Sacrifice in worship (Romans 12)

Several weeks ago, I began to write about the sacrifice in worship and promised (myself more than you) that I’d continue from where I’d left off.

The notion of religious sacrifice is many-faceted and possesses a long history.  I don’t claim any real handle on it, not adhering to the predecessing Jewish religion that makes a practice of bloody sacrifices, not having ever offered a single such sacrifice, and not having pursued the matter with any sort of scholarly bent.  (Cults, spiritist religions of the third-world, and satanic religion also sometimes include sacrifice, but that’s more than a little afield.)  Considering the idea of sacrificed in worship seems worthwhile because of its frequent appearance in scripture, if for no other reason.

A blogger on hymns and Christian songs, writing about “Trust and Obey,” recently wrote about giving one’s entire life as a “sacrifice”:

The Christian life involves daily faith and obedience, exercised in many different situations. But there is an underlying commitment that provides a foundation for this. The Apostle Paul talks about it in Romans 12:1.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God [because of all that God has done for you], that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

The Greek verb tense for “present” indicates it’s to be a once-for-all action. We are to yield ourselves to God as “living sacrifices,” forever and for all. That is what [the author] is referring to in [st. 4] of our hymn, when he says, “We never can prove the delights of His love / Until all on the altar we lay.” Then, hundreds of daily acts of faith and obedience grow out of that, as described in [st. 5].

– Robert Cottrill, http://wordwisehymns.com/2011/03/28/trust-and-obey/

In attempting to be circumspect about the Christian life, it’s helpful to apprehend Cottrill’s words on the Greek tense of the word “present”:  a welcome freedom comes from not having to devise some way that every keystroke, every dish rinsed, every word, every mile driven, every test graded, every tooth brushed, and every bit of garbage carried to the curb is “worship.”  Not to denigrate any of those actions!  They are part and parcel of life, and the Christian believer’s life is no more lofty than anyone else’s.  We need to have our heads in heaven but our feet on the earth, as someone has said.[1]

Yet some days, it’s easier to think of more of my actions as sacrifice and as “worship” than others; whether you resonate with me on this or not, this very idea of sacrifice—whether it’s to be thought of as once-for-all or as continuous and all-pervading—is something to be contended with . . . in due time.

Next, somewhat out of order, I’ll peer into what the sacrifice becomes, in God’s eyes.

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[1] The saying is attributed to Benedict and/or Augustine (whom I respectfully refuse to call “saint,” because that would imply a special status for them) and reappropriated by many over the years.

A good little boy

I haven’t written anything pointedly about parenting experiences in a while; I’ve only referred in passing to events with our little boy Jedd.  So, where to pick up?

There are so many things:

• holiday travel (airplanes, cousins, and grandparents—oh, my!)
• new words and expressions (koala and armadillo; family snuggle; love you, Dad)
• singing (“that’s … El–mo’s … world!!”—you should hear how high he can sing)
• two poopy diapers within the first 30 minutes I was with him alone (while Karly was at quilting group) last Monday

Guess I’ll spare you the details of the last, except to say that diaper-changing has been, overall, not nearly the hassle and grossness I had expected it to be.  Just as parents have been saying for centuries, when it’s your child, it’s not that bad. Sure, it stinks.  Sure, it’s a little gross and a little annoying when a diaper leaks and you have to change his clothes, too.  But the experience of caring for a little person in this way has, by and large, been more a pleasure than a nightmarish succession of grossnesses.  (Do note that I’m the one writing this, and not Karly; she of course has changed 85% of the diapers!)

Jedd is a wonderful little guy, with developing feelings and verbosities and mostly good moods and all good health.  He is a little short for his age (like Karly!) but is advanced in terms of speech.  He eats almost everything he’s given and particularly likes squash, pancakes, and couscous.

Not everything is positive.  He does have his naughty side, like last night when, just before I came home, he had pulled all of his books off his shelf and had refused to start picking them up when asked.  Adults like to say “he’s testing you,” and I suppose there’s truth in that, but I wonder why.  He knows it will please his parents if he picks the books up, so why doesn’t he like to please us all the time?  Having been forewarned, I picked him up immediately when I walked in the door and talked with him seriously about this.  He listened intently (probably wondering “how did you know about the books on the floor?”), and I reminded him that when either of us asks him to do something, he should do it.  Then I said, “Jedd, say ‘Okay, Dad.’”  And he said, “Okay, Dad” and nodded.  I hoped it was his own, developing desire to be compliant that led him to say that so readily, and not merely a desire to avoid the issue.

In thinking about the book incident, we could get all philosophical or psychological and say “He’s finding his way in the world, being his own person.”  Or we could get all new-age-parenty and say he’s exploring and being creative … it’s best not to draw boundaries.”  Or we could get all Calvinist and say “This was a manifestation of his fallen nature” or of “original sin.”

Aside:  I often check myself in the use of quote marks, because the commercial and less-schooled literary worlds over-use them.  For instance, have you ever seen “Ladies’ Room” in quotes on a restroom door at a restaurant?  (Are the entrants seen as sort-of ladies or as real ladies?)  I use quotes around “original sin” above because the phrase is of human origin and refers to something that in my view is not a reality.  It deserves attribution—to Augustine or to whomever—but it does not deserve to be presumed real.[1]

So, back to our story.  While I don’t subscribe even half-heartedly to the notion of “original sin” as advocated by Augustine or Calvin, I do surely see, even in our 1.7-year-old Jedd, that humans are not perfect by nature.  He is naturally sweet, and naturally cheerful, and naturally people-sensitive (you should have seen him burst into tears when he thought I was falling off the roof recently—this was completely instinctual, natural … and could not possibly be considered a bad thing!), but he is also prone, in some way and to some degree, to sporadic manifestations of naughtiness.

I appreciate Karly’s choice of the word “naughty” instead of “bad.”  It seems to frame Jedd’s negative behaviors appropriately, without leading anyone — us or him — to begin thinking of him as “bad.”  He is not bad.  He is good.  He is a blessing.  He just has a few human tendencies that need guidance, correction, discipling.  These tendencies do not lump him in the category of the depraved.  They merely mark him as human, with the rest of us.  Part of our job as parents is to capitalize on the good things, while correcting the bad things–shaping and discipling him as he matures, so that he is later a) prone to take his own steps toward God and b) prone to do an about-face when confronted with evil.

God, help us with this sweet, good little boy.  He is an easy child to raise in so many ways, but we are only adequate to this important task if You make it so.

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[1] According to Wikipedia, “Writing against the monk Pelagius, whom he understood as teaching that man’s nature was unaffected by the Fall, or at least was only weakened in the Fall, and that he was free to follow after God apart from divine intervention, Augustine developed the doctrine of original sin and, Calvinists contend, the doctrine of total inability.