HUMAN SACRIFICE AND FOLLOWING JESUS

One cannot follow Jesus without sacrifice.  That seems clear since the one we follow embraced sacrifice and to follow him necessarily means following this embrace.  Sacrifice stands at the heart of discipleship.  Jesus’ call was: if any would follow, they must deny self (sacrifice), take up cross (sacrifice) and follow—which in this case meant going to Jerusalem where sacrifice awaited him. 

 

Sacrifice also stands at the heart of mission.   In fact, there is only one mission—Jesus’ mission to and in the world to reclaim, redeem, restore and recreate the world.  Jesus’ sacrifice makes the mission accomplishable.   Our sacrifice provides entree into Jesus’ ongoing mission.  Our following Jesus in his way of sacrifice allows missional participation, participation in the mission and in its accomplishment.

 

Jesus’ sacrifice was foreshadowed by an early but powerful episode in the larger story of God’s way with God’s world.  I refer to God’s test of Abraham’s faith (see Genesis 22).  God directed Abraham to take, “Your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love … and sacrifice him as a burnt offering … “ (Gen. 22:2).  God not only commanded the sacrifice but issued the command in a way that highlighted its supreme character and its scandalous cost to Abraham—his only, dearly loved son, for whom Abraham had waited excruciatingly long years and upon whom God’s plan, not Abraham’s so much as God’s, entirely depended.

If you’re reading this it’s a safe bet you know the story.  Incredibly Abraham obeys.  He doesn’t tell his wife—smart man.  He simply does what his God told him to do.  And the story reads as though Abraham would have finished his obedience, which would also have finished his son!  Then, at the last second, God restrains the downward plunge of the knife, saving the only, much loved son and providing an animal substitute.

 

Twenty-first century readers are shocked by this episode, even those entirely at home in church.  How could God command this?  And how could Abraham obey?  And, how could this story have any claim on us today?  Here are some reflections on the powerful claims I think this primitive story makes on us.

 

First, we need to get over our arrogant, modern pretensions that so easily imagine a great difference between now and then.  The world God loves and seeks to recreate through Jesus is, in fact, a horribly brutal world where human sacrifice regularly occurs, today as much as yesterday, though perhaps in less gory ways.  In Abraham’s world the extreme sacrifice of one’s child was not uncommon.  In our world there are countless ways in which people sacrifice their own or other’s children for the sake of some value regarded as supreme.  Think of abortion or of social and political structures that just barely sustain little ones in grinding poverty.  Think about children neglected and abused sacrificed on various altars of self.  Think of the professional who spends his whole life pursuing a career to the utter neglect of his children.

 

Second, God addresses the world in terms it can understand and in ways that offer the best chance of understanding.  If Abraham’s God does not require and in fact abhors the practice of human sacrifice, how would such an unusual, foreign—holy—God reveal this?  Against the backdrop of such a question, God’s command to Abraham morphs into something different than we first thought.

 

Third, God’s test of Abraham’s faithful obedience in this extreme way climaxes a long interaction between them.  As in any journey of faith there had been ups and downs—remarkable obedience and failures.  Step by step God grows a person of faith—of steadfast reliance upon God’s own word and provision.  At each point along the way, the interaction—God’s word and Abraham’s response—is appropriate for that point.

 

Fourth, God determines to work blessing for the whole world through Abraham and Abraham’s family (see Gen. 12:1-3), itself an incredible and perhaps unlikely possibility.  Who is Abraham and how could he become a source of universal blessing?  And, even if Abraham proves remarkable in his own right, still universal blessing sounds a bit ambitious doesn’t it?  Who could resource this blessing?  Indeed, who but God?  God’s plan requires God.  Apart from God, from what only God can do, how could we trust and act on world-renewing blessing?  So, God works his plan in a way that leaves no one in doubt.  Abraham will have children, though most of his life no children came.  Even so, there will be children, but not by emergency measures of human making, getting another woman.  Abraham will have children, even though all reasonable human hopes for children have faded.  Even in old age!  What is old to God?  Isaac comes—nothing is too hard, nothing really impossible, Abraham and Sarah can now say with a laugh.

 

Fifth, the blessing God brings overcomes all realities that on human-reckoning suggest that hope is folly.  Even the reality of death would not, could not, thwart this hope.  If obedience really leads to the death of hope, God could conquer that death and resurrect that hope!

 

Sixth, that the plan of God is God’s, that Abraham knows this and trusts precisely this One—requires trust in God, his goodness, his power, his promise that God will keep.  The plan rests upon God, not on any of God’s gifts, not even his most precious gift of this boy that had caused his folks to laugh.

