Does Sacrifice Please God?

November 10, 2024

In an earlier blog, I had taken up the theme of Jesus’ priesthood which is one of the important themes that pervade the letter to the Hebrews.  Today’s second reading connects with another theme that pervades this same letter, namely the theme of sacrifice.

The idea of ‘sacrifice’ is a theme that is common to our human heritage, and certainly to all religions.  From a human point of view, there are many motivations that could prompt people to make sacrifices. A person may sacrifice for altruistic reasons (to help someone else), or because after a cost-benefit analysis the person assesses the perceived benefits of such a sacrifice would be greater as compared to what one deprives oneself of (e.g. sacrificing a sugar-based treat would give me greater health), or because it is part of their self-identity to give up things for others (like many women are brought up to believe they must as a good wife or mother sacrifice for their families), or because of cultural  or contextual pressure, or as a coping mechanism when faced with uncertain circumstances or outcomes (e.g. not sure if I will have funds for tomorrow, so I give up something I don’t absolutely need today), or because of the emotional rewards it brings them (they feel good or virtuous about themselves). 

But the additional and troublesome reason that surfaces in the lives of many of those who follow a religion, is the belief that sacrifice, or voluntary suffering, is apparently something that pleases God. So, in all religions, there are people who undertake stringent fasts, or much self-inflicted suffering, all in order to please God and gain some favours/boons.  It is this last reason for making a sacrifice that makes no sense to me.  Why would a loving God find any pleasure in us making ourselves suffer or be unhappy?  It is this same motivation for sacrifice that makes us happily accept that Jesus sacrificed himself allegedly  to please and satisfy God and thus get us salvation from our sins.  I have already spoken earlier on the theological unacceptability of seeing Jesus as sacrificing himself to satisfy God’s justice, because it is quite contrary to the kind of God that Jesus introduced his followers to (Has Jesus truly saved us?  April 23, 2023)  

Sacrifice does not have value in and of itself.  It is just one step or a means, among others, to reach whatever goal I may strive for, and certainly not in order to satisfy a God who is hungry for such expressions of alleged love of God.   And the value of the sacrifice is therefore directly connected to the goal I want to achieve.  So a sacrifice that I make with the goal of wanting to take revenge or teach others a lesson, or so that it would please a God who would then reward me with a house or good health or a spouse or success,  or something like that, is not a sacrifice that has any Christian value.  

From a religious point of view, then, the goal for which one chooses to make a sacrifice, is not to please God, but to move us in the direction of becoming the kind of person that God is calling us to become, or as I shared last Sunday, to build our relationship with God. For the follower of the Buddha, sacrifice has value if it is helping us become less and less entangled with desire, which is perceived as the root cause of all suffering, and the main obstacle to achieving Nirvana. For the follower of Jesus, it has value if it is making us become more and more a person  who genuinely loves our neighbour, which helps to usher in the kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed.  So, whether in religious or non-religious practices, sacrifice is ultimately meant to help us gain what we want.  However, whether we make sacrifices to get something, or to become who we are called to be, we are highly influenced in the reasons for our sacrifice by the basic ideology or values (religious or otherwise) that pervade our lives. 

It is clear from the Gospels that  the ‘sacrifice’ of Jesus that is referred to in today’s reading from Hebrews,  was not the type of sacrifice that we see in ascetics who live lives deprived of many ‘good’ things of life.  In fact Jesus himself points this out, when he compares himself with the ascetic John the Baptist: For John came neither eating nor drinking, ….. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ (Mathew 11:18-19). So Jesus did not really practice that ‘sacrificing’ type of life that most of us tend to expect of ‘holy’ men.  And yet his very life, was one in which he sacrificed his all for standing up for his understanding of religion, and in order to live faithfully the life he believed his Father was calling him to.  And it is precisely because of this ‘sacrifice’ that was expressed in his commitment to live in this way, that he knew that he would have to finally suffer for it.  Throughout the Gospels we can see that Jesus never ASKS for suffering, or goes searching for it out of any false belief that it would please God; he just knows it is inevitable.  He sacrifices his natural tendency to avoid suffering (Father if it were possible, take this chalice of suffering away from me (Mathew 26:39), and chooses rather to continue to do his Father’s will even though it would inevitably mean suffering. In fact anybody who stands up to those in authority in order to speak truth to power, knows deep down in his/her heart that it will lead to suffering.  THAT is the kind of sacrifice that the letter to the Hebrews is talking about.  That is why in today’s reading from Hebrews, the writer compares the sacrifices of an animal offered by the High Priest to that offered by Jesus, and says they are significantly different, because Jesus offered a  sacrifice of himself. THAT then is the kind of sacrifice that Jesus asks of us - to commit ourselves to bring about the kingdom of heaven, and if that demands ‘sacrifice’ then to choose to sacrifice. Sacrifice is not demanded of us to please God, but rather, to become who we are meant to be.

First Reading: First Kings 17: 10-16
 
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
 
Second Reading: Hebrews 9: 24-28
 
For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
 
Gospel: Mark 12: 38-44
 
As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”