Two Scripture passages come to my mind – Leviticus 1 and Luke 22. The former describes in great detail the manner in which the ancient Israelites were to make burnt offerings to God. The latter retells Jesus’ celebration of the Lord’s Supper with his disciples. Both are very different passages, both in style and substance. But both have in common that they present us with acts of giving, acts in which the giver doesn’t expect to receive anything material in return. In Leviticus, animals, grain, and incense is burnt on God’s altar as a form of thanksgiving to God. In Luke, Jesus gives himself away – his body, his blood, his very life – without expecting to receive anything in return. Grain, meat, oil –they were the ancient equivalent of money. When people burnt them on God’s altar, it was as if we were to take our offering plates, place them on the altar, and then tossed in match, burning up everyone’s money or checks (o.k., I know that that’s illegal for us to do in the U.S.).
Offering the grain, the meat, and the oil was an act of worship in ancient Israel, an instance in which the Israelites were invited to give up something of value as a sacrifice to God. When we are invited to put our money into the offering plates … that’s an act of worship, too. Contrary to what many may think, we are invited to put our money into the offering plate not because the church needs our money, but because we want and need to give it. Mark Allan Power writes that “we have a spiritual need to worship God and through our offerings we are able to express our love and devotion to God in a way that is simple and sincere.”[i]
Jesus, however, teaches us that the giving of money or its equivalents is not all that is required of those whom he called to participate in the building of God’s Kingdom. Jesus did not merely give away his possessions (and asked others to do the same); rather, Jesus gave himself away and his very life in service to others, in service to the salvation of the world. While most of us are not willing nor able to make such a profound sacrifice, Jesus reminds us that those who give themselves away in service to others in the name of Jesus will gain eternal life (Matthew 16:25).
To me, our service worship last Sunday was a token of such giving away. The point of the service worship was not so much that the “haves” do something nice for the “have-nots.” If that were the main point, our service worship would leave the social hierarchies between the well-off and the poor unchallenged and leave unquestioned the economic system that makes the poor poorer and the rich richer.
I hope and pray that this service worship may strengthen in us the firm belief that Jesus has abolished the dividing line between the rich and the poor, as well as the housed and the homeless. Jesus has come to remind us that we all are one and need one another. We are all guests in God’s “kin-dom.” We are one body of Christ, and together we can do work toward eradicating hunger and abolishing poverty.
During our service worship Sunday, many among the Bethel community had opportunities to work alongside others, to encounter folks who have less than we, and to learn from them, and be changed in the process. To me, being changed by God through the act of service is a goal that is just as important as to feed the hungry. True change, true justice and peace won’t come about until we learn that we all need one another, that we each have something of value that we can share with the human community.
[i] Mark Allann Powell, Giving to God: The Bible’s Good News about Living a Generous Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, p. 12.
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