Second Sunday after Pentecost - Year A
What does Jesus mean; “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”?
Jesus lived in a time when the people of God would offer animals, grain and fruit to God. The animals, in particular were given as sacrifices to atone for sin. This was a community that knew they were far from perfect, but the law, handed down from Moses, revealed where they failed and gave them a model of forgiveness. For most, it was a way of acknowledging their sin before God and a way to be reminded of God’s grace in forgiving them, and the sacrifice offered was a prophetic sign of the work that Jesus would accomplish. For others, they thought that they had a “work around”. They would sin, but they would then go and offer a sacrifice and then feel their conscience cleared before God. It was, in their mind, how the law worked and how God operated. After all, it was God’s own law. Yet these people should have known from the writings of the prophets, in particular from Hosea (6:6), that God desires mercy rather than sacrifice.
Today, we live in a society, that is very different from this. We know that an animal can’t absolve us from our sin. However, how do we, in our modern society deal with our sin? How do people who have sinned, clear their conscience?
We don’t have to watch T.V. or listen to the radio too long to realize that there are plenty who will point the finger at someone else’s sin, but have you noticed that there a much fewer willing to admit their own failings? And maybe even less willing to extend grace and mercy!
To say that we are sinners is not something that we tend to do. However, if asked why there is evil in the world, it would be stated that someone else is evil and sinned. Society on the whole is doing the same as Adam and Eve after eating the forbidden fruit, they point the finger at another and blame them… and even blame God. Among my friends who don’t attend church there are many who are actually bitter towards God, blaming him for their lot in life. I often wonder which was the more important failing in that ancient story – the actual disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit or the unwillingness to take responsibility for the action.
If we, as a whole people, are unwilling to admit blame or acknowledge our sinfulness, how do we deal with our consciences? I do believe that deep down we all have a conscience and at a very basic level, most ordinary people are actually aware of imperfections. Yet, I think we tend to deflect and cast the attention away from ourselves and so we blame, drown in alcohol, or drugs, live in bitterness and more blame, perhaps. Somewhere in this tangled web we are weaving there needs to be a better answer.
God always has the better answer. God has a different way of operating. He desires Mercy rather than sacrifice, and even the Bible tells us that the blood of animals could never take away sin, but the system pointed to the one and only sacrifice of Jesus. The catch…. We need to receive this gift from God and admit the reality of our condition- But then Jesus completely deals with it…. It is gone! Delt with! Done! And this is not because we offer a sacrifice, it is because we respond to the mercy of God.
Abraham responded to the call of God, to leave his home. In many ways our faith is a journey, and Abraham’s faith journey went through many twists and turns and grew as his journey continued. Along the journey God promised Abraham that the land that he passed through would become an inheritance for his offspring. Only problem was, Abraham was already old and his wife was both old and barren. However, when God tells you something, you believe it. It may have been humanly, physically impossible, but God is bigger and can do more than we can imagine.
My sense is that we are in a season where God is enlarging our vision. God has bigger plans for our lives, whether we are old or young. He has a vision of our lives that is bigger than what we can possibly imagine. In fact, God absolutely loves to turn our human expectations and ways of doing things upside down. He gives families to the old and barren and gives wisdom to the young. Moses was 120 years old when he died, and the bible tells us that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. What’s more, as he went to be with the Lord, he climbed a mountain. We really don’t know the things that God has in store for us, but let’s be sure that we don’t limit God’s work in our lives by limiting our vision of what he can or might do.
I guess this message today could be that God has a wonderful plan for your life. Aaand I gotta tell you, I hated those talks when I was young! I felt that God had called me, but I seemed to be stuck in a rut for SO many years. It felt like the promises of God were an empty promise because there was no sign of fulfilment. It is important to remember that the object of God’s plan is always for us to grow in faith.
Abraham lived a long time without any fulfilment of the promises of God. We don’t know very much about the day to day struggle this may have been for him. We do know that Sarah suggested he help God out by having a child with her servant, so we know that there were times when there must have been grief about his lack of children and Sarah’s barrenness. Even though Abraham’s faith never wavered, there is evidence that the delay in seeing the fulfilment of the promise was not always a happy time. Can you imagine what it must have been like after all this to then finally have the miraculous birth of Isaac and then to be told by God to offer him as a sacrifice?
