What A Parent Wants--August 13, 2021

What A Parent Wants--August 13, 2021

"Consequently when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, See, God, I have come to do your will, O God (in the scroll of the book it is written of me)'." [Hebrews 10:5-7]

You know what I want from my kids?  Nothing. 

Really.  

I imagine the same is true for you if you have children, and the same with grandchildren as well.  We don't want "stuff" from them. We don't want their toys or their clothes or their video games.  We don't want their money or their chocolate bunnies at Easter time.  We don't want to take things from our children, because that's not how this relationship works.   The parent-child relationship is always going to be asymmetrical in a certain sense, where parents give and provide and labor, and kids receive.  (Sure, there are also times when those tables turn and grown children provide care for aging parents, but even then no one is doing this for personal gain, but out of loving service.)

So, on the days when my kids try to butter me up with a bribe to make up for some infraction of the house rules, or some unkind thing they've done to each other, or as a lead-up to a big ask of something they want, I have to explain to them that our family doesn't work like that.  I am not interested in owning their prized possessions or taking their money.  I love them, apart from what they do, what they say, or what they break in the living room curio cabinet.  And that love is not transactional or conditional.  It does not depend on what they have done or could do for me.  It just doesn't.  I'm pretty sure that's how family is supposed to work.

Now, that said, if I press a little deeper into my own question, I guess I do want something from my kids--but not for me.  I would like my kids to treat each other well--to love each other, to treat each other with kindness and decency.  And if I'm going to spin that whole thought out, I guess I also want them to become decent, loving, fair, and wise human beings all around.  Right now, that would include things like recognizing when we could use a hand setting the table before dinner, or cleaning up their rooms, or sitting with the unpopular kids at lunch, or going out of their way to do the right thing.  And when they are grown up, I guess I would like to see my kids become the kind of human beings who help out their neighbors, care for those who are most vulnerable, and who take responsibility for their actions and obligations.  All of that would be the kind of thing I want--of them, I guess, but also for them.

But never, not now or in the future, am I looking to acquire goods or services from my children for my own benefit.  As C. S. Lewis once famously observed, children tend to get their money from their parents anyhow, so any gift from child to parent is still basically the parent getting what was already their own back in a different form.  It may be all well and good for a child to want to give their mom or dad a birthday present, but as Lewis says, "only an idiot would think the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction."  I wish for my children to become a certain kind of human being--not because of what I "get" out of it, but because I want them to be fully alive and good.  I want them to be the people they are meant to be, I suppose.

In a very real sense, the writer of Hebrews has been pointing out for a very long time in this book that this is God's wish, if we can speak of God having wishes, for all of us.  God has never needed to sacrifices or offerings, just like any decent parent doesn't need or want the children's toys or birthday presents.  What we can say is that God wants us to be the kind of people who live in certain ways so that we can be fully alive, fully good, fully human--what we were meant to be as divine image-bearers in the first place.  God doesn't want that of us because of what God "gets" out of it, like it's a deal or a transaction, but rather because God delights in us being what we were fully made to be.

So as the writer of Hebrews does a sort of extended riff here giving a loose-ish paraphrase of a passage from Psalm 40, he is drawing on ancient Israel's understanding that says the same thing.  God didn't ever need to be bought off, bribed, or conned into kindness by what we can offer.  God has always wanted instead that we be a certain kind of people--people of justice and mercy, people who are good to neighbors, strangers, and enemies, people who are truthful, empathetic, and decent.  God has no need to be fed with our sacrifices, but does want us to be the kind of people who make sure our neighbors are fed. God doesn't have a dress code for what we wear when we come to worship, but does want us to be the kind of people who would be willing to be inconvenienced, say by a small piece of fabric over our mouths, if it might mean someone else is kept healthy during a pandemic.  God doesn't really care what foods we do or don't put into our bodies, but God does care that we become the kind of people who would get vaccinated with a shot in our arms in order to protect someone else who can't be vaccinated or is especially at risk.  Or, as in the well-known line often attributed to Martin Luther, you could say, "God doesn't need our good  works--but our neighbor does."

Because we 21st century folks don't go around slaughtering goats during our worship services, we have a way of assuming that we have already learned this lesson and know that God doesn't "need" our sacrifices.  But we have just found our own religious actions we think will impress God, while we still keep ignoring the well-being of our neighbors.  Wearing a cross necklace, putting a Jesus-fish on your car, sharing schmaltzy "inspirational" memes on social media, or listening to "Christian" radio or TV (whatever those might mean), these are all fine (more or less) and mostly harmless, but let's not pretend that these are the kinds of things that God is particularly after with us.  God has never been interested in being bribed or patronized, just like any half-decent parent.  God has always been interested in us being the kind of people who do God's will--who love like God loves, who are just and decent even when it is costly,  and who care for the other people that God loves as well.

Today's verses from Hebrews point out two things, then: first, that this has been the position of the Scriptures from the beginning, and that even in the far more ancient perspective of Israel's covenant, God has valued who we are above the sacrifices we might offer.  And then second, our verses from Hebrews specifically connect Jesus with being the one who really embodies what "God's will" looks like.  Instead of guessing wildly, instead of just baptizing our own self-interest, and instead of listening to the talking-heads on cable channels who insist they know what God's will looks like (and, what a coincidence, it aligns perfectly with their political party's platform!), Christians are people who look to Jesus to show us what God's will looks like.  Rather than sacrifices of animals or money, rather than empty shows of piety or religious bumper stickers, rather than angry tirades of religious entitlement, we are called to embody the way of Jesus--for one another, and for the world.  That's what God has always been after.

Just like any parent, really, God has always wanted us to become the kind of people we were made to be: loving, fair, kind, and decent.  You know--people whose lives look like Jesus.

May we be such people today.

Lord God, grant us the grace to become who we were meant to be--grant us the grace to do your will and to embody your ways.