 

Therefore, seventh, the testing and sacrifice of Abraham vindicates not only Abraham but also the God whose plan works powerfully through Abraham’s obedience.  Abraham understands and trusts that this is God’s plan and it will work only God’s way.  And what of God’s way?  The testing reveals that this God is unlike all the other gods of this world.  He does not accept such human sacrifices.  He stands utterly opposed to this practice.  At no time was Isaac in any real danger of losing his physical life.  Either Abraham would seek to save his son and preserve his destiny or God would give Abraham his son again and work his plan.  Abraham would try to do it himself and fail, or Abraham would trust God who doesn’t fail.

 

What of this God’s way?  We now know that God did what he would not allow another to do.  God gave his son which, in the mystery of Trinity, was actually God giving Self in sacrifice.  Again, this is something that would seem impossible.  Yet, in the course of this ongoing story, nothing shall be called impossible; nothing will prove too hard for this God.

 

To follow Jesus requires sacrifice, but whose sacrifice is it really?  He sacrificed self and calls us to join him, and in the end, really the new beginning, death dies, hope rises, and then … LIFE!

 

TO HELP HAITI MOST

Yesterday I participated in a DAY OF FASTING AND PRAYER FOR HAITI.  Here are a few initial observations on "what happened" followed by a few more considered reflections on helping Haiti most.

It wasn't a convenient time for me.  That is, I had a lot on my plate and to set aside three 20-30 minute segments of the day, as I did, to stop what I was doing, what I needed to do, to refoucs on Haiti and the long list of concerns–it was incredibly intrusive.  Intrusive–well, yes!  It was a highly intrusive event–that earthquake.

And, where to begin in praying.  There are so many needs and concerns.  I found it quite overwhelming.  Overwhelming–well, yes!  It remains so overwhleming that the Haiti branch of the Family hardly knows where to turn, what to do next, so overwhelming that the mind and heart can be paralyzed.

Later in the day I began to feel a dull headache and flagging strength.  I also recognized irritability rising nearer the surface of my awareness, ready to manifest.  It just didn't feel good to have foregone food for most of 24 hours.  And what a relief when the fast was broken.

Throughout the day it was no problem to spend the time voicing concern, articulating the needs, urging Heaven to listen, and to do something.   Quite naturally the question presented itsefl: what good could or would come of "saying prayers?"  Then also, are there not other more active, or proactive things that I could do or others could do with my help?  Ultimately God must get into the action in heavy duty ways, but surely there must be a more active role for us who pray!

……

To help Haiti most I must get over my whining self-preoccupation.  "Instrusive?"  Try shattering and crushing.  My sense of mild intrusion could become a sign for the utter decimation of land and everything and one on the land.  To be swallowed and chewed up in the ground that was beneath you–how do you walk away and recover from that?  Why, only the powers of re-creation, only resurrection power can stand up to such "intrusion!"  So, yes, to take a place in the presence of the One who undoes death is to find the one place where hope might hold.

To help Haiti most I must let the sheer volume of need, the comprehensive nature of the brokenness shake me of any pretensions of wisdom and competenence on our human own to relieve the land and its people.  Surely we do not know how to pray about this.  We need help even to ask aright.  We need to be in tune with the One with the biggest heart now broken, with the One who weeps the most tears that can heal.  The "smallest" and most "modest" things done in partnership with this One will accomplish more good than would otherwise be possible.

To help Haiti most I must cherish the dull ache that comes from denying food for the body.  I must nail the irritability and its root of self-will to the cross of Jesus.  I must know in the deepest places that no help comes apart from willing, loving, and costly sacrifice.  I must know it and accept it and say, "Yes!"

To help Haiti most, I must embrace the Kingdom way Jesus shows us–the Kingdom way of dealing with all the brokenness of our world.  I must learn that faith-uttered pleas for God's will to be done somehow powerfully enacts that very will.  The prayer Jesus taught us to pray–Your will be done on earth …–is itself a vital part of the mechanism for making it so.  That, indeed, when Kingdom people pray they move mountains, mountains of rubble that shouldn't be where they are.  When they pray the King dispatches us, our resources and capacities in ways that bring timely help, that effect true healing.  When they pray, I am relieved to know, it doesn't all  depend on me or us.  We are joining a chorus of prayers who vocalize the vision of what God intends.  And the vocalization under the direction of the Choir-master actualizes the vision.

Let it be!

THE EARTH IS BROKE! NOW WHAT?

