A Living Sacrifice

Mirta Cerr, Plegaria (Prayer), ca. 1946, Torna Art Gallery, Havana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

Scripture

 Romans 12:1-8

¹I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.  (NRSV)

 

Devotion

 When I encounter "sacrifice" in the Bible, I often think about how the way we understand that word has changed over the centuries.  Today, we tend to think of a sacrifices as some painful thing we give up in order to gain something else.  Baseball players make  sacrifice bunts  in order to help their team score.   Office workers may sacrifice her lunch break so she can finish up that important project and go home on time.  Parents sacrifice sleep in order to help children recover from illnesses.  In each of these cases, there is s type of give and take transaction going on; people hope that the tangible reward they stand to receive will be more valuable then what they gave up to get it.

Paul, though, was talking about a different kind of sacrifice.  He and the members of the Early Church (Jews and Gentiles alike) were used to making religious sacrifices.  The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that  making religious sacrifices is a way to "establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being  to the sacred order."  These offerings (which usually involved the death or destruction of something) prove a person's devotion and are given without necessarily expecting the gods to give you anything in return.  Knowing that the Divine thinks of you favorably can be reward enough. 

Paul's audience was used to making specific offerings like food items, animals, and money.  Paul shifts peoples understanding of what God wants by  arguing that the best sacrifice they can make is  themselves.  When they give themselves to Christ and allow him to transform them, the meditations of their hearts and the ministry they do in his name will be all that they need give in order to  deepen their relationship with the Almighty.  That relationship will be more than enough to satisfy the deepest longings on their hearts.

What, though, does it look like to make ourselves into a living sacrifice to God?  Paul points out that we each have special gifts that we can devote to serving God.  Some of us preach, teach, or lead others.    Some give of their physical or monetary resources, while others are great at offering compassion and encouragement to people.  These offerings we each make with our hands, feet, lips, etc. may look very different on the surface, but God is able to see how they all reflect the spiritual sacrifices of our hearts.  Each of these offerings deepen our relationship with Christ, and the Almighty is more than pleased to accept our devotion.  Unlike the offerings that Paul and his readers would have been used to making, becoming a living sacrifice to God doesn't destroy us,  Instead, it gives new life--life that is richer, fuller, and deeper than we could have imagine.

Have yourself to being a living sacrifice to God?  If so, how might you use your unique gifts to outwardly reflect that inner devotion?  Together, the offerings we make in our daily lives will help deepen our spiritual relationship with God and one another.  Those relationships are of far greater valuable than anything else on Earth.

 

Prayer

 Jesus, we ask that you accept the work of our hands, our feet, our lips as outward signs of the living sacrifice we make to you.   Through the power of the Holy Spirit may each offering we make in your name testify to your love for the world.  Amen.