Sacrifice and Salvation

 Preached at Silverton Friends Church

April 28, 2024

William Blake wrote a poem: “To God / If you have form’d a circle to go into / Go into it yourself and see how you would do.” This is exactly what God did in the Son, Jesus. Jesus came into the world, our circle, and we can see how God did and what God did in that circle.

Central to Christian belief is that God loved the world in this way: Jesus came as God’s only begotten Son to seek for and save the lost so that they might not perish. Jesus said that he came not to condemn the world, but so that the world through him could be saved. He was killed for his message of inclusive grace and and for teaching the need to align one’s heart and words and deeds and for his insistence that he would not play the game of power so dear to human beings.

Jesus’s choice to embrace sacrifice and the result that we now are at one with God have been preached around the world.  The way we explain to ourselves why Jesus died at the hands of human beings has enormous significance for how we view God and ourselves and our mutual relationship. I think that each explanation can cite passages from the Bible in support. The discussion, and even enmity, around these explanations underlines the centrality of sacrifice for Christians. Some Christians are uncomfortable and perhaps even queasy about the idea of such a sacrifice being necessary. So I want to think with you about the distinction between being a sacrifice and being a victim, and spoiler alert, the distinction centers on agency.

Probably most obvious is that a victim suffers without having chosen it.  I think about the near death of Isaac in the Old Testament.  The story goes like this: after decades of waiting for a son with his wife Sarah, God sent her a son.  Now, what often goes unsaid is that Abraham had an older son with Sarah’s slave, Hagar, which was apparently an acceptable version of surrogacy in those times.  Ishmael could have inherited, but he would have been known to be the son of the slave. But God showed up to Abraham and promised that Sarah, in her 90s, would have a baby, too.  And she did, recognizing the joke on her by calling him Isaac, which means laughter.  She forced Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael so Isaac would be the only son, and he did. In this case, both Hagar and Ishmael were victims of Sarah’s jealousy and Abraham’s spinelessness.  But God stepped in and met Hagar and led her and Ishmael to water and safety. You can read this whole story in Genesis 12-23.

Then, when Isaac was old enough to help carry firewood, God told Abraham to take him up on a mountain and offer him up to God at that place. I have wondered whether this took place in a culture that practiced human sacrifice, but I don’t know. Abraham followed God’s instructions, even proceeding to the point of tying Isaac on top of the firewood, lifting his hand with the knife in it. God halted the proceedings at that point, saying, “Now I know that you are in awe of God—you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” And God provided a ram for the sacrifice instead of the boy.  

If Abraham had gone through with the offering, he would have sacrificed, but Isaac would have been the victim, having had no choice in the matter. However, like his banished brother Ishmael, Isaac got to witness God taking care of him when God provided the ram in his place. This is God’s repeated posture in the scripture—identifying with the victim, caring for the victim.

I’ve speculated about this story more than once, wondering why an omniscient God had to find out whether Abraham would be obedient, wondering if instead Abraham had to find out whether he would be obedient. God only knows what lessons God wanted Abraham to draw from that incident, but it’s likely Isaac did not draw the same ones. I’ve wondered how Isaac viewed his father after this event, and how Isaac viewed his father’s God. I’ve thought about how it connects up with Jesus saying that anyone who loves father and mother and wife and children more than they love Jesus is not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37-39). Or even more shockingly, Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.(Luke 14:26, NRSV). These passages, particularly the reference to hatred, make me so uncomfortable. I had to try to soften them, and the word itself does not actually permit softening.  So we have to look at how Jesus behaved as he followed the Spirit of God to help us understand. What does it look like to live putting everything second to God’s Spirit?

Jesus had no wife or children, though people like to speculate, and the possibility is that because his conception was irregular, he was in something of a marginalized position in Jewish society. He did have a mother, and we can look at how he treated her in order to understand what he said.  At the age of 12, which is the Jewish age of manhood, he let her know he would put God’s business first. He listened to her and granted her request at the marriage in Cana, turning the water into wine, but he pushed back, rebuking her a little.  When she came to see him, worried he was in danger of losing mind and life, he refused to go out to see her, saying, “My mother and family are those who hear the word of God and do it.” But when he was dying, he committed her welfare to the disciple he loved, John, who from that day took her into his family. He let her know that obedience to God was top priority, making Mom happy was second at most, but he cared for her.

Further, I want to point out that Jesus also called to account those religious people who let their parents suffer while they designated big sums for the temple, and he condemned those who made it hard for children to approach and trust him and his Father. He said that what people do to the little ones they do to him, so all that has to be carried in the mind while meditating on the absoluteness of the call of God on our lives. Following God first does not mean carelessness about those we love or cruelty to our neighbors.