The day after devastating earthquake and aftershocks struck Haiti, the situation still shrouded in uncertainty and confusion, everyone sees vividly the reality of the world’s brokenness.  Literally, the earth broke and everything connected to it was upset.  And the upset was catastrophic.  In the devastation the need for rescue, relief, and help appears obvious.  You will hear much more over coming days and learn about how you can be part of the rescue and relief effort.  Please, let's respond as we would if our own family members are in peril.  (Of course, it is a FAMILY concern!)

This incredibly sad situation reminds us all, no matter how far we live from the epicenter of yesterday’s episode in the ongoing brokenness drama, that it’s all about brokenness and wholeness, emptiness and fullness.  Who isn’t broken and in need of wholeness?  Who isn’t empty in need of long term fullness?   The earth is broken. All that sits on it or in it is therefore broken, including people.   People are broken because they can only live in places that are broken.  But people are also broken because in their brokenness they seek to patch together whatever they can, at whatever the cost.  Usually the cost is at the expense of others who also are broken.  TSo, the brokenness compounds. 

The good news is that the only One completely whole, who alone could be the source of wholeness and fullness, became broken for us.  He got broke so we could be mended.  He got broke so all the fragments—of our lives and that of others, as well as the broken places where we spend our time—could find their place in relation to each other.   He got broke to make us whole on the inside and the outside, all around and in between.

I do not know how it works, but I know the story that reports that it does in fact work.  I do not know how, but I join with some others who have lived a portion of that very story.  As the story goes, Jesus took bread, thanked His Father, broke it and gave it away.  Later he quite literally experienced brokenness of body on behalf of all people.  And in that brokenness and giving there is a coming together of the pieces, an integrated renewal, and beautiful kind of wholeness on display for other broken folks to consider.

The earth remains broken.  But there is hope—relief, rescue, renewal, and revitalization are on the way!  Among the people who know and live this story there is sadness mixed with joy in joining the One who brings wholeness wherever he goes.

GOD’S DISRUPTIVE VISITATION

God’s coming, the object of our expectation during Advent and the basis of our confidence in the year that follows, is always intrusive and disruptive.  To Mary, Joseph, their families, the religious establishment, the political status quo, and to all who are open to divine visitation, it is not what they expect and often at first what they least want.

 

O, but who wouldn’t want God’s Kingdom—the perfect order of things, the only way a return to paradise is conceivable?  Yet, God’s actual coming calls into question the sincerity with which human desire truly aspires to God’s Kingdom.

 

The fact is, it is God’s, not ours.  And God’s is better than ours.  But God’s Kingdom comes only God’s way. God’s better requires a suspension of human longing and conceiving and radical surrender to His way, until the Kingdom comes.

 

I am struck by how apt this is for understanding what it means to be church and then being that—namely, church.   Nothing less than God’s coming (that’s what happened on the first Pentecost Day when church as such first came into being) will be required.  And, nothing less than our utter abandon to whatever He wishes to do, however He wishes to do it, is required if we are indeed to be church!  I have been praying, as follows:

 

Lord, help me to feel the disruptive impact of your visitation.  Blow to “smithereens” the nice, neat arrangements that are merely facades for sinful compromise within myself and among those whose fellowship I enjoy.  Forgive me, Lord, for assuming I am a special case, that if Mary, Joseph, Magi, Herod, scribes and teachers of the law could not simply “welcome” your coming, as in adding another plate to the table, but had to reconfigure the whole of life around the new thing you were doing—forgive me for assuming that your coming could mean something different for me, that I do not have the same choices to make! 

 

Come, Lord Jesus, but not as another guest to my party, but as the One who embodies the party I know nothing about and who, lovingly and graciously, includes me.  Show me how truly to party! Amen.

 

The Touch of God

“Keep in touch,” we say when friends part ways.  “Touch” via phone, mail, and literal, physical touch assures continuing relationship.  No longer to touch or somehow to become “untouchable” signals the death of relationship, and perhaps death period.

Ask an infant who starves or fails to thrive in the absence of touch.  Ask young lovers, or old lovers, whose hearts chill and harden without touch.  Ask the disgraced or diseased whose hope and help dissolve apart from touch.  How vital touch is.  The DNA simply requires it!

And, at Christmas time, in the deepest ways, God began to give it. God reached out to touch us. In the intimacy of a virgin’s womb, in the flailing of tiny manger-held arms and legs, in the squeeze of mommy’s finger, in the embrace of daddy’s neck—TOUCH—in the hollow sockets of blind eyes, in the weakness of lame legs, in the frenzy of demon torment, in the emptiness of hunger, in the brokenness of betrayal, in the stinging of the lash, in the shock of flesh-driven spikes, in the gasps of death throes—TOUCH.  The touch of God—loving, healing, saving.

Now, we have been touched in order to touch.  Let the touch of God be shared with all, especially the “untouchables” within reach!