0109 MERCY, NOT SACRIFICE

LEARN WHAT THIS MEANS

Matthew 9 is filled with many of the best-known brief episodes of Jesus’ ministry. He heals a paralytic who is lowered through the roof by four friends. He calls Matthew to follow him and comes to Matthew’s party. He talks about combining new wineskins and cloth patches. He raises Jairus’ daughter and heals another woman, has compassion on the crowds and tells his followers to pray to send out workers into the harvest field. But since this is Matthew’s gospel, and we have already been talking about the author’s perspective, let’s delve into that party Matthew has and focus on the final sentence of that story.

Here is the immediate context: Jesus and his followers have come to Matthew’s house, meeting several of Matthew’s friends. These friends are also tax collectors, no doubt, plus other outcasts of the religious community–people that the religious leaders call “sinners.”

This seems to be one of the early turning points for the Pharisees to scrutinize Jesus’ life, finding him to be the opposite of what they would expect. They judge Rabbi Jesus as unholy or ignorant, or both, for he is not keeping these obvious sinners at a holy distance and being sure to keep himself clean.

Jesus does not disagree with the Pharisees that these people are, in fact, “sinners.” But if the Pharisees could be honest with themselves, they would realize that they, too, are “sinners,” even if not with the same list of sins. Remember, Jesus recently delivered the Sermon on the Mount, in which he sort of redefined how to think of sin. Hate is the same basic sin as murder. Lust is the attitude of adultery. And so forth. The Pharisees are still focused on cleaning the outside of the cup, as Jesus would point out, while being filled with judgmentalism and disrespectful hatred inside. Jesus needs to clarify to them his role and response to sinners of all kinds.

The Pharisees see Jesus as a rabbi. As such, they have expectations: Keep yourself from evil. Keep the law. Stay clean. Quote the Scriptures. But Jesus sees himself as a doctor. A doctor does not just stay away from infection and disease. He is there to help those who are already infected and sick. He says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. . . . I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

In between those two sentences, Jesus says this central statement to these so-called experts in the law: “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” 

Go and learn what this means, Jesus says. Don’t just stand there, judging everyone in the house. See them the way the Father sees them. Go and learn. You know the words. But you do not yet know their meaning.

He is quoting from Hosea, when he tells them that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. He longs to show mercy. 

Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” 

David wrote, “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.” 

Amos told Israel, “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; . . . But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” 

Micah said these words: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The Pharisees could quote all of those passages. But they needed to stop talking, and stop judging, and start learning what it all means.

I think maybe I would also do well to go and learn a thing or two myself. If God desires to show mercy, rather than to receive sacrifice, then how should I be treating others? Cold-heartedly tell them to repent? Or show mercy and offer forgiveness and healing? 

I like to think i know the answer. But I have hurt a lot of people with my judgments. Maybe I still need to go and learn what “mercy instead of sacrifice” really means.