Jesus made his all or nothing statements in reference to the decision to follow him, so we need to observe closely and intelligently what Jesus did with his life.  Crucially, he depended always on God to tell him what to do and how to do it.  “I do only what I see the Father doing,” he said.

One way Jesus resembled his Father is in looking beyond surfaces to see what another human being is prioritizing. He looked at the rich young ruler and saw that, despite his goodness, what he held as a priority was riches. So he said, “Give them away and come follow me.” He looked at Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and saw that they prioritized their family business and heritage as fishermen. So he said, “Come follow me and I’ll make you fishers for human beings.” He looked at Nicodemus and saw he prioritized his age and intelligence and knowledge of the law. So he said, “You must start over as a new baby in order to follow me.” He looked at Judas and saw he prioritized political expediency and personal advantage. So he said, “Make your choice about what to do and choose quickly.” He looked at the woman caught in the act of adultery and saw she prioritized being desired and desiring. So he said, “Go and sin no more.” He looked at Pharisees and saw them basking in superiority about their knowledge and observance of the law. So he said, “You exempt yourselves from the spirit of the law by following your interpretation of the letter, and you make it impossible for others to measure up. Unless you change direction, you are the children of the devil.” He looked at Zacchaeus and saw that he prioritized getting to see Jesus at the cost of personal dignity. So he said, “Come down and I’ll eat with you.” And Zacchaeus said, “I’ll repay everyone I’ve defrauded and pay damages as well.” 

Some of these people indeed set aside what they had made central to their lives and identities, choosing to follow Jesus. Occasionally they expressed the feeling that they hoped this would pay off tangibly somehow, and occasionally Jesus pointed out that how people treated him was a good indication of how they would treat those who follow him.

When Jesus chose to allow himself to be arrested and crucified, he sacrificed himself despite all his human fear of pain, his ordinary desire for life and happiness. In the garden he sweated drops of blood as he contemplated his near future of torture and death, and on the cross he cried out his sense of abandonment by God. He protested against pain and death and aloneness, but he held fast to his intention because it brought and brings good for us. His ultimate act of agency was choosing to forgive his torturers. Forgiveness reclaims agency and is so good for our souls when we come to a place where we find it possible.

Jesus said that there is no greater love than this, that a person will lay down their life for a friend.  Paul said that some might be brave enough to die for a good person. but we know God really loves us all, because Christ died for, as Paul puts it, the ungodly (Romans 5).  Jesus said that he himself is the good shepherd, and what makes him good is that he lays down his life for the sheep, unlike the hired hand, who runs for his life (John 10). We are the sheep of God’s pasture (Ps. 121). What we learn by observing and listening to Jesus is that God has acted and eternally acts sacrificially for our good. 

Jesus was clear that there is a cost to discipleship, and that top priority would always have to be listening to what God’s Spirit says and doing what God’s Spirit says to do. And Jesus warns us not to judge others for how well they’re doing this hard work, noting that the severity of our judgment will rebound onto us. 

God always knew that the only way to make clear how much God loves us is to show us God’s Son entering into our world to be a willing sacrifice, enduring the results of human choices. It’s as if God was willing to go through the experience Abraham was spared in order to cement our understanding of how much God is committed to loving us. This kind of sacrifice was and is chosen by the one who will be sacrificed. Because of what Jesus chose, we see that we can trust God with our whole selves and lives. 

Praying for Mercy

I’ve been thinking for months about St. Paul’s comments in Romans about his feelings for his people of origin, the Jewish nation.  In Romans 9, Paul says, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience through the Holy Spirit bears witness that I mean what I am about to say.”  What was such a big deal and so unexpected that Paul had to say three times that he means what he says?  He goes on to say, “I have great sorrow and unceasing, consuming grief” because many of his people of origin, the Jews, have hardened their hearts against accepting that Jesus is their Messiah.

“I kept on wishing (and even praying) that I myself would be a sacrifice, even set apart from Christ, for the sake of my kinfolk according to the flesh.”

As a child of missionaries, I totally understand people wishing to make sacrifices and even be a sacrifice for the sake of another people who do not know the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus Christ.  My parents and many other missionaries sacrificed relationships with their families of origin, the life they were familiar with, and most creature comforts in order to spread the Good News.  Many missionaries gave their lives in this cause.

But I have never heard a missionary say that their calling was so strong, they would give up their own salvation, give up their place in Jesus’s atonement, for the sake of the people they care about. This illustrates the depth of Paul’s love for his Jewish kinfolk and his willingness to risk separation from Jesus for their sake. 

Paul goes on to discuss the theology of “the chosen people”; the evidence he examines leads him to conclude that the promise of God is sure and for all time and that Jesus’s sacrifice is the only necessary atonement for both Jews and Gentiles.

