The third in a series on sacrifice and Christianity preached in the North Peace, Summer 2023.

I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children -Psalm 69:8

For the last couple of weeks we havebeen reflecting on the kinds of sacrifices that please God. From Hosea we heard how God does not eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats but demands our steadfast love, even though he knows we do not have steadfast love to offer him. From Romans 4 we heard how even though the law shows us the holiness of God it is by the offering of faith by God in Abraham and us that any is counted pleasing and acceptable to God. From Exodus we heard how much God longs for a people who can be his, who can be set apart for his name, who can be holy like he is holy. From Romans 5 we heard how in pursuit of such a people he sent his Son to die as a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. In this way he is gathering such a people for himself. All through this we are seeing how God himself provides the sacrifice he demands that we may offer it to him. Blessed be Thou Lord God of Israel, for ever and ever, all that is in the heaven and earth is thine, all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

Today we contemplate a difficult part of what God is asking here. If none of us are made righteous by the law, if our holiness is the holiness of Jesus, if the good we do can never be good enough, why should we ever try to do anything good or holy? Is it right that pursuit of holiness of life could in any way be pleasing to God, could in any way be a sacrifice offered to God?

This is the objection St. Paul is dealing with “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!”(Romans 6:1-2). The Greeks believed that we are what we do. Or at least Aristotle did, that our routine behaviours shape our innermost character. The Gospel proclaims that what we do proceeds from our inmost selves. As fallen sinners living tied to Adam’s fault and death we are incapable of doing any good thing pleasing to God, incapable of desiring what God would have us desire purely. As adopted children given a new nature, while we will struggle still here in earth we will want things we couldn’t want before, and things that once gave us pleasure will be detestable to us.

A pig will eat the vomit, the feces of any other creature even its own. It will happily wollow in the filth and the muck. Is there any way you can train a pig not to do so? I honestly don’t know, perhaps you could manage some success in outward appearance but you would be fighting against its inclination and desires. You would be fighting against its heart. What if you could transform that pig into a new creature, what if you could make that pig into a man? Would it want to eat the feces and vomit of all kinds of animals? It may out of habit continue for a time but it will loathe that it is continuing in such filth.

Jesus says: “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”(Matthew 10:38-39). Bonhoeffer paraphrases this command of God with these words- “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” When you become a Christian you are united with Christ’s death and we pray you are lifted from the waters of baptism in Christ’s new life. Whenever that grace is affected within you our prayers in baptism are answered. You come to the font as a pig loving the grotesque filth of this passing world. We pray that you are transformed into a new creature, united in Christ’s death. We are praying that you die, and that you may live a new kind of life.

So stop. Stop living like pigs. Look around you and see the filth that is detestable to you and your Father. Loathe it. Flee from it. See the promise of sin coming down the street towards you and pray – lead me not into temptation. See yourself immersed in the devil’s deceptions and pray – deliver me from evil.

The Articles of our Faith put it this way: There are Good Works which are the fruits of faith which follow after Justification. These cannot put away our sins or endure the severity of God’s Judgment. Yet, they are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ. They spring out from a true and living faith and by them a living faith may be evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit.

The offering to God of our pursuit of a holy life is no the kind of sacrifice that atones for sin. Only Christ’s death does this. But in the temple there are other sacrifices, fellowship offerings, praise offerings. Christ died for us to pursue and ransom us, to gather us to God. Living a life running after who God is is an offering of relationship with him, one that he himself will work in his saints.

So St. Paul urges the Christians in Rome: “No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.” (Romans 6:13).

As this happens in your life it will create a divide. I think this is what is meant when Jesus says he comes not to bring peace but the sword (Matthew 10:34). After all when the angels announce his birth they announce peace between heaven and Earth. After all when Isaiah announces his coming and when Jesus preaches Isaiah in the synagogue he is proclaimed as the Prince of Peace. When he rises from the dead he breathes out his peace upon the apostles, a peace the world cannot give. But entering that peace will divide you from this perishing world, you will no longer be at home here but a nomad longing for your home in the presence of God. This can be hard especially for families, and tribes, and small communities, when some are living for an eternal hope, and others want to go on living as they always have. It can create a divide in priorities, and in attitudes.

Do not be afraid, as Jesus will help you offer all of your life as he offers all of his life in you. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted.So do not be afraid; for to God you are worth many sparrows. Offer to God your life, all of it, for Christian he is making you dead to sin but alive in him.

I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children -Psalm 69:8