Perspective: Mercy Over Sacrifice

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Mercy Over Sacrifice

For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything.  What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

Galatians 5:6 (The Message)

'Cause we can talk and debate it till we're blue in the face
About the language and tradition that He's coming to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don't give a [$#%&]
About fifty-thousand people who are dying today

From "What Matters More" by Derek Webb

In the Gospel of Matthew, we read that one day Jesus calls a tax collector named Matthew to follow Him.¹  As collaborators with the Roman Empire, tax collectors were hated by Jesus' people in those days, so inviting one to be a disciple would have been considered a strange choice on Jesus' part.  Later that day, while Jesus is enjoying some dinner with His new disciple and some of his fellow tax collectors, some religious leaders ask the other disciples why their Teacher would associate with such people.²

The religious leaders see the so-called "sinners" Jesus is befriending as bad people who should be ostracized.  Jesus, on the other hand, sees sinners as sick people in need of healing, and He understands that He can be a healing presence for them.  He says to the religious leaders, "Go and learn what this means: I want mercy and not sacrifice."³

On another occasion, while Jesus and the Disciples are traveling past a wheat field, the Disciples, who are hungry, pick some heads of wheat to eat.  Some religious leaders see what the Disciples are doing, and they ask Jesus why He would allow them to pick wheat on the Sabbath Day.⁴  According to the Law of their religion, the Sabbath Day is meant solely for rest.  Food that is eaten on that day must have been harvested and prepared on the previous day.⁵

Jesus responds to the religious leaders by reminding them of instances from their sacred scriptures in which people rightly bent or broke the rules of their religion out of necessity.  He then says, "If you had known what this means, I want mercy and not sacrifice, you wouldn't have condemned the innocent."⁶

In both of these encounters between Jesus and the religious leaders, Jesus references the Book of Hosea, in which God says through the titular prophet, "I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God instead of entirely burnt offerings."⁷  The ancient Hebraic Law prescribed a number of different animal sacrifices that were to be offered as acts of worship to God for different occasions.  Some sacrifices were offered on specific holy days; others were offered to atone for wrongdoings; and others were offered out of gratitude.  Some people evidently believed that, as long as they fulfilled their ritual obligations to God, how they lived and how they treated other people didn't really matter.  Prophets like Hosea fought back against that idea.

The religious leaders who clash with Jesus throughout the Gospel story strive to follow the rules of their religion impeccably, and they want the rest of their own people to put forth the same effort.  Jesus wants them to reconsider their priorities.

Jesus reminds the religious leaders that David, a military leader who would later become Israel's most famous king, once took sacred bread from a place of worship.  David and his soldiers would not normally be permitted to eat this bread, but they needed food, and the sacred bread was the only food available.⁸  Jesus also points out that, even though work is forbidden on the Sabbath Day, priests continue to carry out their duties in the temple on the Sabbath Day.⁹  Apparently people depend on them to do their sacred work regardless of what day it is.

Associating with traitorous, thieving tax collectors might be discouraged in Jesus' religion, but Jesus understands that even "sinners" need someone who will befriend them and bring out the best in them, in the same way that sick people need a doctor to bring them back to health.  Preparing food on the Sabbath Day is forbidden in Jesus' religion, but Jesus understands that hungry people need to eat, regardless of what day it is.

To prioritize mercy over sacrifice, as Jesus urges the religious leaders to do, is to prioritize the needs of one's neighbor over the rules of one's religion.

Later on, a religious scholar with questionable motives will ask Jesus what He thinks is the most important commandment in the Law of their religion.  Jesus will reply, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself."  He will then suggest that all other religious rules ultimately boil down to these two commandments.¹⁰  To Jesus, religious rules do not exist simply to be followed; they exist to help us to love God and to love each other.

Religion has a bad rep nowadays, even among some religious people, but religion is not a bad thing.  Religious observances help us to keep our focus on God, and religious rules help us to do the right thing.  That said, religion is misused whenever it hinders us from loving other people.  God is love,¹¹ and good religion empowers us to love.


Notes:

1. Matthew 9:9
2. Matthew 9:10-11
3. Matthew 9:12-13 (CEB)
4. Matthew 12:1-2
5. Exodus 20:8-11
6. Matthew 12:3-7 (CEB)
7. Hosea 6:6 (CEB)
8. 1 Samuel 21:1-6
9. Numbers 28:9-10
10. Matthew 22:34-40 (CEB)
11. 1 John 4:8

The illustration featured in this perspective was drawn by Alexandre Bida in the late 1800s.