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.

Sacrifice And Service (2Cor 4:7ff)

I was reading this passage this morning and reflected on Paul’s sacrificial commitment to the ministry of the Good News about Jesus. Paul is intense, extreme, and hard-core in his devotion to Christ and the do-whatever-it-takes posture of spreading the news and encouraging people to be close to God because of Jesus.

Now Paul’s sacrifice for the work of Christ was great – even life-threatening. I’ve lived most of my life in suburbia and minister now in middle-class American suburbia. My ministry has hardly ever been even close to life-threatening. There are those who will be quick to tell me that I’m not *really* living for Christ, much less doing ministry – my life is too easy, convenient, and safe. And they are right – my life is relatively easy, convenient, and safe. One reason that is true is because I have family to care for: a wonderful wife and three great children. Which is a fact consistent with 1Cor. 7:32-35 – that my family responsibilities ‘limit’ my ability to minister.

But I have recently read about ‘limits’ and would gently correct my hard-core accusers: God has made me, shaped me, and equipped me to do some things well and other things not very well at all. I am good with things and tools, bad at athletics; good with words, only fair with numbers; good at changing light bulbs without a ladder, bad a crawling into tight spaces. We all have limits, as well as gifts; experiences as well as naivete';  fumbling as well as competence; calling as well as confusion. What seems to be part of the Christian life is learning to live as God made us and live toward what God wants us to become. My ‘limits,’ I’m learning, are actually gifts that God has given me and I am learning to welcome them and cherish them as helping me to understand the uniqueness that God has formed into me.

So I see my limits as informing my calling – yes, here to suburbia. “Calling,” as I understand it, is the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit on the direction I should take my life – not somebody’s else’s life: mine. And when God tells me to do something, everything I’ve learned and experienced tells me that I should really get about what he tells me to do. The alternative is always worse.

Additionally, I will suggest that “burning out for Jesus!” is not Paul’s answer, either. Philippians 1:21-25 show that Paul actually seems to have considered that option. In my hard-core brothers’ perspective: “live life hard for Jesus, shine bright, flame out, and go to heaven!” Paul seems to have two options before him: flame out and go to heaven, or stay here and slog along being helpful to Christians still here. He seems to indicate that the *more sacrificial option* was to stay here; perhaps even that flaming-out would have been slightly narcissistic and self-serving as an ‘easy way out.’

Nobody is suggesting that martyrdom is easy – but the larger issue is: what does God want? This shows up with Paul again as he state elsewhere that true loving sacrifice was in service, not mere death (Romans 12:1, 1Cor. 13:3).

So as I read this passage in 2Corinthians 4, I am on one hand challenged to stretch, to press into the hard things, and to travel into the bad places – if that’s where God calls me. But just because God called Paul to rather extreme deprivations does not mean I have to follow him there. I follow Paul as he follows Christ (1Cor 11:1) in doing what I have been called to do.

Pastors, Maturity or Elitism?

“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready…” 1 Corinthians 3:1-2

Spiritual elitism is a subtle sin. It is sin because a significant component of elitism is pride. Pride, said one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, is the first – maybe even the root – sin.

One of the factors that brought me into vocational ministry in mid-life was a season of spiritual renewal that started about ten years ago. Several things converged together to create a storm that re-awakened my love for Jesus, my desire to serve him at a greater level, and to sharpen my biblical-theological understanding. In summary, my spiritual life ramped up.

As I entered into this new ‘neighborhood’ of faith, I had to realize that not everyone around me was in the same place. I had to fight the idea that I was in a “better” spiritual place than my other friends. In fact, one of the minor frustrations that some of my other pastoral mentors have admitted to is a relative lack of faith in their congregations and even in church leadership. Certainly, your average spiritually-healthy full-time vocational pastor should be more spiritually mature and is committed to living a life of faith in service to Jesus than most of his congregation. But that can be frustrating. The pastor says: ‘I see the blessings that can come into your life if you’d trust God more fully, but you don’t want to really do that.’

I wonder if Paul was a similarly frustrated: “I’d really want to get you folks to a greater level of maturity, but you are acting like babies. Since you aren’t ready to go further, I can’t treat you like grown-ups so that’s why I treat you like babies.” Ouch.

Now I think there is a distinction between understanding that your spiritual journey is a bit farther down the road than some others of your friends, and the sin implied in thinking that you are better than those who haven’t travelled as far. Paul was also careful to recognize this sin – especially in the context of church leadership – when he refers to Proverbs 16:18 (‘Pride goes before a fall’) in his first letter to Timothy (3:6). And again, Paul says this to every Christian when he warns us to understand ourselves rightly (Rom. 12:3) – not too high or too low.

I’m still coming to grips in understanding this distinction because this is an area where I fall into sin. But I think the distinction is this: a proper pastoral concern for his flock’s relative immaturity focuses on them; but spiritual elitism is self-centered and is much more about the sinner’s reputation, esteem, and ‘position.’

This is where Paul’s frustration comes in: he cares very much for his friends at the church he planted and wants them to enjoy more blessings in Jesus. But they are so distracted by personality cults, ‘toleration’ and moral relativism, dysfunctional conflict, weird ideas about marriage, superstitions, money, church time, spiritual gifts, and a confused understanding about the gospel. All of these problems are preventing many of the folks in the church from living the lives that God wants for them. This is frustrating!

This would be like a parent who watches his children divide up Halloween candy and get into a terrible fight over one piece of Tootsie Roll while completely missing the pile of candy that they each have in front of them. The mature parent doesn’t point out the silliness of their fight because he or she wants to appear wise and morally superior; no, the mature parent realizes that the kids are missing the overwhelming blessings of a sugar-induced coma because of a very minor thing. They want their kids to learn perspective: don’t focus on the little thing, consider the big pile in front of you – especially when the little thing is keeping you from the big pile.

So from this section of scripture, I see some interesting pastoral applications. And my conclusions is this: a pastor has to be just a tad set apart to help people along on their spiritual journey. As Eugene Peterson says: “It is the pastor’s responsibility to keep the community attentive to God.” (Working the Angles, 2).