Scripture Notes: A Living Sacrifice (Romans 12)

“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). A living sacrifice…  Jewish worship at the time of Jesus was centered on sacrifice. Thousands of animals were offered to God in the Temple daily, weekly, and annually to mark various cycles in the people’s relationship with God. Every sacrifice symbolized the offerer’s own person, own self, lifted up to God in adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance.  

Jesus fulfilled every one of those sacrifices when He died on the cross, offering Himself for us. He is the one sacrifice, the one of which every other sacrifice was only a shadow. His sacrifice now stands outside of time, in eternity, before the Father, still for us, still to reconcile us with God.

We participate in that sacrifice every time we receive the Eucharist. We enter into it as Jesus enters into us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, along with our minds and hearts and souls and spirits, everything we have and everything we are. We join ourselves to Jesus’ sacrifice, and this is our spiritual worship, the worship the comes from the deepest parts of ourselves and connects us with God, Who makes us holy and acceptable by His grace, the grace merited for us through the living sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

Scripture Notes: Attitude (Luke 18)

Jesus was and is very concerned about our attitudes toward ourselves, toward other people, and toward God. One of His parables zooms in on this issue, and Luke tells us that He speaks to those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” and therefore “despised others” (Luke 18:9). Two men, Jesus says, go up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Pharisees were some of the leading Jews of Jesus’ day. As strict followers of the Law, they insisted that the Jewish people maintain their separation from Gentiles by adhering firmly to practices set down by God but also to traditions developed by human beings over the centuries. Tax collectors, on the other hand, received the wrath of the Jewish people. Although they were Jews themselves, these men collaborated with the Romans, enforcing tax laws and receiving tax payments, more often than not with a little (or a lot) extra for themselves. They were thoroughly despised.

Yet here Jesus turns His audience’s expectations upside down. The Pharisee who goes up to pray, He explains, actually prays to himself. He talks to God, or at least seems to, but all he does is tell God how good he is. He is not like other people who do all kinds of horrible things. He fasts and gives tithes. He follows all the rules. He is a good guy and, therefore, should merit God’s favor. 

The tax collector, though, stands at the very back. He knows full well that he is not worthy to approach God. He keeps his eyes down and beats his breast as a sign of repentance. “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” he prays (Luke 18:13). This man is a realist. He has a firm grasp of his sin. He knows exactly who he is before God, and it is not pretty. 

Jesus sets these two distinct attitudes in sharp relief, and He makes no secret about which of the two men go home justified before God. The tax collector, for all his corruption, has made a clean breast of it before his Lord. The Pharisee, in his pride, has merely puffed himself up, meriting not God’s approval but rather His displeasure. Jesus concludes with a pithy little precept that serves as explanation, warning, and invitation: “for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 5 (Luke 15)

Imagine the scene, the merriment as a joyful father shines his joy upon the son he has back safe and sound, as a still-bewildered son basks in his father’s joy, as music rings out and food and drink flow freely. But one person is missing from the festivities. We have not heard of him since the very beginning of the story. There is another son, an older son, one who has not left his father’s house. In fact, he has been out working in the fields, and now he comes in and wonders what in the world is going on.

When the older son finds out that the party is for his good-for-nothing younger brother, that stupid kid who shirked his responsibilities and robbed the family and wasted all their hard-earned property on prostitutes, he is furious, and he will not even go inside. His grumbles probably run the gamut from what he would do to his brother (“Lowest rank among the servants...no wages until he pays back everything he took…”) to anger at their father (“How? How could he have let that, that, that prodigal come back? And throw a feast for him at that! It’s not fair!”). But there’s a good bit of self-pity going on at the same time (“Father never threw a party for me. He never gave me so much as a goat so I could have fun with my friends. All I do is work, work, work!”).

The older son says as much, right out loud, when his father comes out to plead with him. The father does not become angry. More than anything, he is rather sad, for his eldest son has misunderstood him and their relationship. “Son,” he says, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). The son does not realize this. He thinks himself a servant, but he is not. He is a son, fully and completely, a member of the family, an heir but also a sharer in the wealth right now. All he would have to do is open his mouth and ask and then reach out his hand to receive the gifts his father is waiting to give him. His father wants him to flourish, to thrive, to have all the very best. The older son has limited himself. 

The father ends with an explanation that is also an invitation. It is right to celebrate the return of his younger son, he says, for “your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). This is a cause for great joy. The past is left to the past. A person has returned, safe, repentant, whole, and ready to re-enter the family. He has learned from his sins. He has come to new insights. He has experienced the worst and rediscovered the best. Will the older brother join in the celebration?  We do not know, for Jesus ends His parable right there. Why? Because we have to make a decision, too. Will we accept our Father’s invitation to family life and family love? 

Scripture Notes: The Prodigal, Part 4 (Luke 15)

The young man in Jesus’ parable has lost everything, including his illusions about the world and wealth and high living. Everything has crashed down around his ears, and he is stuck tending pigs and starving to death. Finally, though, he wakes up and realizes that he really is not stuck at all. He can go home. He knows he does not deserve to be treated as a son, but he has hope that his father (who is now tremendously kind and generous in his son’s eyes) will at least take him in as a servant. So he makes his plan. Then the son does something that many people fail to do. He gets up and carries out his plan. He sets out on his journey home. He does not merely think; he acts. 

Now the scene shifts to the father, who has apparently been keeping watch for his son. Something in him has hoped for a long time that the young man would return. He understands, after all, that a youth going out into the great, wide world will meet with unexpected difficulties and suffering and not be able to cope too well. So he has watched and waited, and now, finally, he sees his son coming down the road. The father does not hesitate for a moment. He gets up and runs to meet his boy, who is home at last. He does not care one bit what he looks like or who sees (for men of his status and age do not run). He just goes.

The son must be shocked at the expression of compassion on his father’s face as he sees the older man running toward him. The father embraces the young man (literally throws himself on his neck...an ancient expression for what is probably a massive bear hug) and kisses him. This is not at all what the son is expecting. He starts reciting his carefully prepared confession, but his father does not even seem to hear, nor does the son have a chance to finish. The father is already busy ordering a bewildered servant to bring out the best clothes and sandals and ornaments for his son (a bath is likely in order, too) and to prepare a feast. “Let us eat and make merry,” the father proclaims, “for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:23-24).

Forgiveness is instant on the father’s part. He seems to see right into his son’s heart. Words drift off into air in the midst of his embrace and his excitement at having his son back in his arms. What happened in the past is left there; it is time to rejoice in the present and restore the lost one to new life. This is exactly what God does for us repentant sinners.