The following summarizes Paul’s discussion (Romans 9 and following):

God adopted Israel, made a covenant with them, gave them the Law and the temple service, made promises to them, and sent Jesus the Messiah through them.  However, (as Jesus also said) not all who are Israel by birth are the real Israel.  The real Israel are those who trust in God’s promise. 

God chooses who will receive mercy and compassion, and thus birth origin does not determine whether a person is included or excluded from God’s love.  God decides.  Paul anticipates the objection that this doesn’t sound very fair, and he replies that the created can’t hope to understand or overrule the Creator.  Further, he adds that it is possible that God, though God intends to demonstrate his wrath and power, has chosen instead to be patient and to carry the burden of those who invite such wrath and destruction. God’s patience demonstrates instead God’s abundant glory on those who invite mercy, both Jews and Gentiles.

Gentiles, who did not run after God’s approval, attained God’s approval through faith. Jews, in contrast, tried to earn God’s approval by works and rejected God’s Messiah and the message Jesus brought. They do not understand God’s good character and do not submit to God. 

Anyone who agrees with God that Jesus is Lord and thinks it true that God raised Jesus from the dead will be kept from destruction, and in this there is no distinction made between Jew and Gentile. Indeed, God uses the inclusion of Gentiles to express to the Jews that God has not rejected them.  And God uses the error made by the Jews to make space for the inclusion of Gentiles in God’s deliverance.  God sent Paul to the Gentiles; Paul hopes that his work among the Gentiles will catch his Jewish kinfolk as well. Indeed, he says that the hardness of the hearts of the Jews is partial and temporary, just to make openings for the Gentiles to come in.  God will save all of Israel because the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 

Both Jews and Gentiles begin in disobedience and God chooses to show mercy to both.  Therefore, by that very mercy, Paul beseeches Jews and Gentiles to turn over their whole selves, soul and body, to God as a living and holy sacrifice; to think of themselves realistically; and to exercise the faith God has given them. He asks them to recognize that each one who belongs to God is not just like anyone else and does not serve God in exactly the same way as another.

Mercy is what Jesus asked for when he was dying and prayed, “Father, forgive them; they have no idea what they are doing.” 

I find myself often in the place of not knowing what I’m doing.  I don’t know the harm I cause others on a daily basis, and I don’t often want to think about it.  I find thinking about it ties me up in knots of inaction, which also does harm.

Paul and Jesus challenge me by their confidence in the character and power of God.  God chooses to have mercy, God chooses to be patient so those who appear destined for destruction can instead be filled with mercy, God chooses when to reveal God’s passion for justice and integrity and obedience.  I want to join Paul in his willingness to go to all lengths to bring deliverance to the people he loves, the people he comes from.  I want to join Paul as well in his confidence that the calling and gifts of God are irrevocable.  I believe God called and calls Quakers, my own people, and God has given and is giving Quakers the gifts of living in and by the present teaching of Jesus Christ.

In our disagreements, I can often see that both sides believe that God is both just and merciful. I acknowledge that my own system of belief may cause others harm, either in this life or the next. I feel that we are caught in an impossible situation. I pray for myself, “Father, forgive me; I have no idea what I am doing.”

I don’t think this is the most important prayer, however.  I think the most important prayer is “Father, forgive those who are doing it wrong. Please have mercy on them and be patient.  Please give them faith in the resurrection of Jesus. Please save them.” Please join me in praying this prayer for all who are “getting it wrong.” May God in mercy include them and us in the Kingdom.

Series on Meeting Jesus, part 5

5) Jesus Shows Us the Path to Life

First-hand religion is what the Bible and Christian teaching point to, not second-hand or traditional. Jesus affirms this by teaching that the essence of the narrow way is “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength”; death is the path to life.

We can see this immediacy of relationship from the Old Testament in the stories of people talking with God: Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and so on.  These stories include direct relationship with God, the immediacy of a present God, not a God hidden behind or within creation or tradition.

Yet even tradition was set up to personalize relationship with God.  The three big stories of the Bible below are those identified by Marcus Borg in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.  He mentions there are others, such as illness to healing, becoming a disciple, and more.

Slavery to Freedom story

Deut 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  These words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart, and you will teach them to your children, talk of them in your house and on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up, wear them on your hand and on your forehead, write them on your doorposts and on your gates.

Re Passover: And you will show your son in that day, saying, This is done because of what the Lord did to me in bringing me out of Egypt.

