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.

Perspective: Higher Needs

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Higher Needs

Don't chase after what you will eat and what you will drink.  Stop worrying.  All the nations of the world long for these things.  Your Father knows that you need them.  Instead, desire his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.

Luke 12:29-31 (CEB)

All of You is more than enough for all of me

For every thirst and every need

You satisfy me with Your love

And all I have in You is more than enough

From "Enough" by Chris Tomlin

In the Gospel of Luke, we read that, one day, while Jesus is teaching a crowd, a man approaches Him and asks Him to tell his brother to share his inheritance with him.¹  Jesus, who has no interest in being drawn into this dispute, says to the crowd, "Watch out!  Guard yourself against all kinds of greed.  After all, one's life isn't determined by one's possessions, even when someone is very wealthy."

Jesus goes on to tell a parable as a warning to people who are rich in things and poor toward God.  In this parable, a farmer has an abundant harvest and ends up with a lot more grain than he needs.  Instead of sharing his abundance with others, he decides to build bigger barns to store his grain and then to take it easy for a while.  As he gets ready to relax and enjoy his life, having built his new barns stored up enough grain for the next few years, he hears from God, "Fool, tonight you will die.  Now who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?"

In the words of Alanis Morissette, "Isn't it ironic, don't you think?"²

Jesus then encourages the crowd to not worry about their basic needs saying, "Don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  There is more to life than food and more to the body than clothing."  He encourages the crowd to trust in the provision of God, who feeds the birds and clothes the grass with flowers.  He then says, "Don't chase after what you will eat and what you will drink.  Stop worrying...  Your Father knows that you need them.  Instead, desire his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well."

For me, Jesus' teachings about greed and worry call to mind psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs.  Maslow's hierarchy is typically illustrated as a pyramid on which our basest, most urgent physiological needs are placed at the bottom and on which our higher, more complex needs are placed at the top.  Maslow argued that our more basic needs must be met before we can even consider our higher needs.³

Jesus teaches us to not worry about things like food and clothing but to instead trust in God's provision.  Both food and clothing are among our physiological needs, which make up the basest category on Maslow's hierarchy.  Jesus teaches us to be on guard against greed and warns us not to hoard what God has provided us.  I suspect that often, beneath a person's temptation to hoard, there is a desire for security.  Security is classified as a "safety need," which is the second basest category of needs on Maslow's hierarchy.⁴

Regarding our physiological needs, Jesus says that "there is more to life than food and more to the body than clothing."  Regarding our safety needs, He says that "one's life isn't determined by one's possessions."  I wonder if maybe Jesus is encouraging us to reach higher.  More than once in His teachings on greed and worry, He tells us that there is more to life than our baser needs.  In another Gospel, He says, "I came that [people] may have life, and have it abundantly."⁵

I wonder if maybe one reason Jesus encourages us not to worry about our basest needs and warns us not to be greedy in our search for security is that He wants us to recognize that we have other needs.  Perhaps things like greed and worry keep us preoccupied with our baser needs and prevent us from pursuing our higher needs.  The higher categories of needs on Maslow's hierarchy are needs related to love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.⁶  Perhaps Jesus wants us to realize our need for things like love, community, self-worth, and purpose, and maybe He even invites us to come to Him and have those needs met.

Christ calls us into community with each other and teaches us to love one another.  In Christ, we see that we are all beloved children of God.  We are individually gifted by the Holy Spirit so that we may to work together as the Body of Christ to reflect God's love to the world.  We are blessed by God to be a blessing to the people around us.  When we share our excess with those in need, we become the hands and feet with which God meets their needs.

God loves us and cares about our needs.  May you, dear reader, trust in God to provide not only what you need to survive but everything you need to be what God created you to be.


Notes:

1. Much of this perspective is based on Luke 12:13-34.  Quotations are taken from the Common English Bible.
2. From the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette
3. Wikipedia: "Maslow's hierarchy of needs"
4. ibid
5. John 10:10 (NRSV)
6. Wikipedia: "Maslow's hierarchy of needs"

The diagram of Maslow's hierarchy of needs was created by Wikimedia user Chiquo and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  The creator is in no way affiliated with this blog.