20 July 2018 - mercy, not sacrifice

Today's Readings (Audio)

If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.

The LORD is asking us to see things in their proper perspective. Sacrifice for its own sake isn't so important. Sacrifice exists and is required because it helps to free us to be merciful. We can't become so fixated with the finer points of religious adherence that we forget the people that the religion is given to save. We are probably thinking of examples right now of people who hurts others for the sake of legal or religious correctness. But what about when we do it? What about when we drive others further from God because we start off by criticizing specific actions of theirs rather than first introducing them to Jesus. When the Pharisees insist on the Sabbath law without care for Jesus and his disciples they demonstrate that they missed the point of the sabbath in the first place.

Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.

The LORD warns us about these temptations in order to lead us to repentance. He does not desire to condemn us nor does he delight in the death of the sinner. Just as the sabbath is meant to provide an unbreachable space in which our relationship with God can thrive so is his action of convicting us our sins meant to lead back toward relationship.

I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.
I will heal you: in three days you shall go up to the LORD's temple;
I will add fifteen years to your life.
I will rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria;
I will be a shield to this city.

Let us put first things first. Let us seek first the kingdom. Let us not try to lead others with condemnation. Only conviction that is actually invitation can provide the path the world needs. And that sort of conviction can only be grounded in an experience of the one who is greater than the sabbath.

The LORD will help us. He knows we get wrapped up in what we're working on and try to impose it as a universal law on others. He sees the ways in which we are guilty. He sees, in fact, many more ways than we do. But he reveals only some of them to us at a time in order that we might change. And change is possible, for us and for all, because God makes it possible.

Those live whom the LORD protects;
yours is the life of my spirit.
You have given me health and life.