By this time in Abraham’s faith journey, he had experienced the goodness of God and the fulfilment of the promise in Isaac’s miraculous birth. Therefore, by this time, Abraham didn’t hesitate in being obedient to God, which shows us that he had learnt to trust in God completely. God promised that through Isaac, Abraham’s offspring would inherit the land and be a blessing to the nations. So, Abraham trusted that the God who gave children to the barren could bring Isaac back from the dead. Abraham’s faith had grown through his lifetime of relationship with God.
It was at the time of offering Isaac back to God that Abraham is described as believing God and it being reckoned to him as righteousness.
This is a somewhat baffling, but an important aspect of our faith that we need to understand. This relationship with God, such that Abraham completely trusted God and trusted in God’s love and desire for good in Abraham’s life…. This understanding of God’s infinite power… this surety that God would indeed keep his promise and do what he says… this is the believe that was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. This is a belief in the promise of God. We too are reckoned as righteous when we also trust in the promise of God. We are not going to heaven by being good people, or because we keep God’s law or anything else we might do, bar our trust (or faith) in God and our relationship with Him.
The tangled web we weave on this earth, blaming others and living in bitterness is only hurting ourselves. To live such a life, as to imagine that we are “good enough”, is a dangerous delusion.
The truth is, that there is a better way. The Good News of Jesus Christ is a declaration that God knows we fail and loves us so much that he made a way for us – a righteousness that is by faith and not by works. It comes through having a relationship with God and the sacrifice of Jesus. We don’t need to sacrifice, because it has been done – once and for all by Jesus. But we do need to be merciful because if God has done this for us, then we need to stop blaming others, understand our own failings, and we need to act with the same mercy that reflects God’s own nature.
The religious of Jesus day used the law as a means to be justified and in so doing, they rejected people. They, themselves were also sinners, but they actually manipulated God’s law such that all they did really, was to lower the sin bar so that they, the religious leaders, might be seen as righteous according to the manipulated law. This is why Jesus said; “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:20
Our righteousness does surpass the Pharisees and the teachers of the law because it is a righteousness that God reckons to us, because of our faith in him. Jesus said to the haemorrhaging lady, “Your faith has made you well”. Our faith makes us well. It is our humble submitting to God, our ever growing relationship with God, and our trust in God and His promises, against all odds, that makes us well.
Like Abraham, we are people of faith. It is this gift that covers over our failings and instead sees us as righteous before God. Every person who turns to God, still has times of failure. I’ve met some Christians who were quite desperate in not being sure that God could accept them because after turning to Christ and following God, they then did something wrong. They didn’t know for sure where they stood with God. Perhaps you have also had this experience. The truth is that God loves you. His mercy is forever and when you belong to him, you forever belong to him. You are not righteous because of works or lack of, but because you are his and your faith is in him.
Sin is simply missing the mark of perfection. Jesus tells us that he came to call not the righteous but sinners. Matthew and the sick lady identified as sinners, even though they were not people that WE might call sinners. The fact that their circumstances cast them out of that “Nice” Jewish society, meant that they knew they missed the mark of perfection – they had no wall of pride and self-righteousness and they were desperate to accept the gift of Jesus- a gift of acceptance. The synagogue leader also, left his place of rank by openly turning to Jesus, who other religious leaders of his time had rejected. All knew that their life was not perfect, and in their humility, they turned to the mercy of God.
There is no need to redefine what is and isn’t sin, lower the bar of perfection, or manipulate the law of God so that we can feel that God should accept us. No… the standard is simply too high – Leave it there…. It is the truth. But the truth is also that we are shown such mercy that God through our faith in Jesus, calls us his children. We are accepted. Like Abraham, we are on a faith journey, and it is by faith that we are assured of God’s saving grace. Let us keep our hearts surrendered to God and continue to grow in our relationship, of trust and faith in him.
