Because We Need to See--August 12, 2021
"But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." [Hebrews 10:3-4]
Here's an uncomfortable truth about the human species, from my own self-observing and self-reporting: it is terribly easy to do rotten things when I know I am not likely to immediately feel the consequences of them. For that matter, it is just as easy not to do good things if I know I am not likely to feel an instant benefit or reward for doing it. We are creatures easily swayed by instant gratification or instant pain, and absent one or the other, we are just not reliable on our own for avoiding bad things and practicing good ones.
Part of me knows that it would be wise and good for my body to exercise every day. But another voice in my brain says things like, "But getting up an hour earlier to go for a jog or ride your bike won't make you feel immediately better--in fact, you'll feel sweaty and tired! Better to skip the exercise!"
Part of me knows it is better to recycle a plastic bottle when I am finished with it, even if that means holding onto it for a while until I can take it to a recycling bin at home rather than a trash can. And I know that even better than a one-time use plastic bottle is something I can use and wash over and over again, like a steel travel cup or a glass bottle. But another part of me says, "Those take extra planning to grab ahead of time at the start of the day, and you're too busy to stop and use those. Plus, what difference does one more bottle make?" All too often, I find myself very persuasive.
We know that spending endless hours on screens isn't good for us or for our kids and grandkids--but it's hard (and rarely does it feel rewarding) to insist we all turn them off for a while. We know that it's not good to waste the resources of our planet or ignore the damage human enterprises have on our environment and the climate, but because there's not an immediate zap of lightning or smack on the hand every time we waste energy or cut down a tree in the rainforest, we ignore what we know is true, deep down. Because the future consequences of those kinds of actions are just that--in the future--they seem fuzzy, unreal, and easy to make ourselves forget about.
And it's also terribly easy for us to tell ourselves that if I don't feel an immediate pain from my choice, then it must not be wrong. If it causes a problem for someone else downstream, I just tell myself, "Well, it's their fault for choosing to live there," or "This is how freedom works--they just got the short end of the stick." It's easy to tell ourselves, then, a lot of rotten things we either actively do or tacitly allow are really just fine--because we're not the ones who feel any pinch when they happen.
I think something like that is what the writer of Hebrews is getting at when he talks about the ancient sacrifices of Israel's temple worship. They weren't there because they could somehow pay for sins or take away their effects. They were there to remind the people--and us as well--that something can be wrong even if I don't feel an immediate consequence from it. Sin damages our relationships with one another, and with God, even if in the moment I can't tell or feel it. When I lie to someone else, I may not get caught--not in the moment, maybe not ever. But some part of our relationship dies when I lie, and some piece of me shrivels up inside that is meant to be courageous and truthful and decent. I may not be able to see it, but when I settle for sliding into deception, it causes harm--even if I can't see what that harm is.
Along the same lines, when I treat someone else as less-than, when I degrade or abuse someone else, or when I belittle or exclude someone else, I may not feel the impact--but there is still damage done to the whole fabric of humanity. There is a tear where there should have been a tie between us, and even if I can't sense or recognize it now, it is there.
When we allow systems, routines, and habits to regularly harm people, we are sinning--even if I can't see or feel how it's "bad" because it doesn't directly affect my life. When we participate in a culture--and teach our children to play by its rules, too--that reduces people's worth to their possessions or their paycheck, we are causing harm to one another, even if the world just calls it "success" or "the price of doing business" or just "the way the world works." And even if we don't recognize that those small day by day patterns are shaping us, we are all becoming ingrained in ways of life that are less than God's vision of justice, mercy, and goodness. That is to say, we are all ingrained in what the Scriptures tend to just call "sin." And like the hymn says, "We know the yoke of sin and death--our necks have worn it smooth." Maybe at some point you are so used to the rottenness you are a part of that you stop realizing it is rotten.
The writer of Hebrews says that the point of countless goats and bulls offered up as sacrifices in Israel's history wasn't ever to imagine that we could bribe God with our livestock. It was never paying God off or feeding divine hunger or sating some heavenly bloodlust. We need the reminder that our actions have consequences, even if we don't immediately experience them or feel them. A thing can be wrong because it is unjust, even if I don't get an immediate slap on the wrist for doing it--even if I don't get caught by the authorities. An action can be sinful because it is lacking in mercy, even if everybody else thinks it's ok. A choice can be rotten even if there are talking heads on TV telling me it's my "right" to be rotten toward my neighbor. And we need some way of reminding us that all those countless daily choices tear at our relationships with God and with one another. In the life of ancient Israel, the regular offering of sacrifice was a constant visual reminder that we keep harming each other, tearing at our relationship with God, and ripping the fabric of God's justice and mercy, even in the times we don't feel it happening personally.
I think a lot these days about that well-known line that goes, "Privilege is thinking something isn't a problem because it doesn't affect you directly." And I think the writer of Hebrews is suggesting that the offering of sacrifices in Israel's ancient memory was meant as a check on that privilege--as a wake-up call for people whose actions, words, and choices were causing harm to others that they could not see and did not feel consequences of, to understand that they were still damaging the web of relationship in which we all live. The ritual of offering sacrifices was meant to open people's eyes to see that they were entangled in rottenness even when they didn't perceive it, and that something needed to be done about it. In a way, I almost think of it like the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, more commonly known as the National Lynching Memorial, in Montgomery, Alabama. Its ominous design is meant, not to just make people feel guilty for past events that happened before their lifetimes, but rather to force all of us to see the pain, the damage, and the terror caused when Black people were lynched in this country--so that we will change our ways and to keep us from sliding into becoming such people again. We need to be able to see that actions which many thought were morally acceptable (because they didn't feel a consequence from committing them) caused great damage, with lasting effects. We need the reminders that even when I don't feel a direct consequence, my actions can still be harmful to others--and that I bear responsibility for those actions. We need reminders that will keep us from letting ourselves off the hook for what we do and how we live, and how our choices ripple out to others.
Maybe, in the end, the whole ritual of offering sacrifices was never really for God's sake, but for ours--to force us to see what we would rather not see, to help us to tell the truth about ourselves even when it is uncomfortable, and to break the power that privilege has over us to make us think, "It's not my problem as long as I'm not directly affected by it."
That is not the final word that the Scriptures have to say about the reality of our sin, but you need to know the truth about the diagnosis before a cure will sound like good news. Maybe we hadn't realized that God has been trying to get through to us just how many ways we are entrapped in the deadly tangle of sin, so that we will know how great our need is for things to be put right.
Now that I think of it that way, I, for one, am glad God hasn't stopped trying to get through to us.
Lord God, give us the courage to face the difficult truths about ourselves, and raise up the truth-tellers, signs, and symbols that will help us see them.
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