A Scandalous Offering

Readings: Numbers 18:1-24; Mark 14:1-25

Is anyone else having trouble finding meat these days? Because in our house it is taking a little bit of extra effort to support our carnivorous lifestyle. We are using our grocery store’s pickup service to minimize contact with others during quarantine, both to protect ourselves and to make sure we don’t unknowingly spread something to others. This is a good resource that many grocers are currently offering free of charge, which is especially helpful for those who are immunocompromised or have a pre-existing condition. The only issue we’ve had with it is that meat is rarely available when we pick up our order. Now, this hasn’t really been a serious problem. We’ve just had to make a couple of trips to the store, mask up, and go in ourselves, where there has been plenty of meat for us to buy. It just takes an extra step.

Based on the laws and instructions from Numbers 18, it doesn’t sound like the Old Testament priests had any problems getting meat. The text lays out the plan for how the priests are able to get their food from the sacrifices that the people make to God. In this way, God provided for the material needs of those who were working in the Tabernacle, and eventually, the Temple. This was codified in the law because the priests and the Levites were like you and me, they had physical needs and limitations. They needed to be sustained.

If we think about Jesus as the one true priest, as the priest who accomplishes the ultimate priestly work of reuniting God and humanity, it is especially appropriate for us to read this passage from Numbers in light of Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper. Paired with the story of how the people sustain the Old Testament priests with their offerings, Jesus at the Last Supper shows us how he, the true priest, is the one who sustains us. Instead of surviving off of our offerings, he offers himself to us, his body and his blood, to nourish us, to strengthen us, to provide for our needs. Jesus, as priest, does not receive what he needs from us, for we can’t offer to God anything that God does not already posses. But instead, he offers to us what we need: himself. “This is my body, this is my blood.” We hear these words at every service of Eucharist and we are reminded that it is God who provides for us, not the other way around. 

This does then beg the question: What is an appropriate response? How are we to give praise and thanks for the sustaining gift of Christ’s presence with us? How can we even begin to say thank you? The woman from the beginning of Mark 14 gives us a noble example to follow. 

She probably looked ridiculous to everyone else, and we can tell from the reactions from those around that they looked down on her for what she did, anointing Jesus’ head, wasting, in some people’s minds, a resource that could have been used in what they deemed to be better ways. 

But what Jesus sees is the heart with which the gift is offered. And in this case, this woman’s outpouring of love for the Lord, though it is unconventional and even offensive to others, is offered from a pure heart. Remember what David says in Psalm 51: 

O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

And this is the sacrifice we offer to God: ourselves, offered in humble thanks. The material circumstances are of lesser consequence, though offering ourselves to the Lord from the heart will change the way we view and hold onto the things we have. But our offering to God requires much more of us than a certain percentage of the things we own, for we offer all that we are. And the one who seeks life will lose it, and the one offers life will be given it back, but more abundantly, sustained by the one who offers himself for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mighty Hath Fallen

Reading: Luke 1:57-80 Luke’s gospel is often represented in the iconography of the Church by a bull or an ox. One of the reasons for this is that Luke begins in a sacrificial setting, in the Temple, where bulls would be sacrificed. We hear in Luke 1 the story of Zechariah, the priest who was appointed to go into the Holy of Holies and offer sacrifices for the people. Zechariah gets an unsuspected message in the midst of his service. He and his wife Elizabeth are going to have a baby! But like Abraham before him, Zechariah doubts that can happen at his age and he asks, “How shall I know this?” His question, his demand for proof, is answered with him not being able to speak until the baby is born. And so the gospel begins with the pattern we will see repeated throughout it: the insiders, the powerful, the ones who “get it,” demonstrate their unreadiness to receive the Kingdom of God, while the lowly, the outsiders, the ones assumed to not have it together, are invited in. Mary has j...
Read more

Death's Defeat

Image
  Readings: Hosea 9-10; John 11:54-12:19 There are times where the Old Testament speaks to our need for the Gospel. Usually for me, this is highlighted when we see a particularly violent passage in the Old Testament or one that draws particular attention to the brokenness of the world. Today’s readings from the Daily Office are an example of this. There is a lot of darkness in the words of Hosea.   You may know the story of Hosea and how the prophet’s life is analogous to the unfaithfulness of God’s people: Hosea’s wife is unfaithful to him, just as the people of Israel have been unfaithful to God through their idolatry and reliance on foreign powers for their safety. Hosea prophesies to the northern kingdom of Israel, the 10 tribes that split from the original 12 after the death of Solomon, and his message is that destruction will come. And indeed, he is the last prophet to prophesy in the north before the conquest of Israel by the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC. In Hosea 10, the ...
Read more

Giving Caesar God's Due

Image
  Scriptures:  Matthew 22:15-22 ;  Malachi 3:6-10 Have you ever received something that you didn’t deserve? Some of the most beautiful gifts in life are the ones we do not deserve. A stranger paying for our lunch in the drive-through. An unexpected grace offered to us from a friend when we are not acting with grace. Our very salvation is offered as something we do not deserve from our Creator, the offering of his own Son on our behalf. The very nature of a gift implies that it is somehow not deserved. That’s what makes it a gift! It is also a wonderful thing to give something when it is not deserved. We can be the one who offers grace when it is not merited; we can be the one to surprise someone else with kindness. This can bring even more joy! As nearly everyone can tell you, it is truly more blessed to give than to receive. But there can be a dark side to giving when it is not deserved. Giving something to an unworthy recipient can be an act of grace, but it can also be...
Read more