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Fourth Sunday in Lent

Ephesians 2
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.


If you’re going to engage in time travel, don’t go unblemished.

The ancients, it seems, had a thing for the unblemished. If you are well fed, with nice nails, no scars on your hands and feet, maybe a little product in your hair, then don’t set the time machine to northern Europe, say 2,000 years back.

For the ancients, you see, life was pretty tense. The cycle of famine and plenty was well established, neighbouring tribes were seldom friendly, and even small ailments could be fatal. Overall, life was hard.

At some point, some clever ancient discovered cause and effect. Gather these seeds, plant them carefully, and later you enjoy some more seeds. Eat the little red berries, and you will get sick. Eat too many of the blueberries, and you know the rest. Cause and effect was the governing rule of the day, a discovery right up there with fire, and an important route to survival.

Someone, at some point, made a connection between the mood of the gods and the situation on earth. Perform some ritual and things go well, fail to perform it and suffer the consequences. And the idea really took off. Soon there was a pantheon of gods engaged in all sorts of activities and tied to a variety of outcomes.

All of this, of course, tied in nicely with another quirk of human living, the hopeful outcome. I call it the frog-prince paradigm, where we continually imagine that every frog is a potential prince. And we will kiss a lot of them before it becomes clear that a frog is just a frog. If you need a more modern example, think of the last few shiny gizmos you have bought, and all the excitement they bring, and the idea that this gizmo will change everything, and the feeling you get six months later when you see it under the couch covered in dust.

We seem to have an inexhaustible supply of hope when it comes to outcomes. And this too is a survival technique. If we become convinced that everything will end in disappointment, then life becomes a bit of a pointless exercise. But in my experience this seldom happens. Even in the most grim moments we seem to have the capacity for hope, the abiding sense that things will get better.

So twin the idea of cause and effect with the idea that things can always get better and you have human sacrifice. It may not seem like an A+B=C kind of leap, but it really is. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, and doing something may make the situation better, so do something. Like an ongoing hostage situation, someone somewhere finally said, “look, just give the gods what they want, and this will end. By the way, what do the gods want?”

Back to my time travelling caution, it seems the gods wanted unblemished. And again, the logic seems unassailable: if sacrifice is good, how about human sacrifice? If human sacrifice is good, why not someone unblemished? Remember that ancient living was hard on the body. People were all beat up, cuts healed badly, fractures seldom set, teeth were not so good. You might think the unblemished were hard to find.

Somehow, all over northern Europe, we have examples of “bog people ” who were laid to rest in bogs and swamps and were somehow preserved. They have names like Croghan Man and Clonycavan Man, most often named for the bog where they were found. And a surprising number of these bog people were unblemished, just as I cautioned before, with the features of someone not engaged in everyday living, but somehow set apart for a special task.

Now let’s travel south, about a thousand miles, and listen in as St. Paul weighs in on the topic at hand:

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12)

And then he goes on in Romans 12 to define a living sacrifice and a renewed mind: a life marked by humility, service, forgiveness. Notice, however, that he doesn’t say ‘do these things to earn salvation,’ rather these are a grateful response, a new way of being that comes with the recognition found in Ephesians 2. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

In just a few sentences Paul has shattered those assumptions that made the ancient world work. He put an end to divine cause and effect, declaring that we cannot earn our salvation through works alone, and that only a living sacrifice will work: God wants us alive to serve God, not off in some distant bog.

***

As a young lad, Patricius would have known about rituals of sacrifice. While he and his family set aside all forms of sacrifice, being Christian, he would likely have known neighbours and friends tied to the old ways, the few Romans in Britain who would make sacrifices to the Roman gods. Some minor deity might require some milk or fruit: Janus required a ram, and Mars, god of war, preferred an ox.

But not too far away, to the north and to the west, over the Irish sea, Patricius would have heard more ominous tales of sacrifice. And when he was abducted, and carried off to the land across the sea, he would have witnessed these things first hand, just one more introduction to the harsh life in pre-Christian Europe.

Eventually he escaped his captors, after six long years, and somehow managed to return home to his family. In his own account of the tale, the young man we know as Patrick, was restless at home, until a man he knew back in Ireland appeared to him in a dream and said ‘vox hibericum,’ return to us and speak to the Irish.

And return he did. At Slane he set a fire to mark Easter morning, even though the High King at Tara had forbidden it. Arrested, like so many holy people before and since, he converted those who detained him and brought the light of Christ to the powerful.

His first message, and his most important message, was no longer do you need to sacrifice the unblemished ones in an effort to gain favour with God. No, that sacrifice has already taken place, once and for all, when Jesus died on the cross. “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism,” St. Paul said, “And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” (Romans 6.4)

This is the living sacrifice—holy and pleasing to God—that allows us to break from the patterns of this world and offer ourselves in humility, service and forgiveness that Paul argues in Romans.

Just as Patrick did. He could have displaced the High King at Tara. As a man of obvious power and influence over others, Patrick could have used his position to acquire great wealth or taken revenge on those who took him captive in his youth. But he did none of these. Instead he brought a simple and utterly transforming message to a people who needed hope. He told them the simple message that God has already saved them, that nothing is required to earn salvation, it is a gift from God, freely given.

I urge you, on the day after the big day, to become like Patrick. Find the people who are busy trying to earn things: the respect of others, some sort of worldly status, or even trying to earn love. And tell them the same message Patrick shared and St. Paul shared: No longer do you need to sacrifice your dignity or your energy or your integrity to earn your place in the world, it is already given. You are a child of God, uniquely loved, who no longer needs to be conformed to the patterns of this world. Accept the grace of God, and give thanks, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 12:22 PM