted followers of Jesus who actually can’t tell the difference between real discernment and the angry discernment.

So, what can be done? Is it hopeless? Is there any way to beef-up the true discernment of the average American Evangelical? What do you think?

Thoughts on Hebrews 11

I’ve been thinking about that famous chapter of the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven, frequently called the “Hall of Fame.” The chapter begins with a discussion of the nature of faith. The writer of Hebrews (we don’t really know who that is) does something that neither John, Paul, nor James do – he defines the word “faith.” And, wouldn’t you know?, he uses the word a tad differently than the other guys (who all use the word differently from each other – a topic for another day). Faith, for the writer, is both a rational thing and an action thing.

ByTheWay, no Biblical writer ever suggests that faith is a “blind leap” like wishful thinking. That is a completely un-Biblical understanding of the word.

The point of this whole section (and the writer has been working up to it throughout the book) is that faith is what saves. Hebrews 11:2 “For by it the people of old received their commendation.” That is, the idea of salvation by faith is not some new-fangled idea invented by John or Paul. It’s been around from the Very Beginning.

There are some really interesting things to notice in the chapter. First, the writer seems to emphasize a ‘declaratory’ nature to faith in the time before Moses. People are commended, speak (4, 14), are warned, are called, condemn, receive promises, bless, and make mention. These are all words related to speech, to declaring something. At the same time, notice that these people also are doing things. Kinda a ‘speech-act’ notion. Interestingly, after Moses faith is demonstrated pretty much only by action.

But then Moses comes along. There are three Great Heroes to the Hebrew people: Abraham (Father - identity), Moses (Prophet), and David (king). The writer deals with two of them, Abraham and Moses. Like Paul and James, the writer affirms that Abraham was not justified by the Law, but by vital faith. Even more startling to the readers (Hebrews) is that "The Law Giver," Moses, was approved before God because of his faith – not his ability to keep the Law! Even today we refer to that governmental, sacrificial, and ethical complex of rules as “The Law of Moses.” But the writer slaps that down pointing out that even Moses wasn’t justified because of The Law that bears his name.

But the REAL agenda that the writer wants to emphasize is that it is only Jesus who is the standard, source, and object of faith. It is clear that every person mentioned in the so-called “Roll Call of Faith” was a sinner; some of them notoriously so. But Jesus is the perfect example of faith. The writer says, in 12:1-2, (pardon my paraphrase): ‘While you have all of those examples of so-called “Great Faith,” you’re looking in the wrong direction. You need to look at Jesus – he’s the Real Deal.’

So the writer’s argument is that it is faith in a proper object, from a proper source, and actually relied upon that saves. And it has always been that way.