Deut. 6: 20-23 And if your son asks you, What is the meaning of the rituals, rules, and laws God gave us? you tell him: We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.  But God brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land God promised to our ancestors.  The Lord commanded us to obey these commands and to reverence the Lord our God so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.  And if we are careful to obey these commands before the Lord our God, who commanded us to do these things, that will be our righteousness.

Deut. 26:5-9 Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terrors and with miraculous signs and wonders. God brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not the same as the covenant I made with their ancestors I brought out of Egypt, leading them by the hand, which covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them; but this shall be the covenant I will make with the house of Israel; I will put my law in their guts, I will write it on their hearts, and they shall no longer teach their neighbors, saying “Know the Lord” for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

Do you have a part of your spiritual journey that relates to being freed from enslavement and brought into the promised land? Can you say these things aloud and put into the place of these nations the story of how God has brought you and your community out of slavery, whether literal or figurative, and into freedom? Try this and perhaps you will want to share the story with someone else.

Exile and Return Home story

Isaiah 40

Be comforted, my people, speak compassionately to Jerusalem; tell her that the battle is over, her sins are pardoned, for she has received double purification for her sins. The voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make a straight highway in the desert for our God.  Raise the valleys, level the mountains, straighten the winding, smooth out the rough.  God will reveal God’s glory, and all humanity shall see it at once.  This is what the Lord says.

Behold your God; The Lord comes with strength to rule, bringing along wages and reward. The Lord shall feed his flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs up and carrying them up close, and gently leading the pregnant ones.

What do you say, Jacob; what are you speaking, Israel?  You say, My way is concealed from the Lord, and God passes by my judgment. Do you not know, have you not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth never faints, never tires. No one can grasp God’s wisdom and understanding of human beings.  God gives energy to the faint, strength to the weak. Even young folks are faint and weary, and fall to the ground, but those who expect, who look for the Lord shall renew strength, soar with wings like eagles, run without wearying, walk without fainting.

Isaiah 42:16 I will bring the blind by a way they do not know; I will lead them in unfamiliar paths; I will make darkness light for them and straighten out what is crooked.  I will do these things, and I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 43: 1-20 This is what the Lord says, the Lord who created you, Jacob, and who shaped you, Israel. Fear not, for I have paid your ransom, I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through deep water, I will be with you; rivers will not sweep you away; fire shall not burn you, nor shall flame kindle on you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Saviour…Fear not; for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and west, the north and south; I will say, Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth. You have not called upon me, Jacob, and you, Israel, have been weary of me; you have not worshiped me with offerings and sacrifices; instead you have made me part of your sins and wearied me with your iniquities.  I, even I, am the one who blots out your transgressions, your rebellions, for my own sake; for my own sake I will not remember your sins. Remember me; let us converse; tell me your story and explain your side of things.

Isaiah 40:20-21 Leave Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, and sing this song, tell this story even to the ends of the earth: The Lord has redeemed, has ransomed Jacob, and has led them through deserts where they did not thirst because water sprang from the rocks for them.

Isaiah 51:11 Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; everlasting joy shall be upon their head; they shall have gladness and joy; sorrow and mourning will flee away. 

Do you have a part of your life that resonates with the exile and return home story? Can you witness to the faithfulness of God described above to rescue you from being strangers in a foreign land, whether literal or figurative, and bring you and your community back home? If so, you might consider sharing your story with someone else.

Sacrifice and Redemption story

This story describes human beings as marked by guilt, shame, experiential distance from God, and then through the intervention of Jesus’s death and resurrection, receiving forgiveness, grace, acceptance. The key is turning toward God and accepting what God has done independent of our own efforts to reconcile with us.

Psalm 51 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, and thee only have I sinned. Wash me, and I will be clean, purer than snow.  Create in me a clean heart, O God…

Matt 9:13, 12:7 Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?  Jesus heard this and said to them, Those who are well do not need a doctor, but those who are sick do.  Go and learn what it means when God says, I will have mercy and not sacrifice; for I came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Why do your disciples break the Sabbath law? Jesus said, But if you had known what this means—I will have mercy and not sacrifice—you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Eph 5:2 Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.

Heb 7:27, 9:26, 10:12 Jesus was made the guarantee of a better testament…holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who offered himself up once for all time.

Now he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God…For by one offering he has perfected for ever those that are consecrated to God.

John 3:16, 17 For God so loved the world that God gave the only begotten Son, that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:28

Whoever wants to be highly ranked among you shall wait on tables, and whoever wants to be the boss shall serve everyone.  For even the Son of man came not to receive service, but to do service, to give his life to ransom many.

Do you have part of your life that resonates with the sacrifice and redemption story? Have you turned around from alienation and estrangement from God, guilt, and shame to an awareness of God’s redemptive action on your behalf, grace, and acceptance?  If so, perhaps you will want to share this with another person.