Lutheran theology tells us that sacrifice is not needed.
Lutheran theology tells us that sacrifice is essential.
Lutheran theology is not for the faint of heart. It specializes in both/and rather than either/or.
We live in that wondrously frustrating land of gray, where it is and it isn't.
Folks constantly claim that they want clear, definitive answers, but in truth they don't. Even the most black and white thinkers, the die hard 'concrete operational' thinkers, the 'tell it to me straight' folks realize that this world is complicated with as many exceptions as rules.
And if this world is constantly shifting, revealing and hiding, surprising and disappointing, then what can you say about God?
The traditional word is 'mystery'. God is mystery; beyond our knowing; whose ways are not our ways; totaliter aliter (Karl Barth's 'totally other'). Humans may have been created a 'little lower than the angels' but God is so beyond the angels that we catch only glimpses, and then only the glimpses that God offers to us. (that is Barth too)
But getting back to sacrifice, it's complicated. It's nuanced.
In the beginning (not long ago, but in the beginning of our relationship with our first understanding of 'God'), we thought we should offer God a gift in order to keep God happy, to increase our chance of God being on our side. It works with our sweetheart, the waitress in our favorite diner, even our neighbors. Show up at the door with a homemade pie and you begin to ascend in their estimation. We offer gifts of good behavior and sometimes money and not only think that God will like us more, but more importantly, God will punish us less. How many times have you heard people say, "Why is God so angry at me? What have I ever done?" [BTW that is always a rhetorical question because, of course, there are many possible answers to that question.]
So here is the good news. God doesn't need our gifts. God doesn't eat apple pie. Our sacrifice - of time, talent, money, good behavior - just doesn't figure into it....because God already loves us more than we can imagine! That's right. We don't have to make God like us; we don't have to appease God's anger. God is way ahead of us on this one - God loves us and loves us and loves us. It is a given; that is who God is.
Not that we believe it, because I know who and what I am and I don't like myself some days. But it is the truth. God so loved the world that God gave us the Son.......see John 3.16. God is pre-disposed to loving the creation called into being by God's own Word. We think of our relationship with God as a transaction. God knows that it is a love affair from start to finish.
So, sacrifice is not necessary. In fact, each time we think that our gifts 'make God love us' - we are so far into left field we might as well give up the game.
When we see Jesus throwing a fit in the temple, shutting down the temple marketplace, we need to remember that our sacrifices will not change God's mind one iota. God loved us before. God will love us afterwards.
Not because we are so amazingly worthy but because God is so amazingly gracious.
Sacrifice is not necessary. So why then is sacrifice essential? Well, that's for another day.
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