Proverbs 21:1-16
To do righteousness and justice
Proverbs 21:3
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Do you ever think that you can bribe God with a little extra in the offering plate? Maybe you can bend the rules a bit over here, because you sacrifice so much over there, or because you do “religious” stuff? You probably don’t actually say anything like that out loud. You might not have even brought such a notion fully to the attention of your frontal lobe. But I bet the thought (in some form or another) has been there nonetheless.
Yesterday, I mentioned King Saul in the context of how David twice refused to lay a hand on him. Today we can remember Saul again, because Samuel used words very similar to this proverb when pronouncing God’s rejection of Saul as king. Samuel said, to obey is better than sacrifice. (See I Samuel 15 for the whole story.)
And that is not the only other place in Scripture where we find a similar sentiment. Consider Hosea:
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Hosea 6:6
Micah expresses the same idea less succinctly:
“With what shall I come before the LORD,
Micah 6:6-8
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Then Matthew has Jesus quoting Hosea twice more:
Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Matthew 9:13
And if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless.
Matthew 12:7
With so much repetition of this core principle, perhaps we should pay attention…
God desires mercy not sacrifice – that is hard because mercy involves NOT doing what someone else deserves. Think about that.
Have we talked about or given mercy to the undeserving…poor, addicts, criminals, immigrants, “welfare queens”, etc.?…Ouch, ouch!! Not that there aren’t consequences in this world, but in treating harshly, not giving dignity, hardening our hearts, ignoring widows (and single mothers) and children (those already born and the unborn)… Where are we in our mercy? I believe that mercy involves taking action in our words and response.
I wholeheartedly agree, but we must not be naïve in our assessment of what constitutes true mercy. That is, what we might think of as kindness and mercy may be, in the long run, very detrimental for the recipient. For example, the parent that never disciplines their child out of a (false) sense of mercy may have to scoop that child’s body up off the street — the child having never learned to heed the instruction to stop before running in front of a car. The same goes for criminal behavior. A soft slap-on-the-wrist penalty when there is no evidence of repentance will almost certainly just encourage further (and worse) bad behavior. That’s just the way we humans are. (See Ecc. 8:11.) The result is more harm to more victims, as well as to the criminal’s own soul. Where is the real mercy for the long-term soul health of that criminal, who needs an incentive to repent? And where is the mercy and justice for the victims? Such “merciful” policies are anything but.
Like I said, I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be very mindful about showing mercy to those that society may well otherwise cast off or denigrate. But let’s be sure to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading as to what that mercy really looks like. Let’s not fall into the trap of just being “nice” to signal our own virtue and in the process do more harm than good.
True, there are consequences – a prison term, training for work if able, etc. But treating people with dignity, not abuse.
Yes, definitely.