One of the down-sides to reading through the whole Bible every year is that the New Testament is actually very short, and I usually have to breeze through it every fall, longing to stop and soak but knowing that December 31st is on the horizon! Right now I’m being stubborn though, and soaking in Matthew, because after trudging through the prophets (with all due respect to them), and receiving quite a few kicks in the shins from James, the words of Jesus continue to wash over my like soothing balm. Jesus is so amazing! He is so convicting and so gentle, so firm and so loving. He manages to crack open my heart and heal it all at once. This Jesus is so beautiful! I pray that we never lose the wonder of how beautiful our Savior truly is.
This morning I read Jesus’ words in Matthew 12: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (v. 7). He speaks this in response the Pharisees criticizing his disciples when they picked heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath, when they were hungry. I love how Jesus turns the whole thing on their heads and points out, quite snarkily I might add, “Or have you not ready in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?” Ouch! Of course they had read the law, they were Pharisees! Can’t you hear the tinge of sharp sarcasm in Jesus’ rebuke?
Essentially the Pharisees were very busily preoccupying themselves with looking around at everyone else’s lives to see if they were good enough. They were the law-police, quick to point out everyone else’s faults. But they had missed the whole–the Son of God, the very fulfillment of the law was standing right in front of then and they were quibbling about heads of grain!
Jesus sets them straight–“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
He really desires both, right? He commended the widow who gave her last two mites, he praised the woman who broke her alabaster jar of perfume and anointed his head. But the reason he commended them was not just their sacrifice, it was their heart of worship. It was that the acts of sacrifice, the acts of service, the acts of ministry, were done with a heart of love. The Pharisees knew nothing of this love, and were thus condemned by Christ.
All our loftiest aspirations of giving, service, sacrifice, ministry, are worthless without love, right? 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that we can give our bodies to be burned and give away all that we have, but if we have not love we gain nothing. Remember all that talk of eternal reward? Gone. Poof–it disappears like a vapor, if we have not love. God desires mercy, a compassion of the heart, above religious sacrifice.
I personally think it’s easier to give away my money than to have a broken heart. It’s easier to hand someone a $100 bill than it is to spend a whole day helping them or listening to them or crying with them. But God desires mercy, love, true compassion. How often my heart is cold! The words of 1 Corinthians 13:1 haunt me. Lord, give us a heart of love. Help us not to miss the point, squabbling about other people picking heads of grain on the Sabbath (or not spending their money like we think they should, or not doing the acts of service we think they should, or not _____ fill in the blank.)
Help our acts of service to flow from a heart of worship, and be marked by true love. Keep our eyes on you instead of critiquing the choices of those around us. We have so much Pharisee in us, Lord! Save us from ourselves. We love you.
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