Sermon – Living for God
Exodus 13:1-2, 11-12, 13b-16; Luke 2:1-7, 22-24
Farmville Presbyterian Church
10/20/24
We have not even gotten to Halloween or Thanksgiving, and he is already bringing up Christmas readings. Plus, he is even hooking in the two turtledoves, but these turtledoves are not the two from the Twelve Days of Christmas. It turns out, this is how much baby Jesus was worth.
Yes, you might call today something of a strange conversation: how much are we worth?
Back in 2016, it was computed that if one could take all of the elements of a human body and sell them, we would be worth just under $600 apiece. In today’s money, that is probably a little higher, but that is only one way to place a price tag on the human creature. Of course, another way is to say that we are beyond value, that each and every one of us is too precious to even have a price, invaluable. We may have a family member who might say we are priceless. We may feel that way about ourselves, but that is interestingly not what God has said. Baby Jesus was worth two pigeons or turtledoves when he was presented at the Temple for his offering to God. When he was eight days old, he was to be brought to the priest for circumcision and sacrifice. He was to be sacrificed to God. In fact, every firstborn male period, people and animals, was to be offered to God as a sacrifice.
You heard that in the first reading. Just after the people of Israel were released from slavery to Egypt, God told them the price for their lives. The firstborn of Egypt died so that they might be free. Now, the firstborn of Israel had to be sacrificed to God because they were free. The language of sacrificing your oldest boy is not exactly clear. They may have interpreted this literally at times, and there were times when the Israelites did practice child sacrifice. Exodus 22:29 seems to open the door to this, but the prophets Jeremiah (19) and Ezekiel (20) are very clear that no one should be sacrificing children in any unholy way. Leviticus 20 also denounces the practice. By the time we get to Jesus, the ritual has been set for a long time. Eight days in, the first baby boy was to be brought for consecration before God’s priest. Rather than sacrificing the baby’s life, the parents could offer something else as a stand-in. For the poor, that was two turtledoves or pigeons. Those birds took the place for the baby boy, this one Jesus. The value of those birds was supposed to replace the value of the child.
God was very serious about this sacrifice. The fact that it is proscribed over 1000 years before Jesus was born and that they are still doing in his day is a pretty good indicator. It is not just babies, however, that God is interested in. The firstborn male children in that culture represented a gift of the best of the best. As a firstborn male child, I can say this is absolutely true. If only this were the case. Of course this is the attitude of the times in the Bible. We see things differently today, but the idea still stands that God wants at least a portion of what is most valuable. God deserves our best because it all belongs to God.
Last week, it was the first fruits of the crops. The best and newest of the fields is a gift. This week, it is the first fruits of the people. This reflects that it all belongs to God. The first time I realized that children are entirely a gift of grace, my world changed. It is so easy to think of children as belonging to us, that they are our children, but the process of having children, of that young life growing in a mother, is something beyond our understanding or ability. We cannot make that baby grow any more than we can make that seed become a stalk. It happens naturally in a world God made. God’s creative presence is at the heart of all of this. Since creation gets its direction from God, what comes from creation also all belongs to God.
And that brings us back to the point. We offer to God what is most precious, the life of the child is most precious. The best of the crops is also precious from the harvest. I hope you see what is going on here. God gets the very best because it all belongs to God. And everything belongs to God. *** So, whatever is precious to us is worth dedication to the Lord. Whatever is precious to us is what God can use for God’s good and holy purposes. These things are worthy of the sacrifice. Literally, we are living for God because we are precious and we belong to God.
Honestly, some of these ideas I worked out the other day as I used this message for my Communion service at Brookview Lodge this last week. It happened that this was my week to head over to that skilled care facility, and this was the message on my plate. I was not exactly sure how it would go over. The residents over there are pretty removed from consecrating their children for God’s holy purposes, and my sense is that they do not feel incredibly precious all the time, but there we were singing their value to God and remembering how precious they are. A baby absolutely represents hope, but it is still a baby and completely helpless. Even with that, they are precious. The folk at Brookview and even more Holly Manor or the Watson Memory Unit struggle to be as vigorous or sharp as they once were, but the collection of years and experiences and wisdom and relationships that those lives represent is staggering. They are wonderfully precious and worthy being held to God.
For the same reason, I get more excited for the Special Olympics than the regular Olympics. The joy of being a winner when so many may look at you and see someone defective is absolutely something that sings to my heart. There is no moral judgment on the lives dedicated to God. Among those ancient babies, some might have ended up being successful or honorable or broken or failures. They are not picked by God because of who they might become but because of what they represent. They are life itself given to this world in God’s love. Before they take a step in this world, we stop and thank God for the gift of life and love and hope and relationships. That is what this sacrifice demands of us. When we receive something truly good, before we rush on and keep it for ourselves and use it to benefit us, we share it with God. We give thanks and acknowledge that whatever good we have is a gift.
Even God has given us God’s very best. Remember John 3:16? Jesus is God’s response to us. There is something beautiful here in not asking us to do anything that God would not also do. The only way God’s heart can be known to us is by being shown. Words can only get you so far. Saying we love God or God saying that we are also loved cannot mean what it must mean unless it is shown. When you love someone, you give presents. When you love someone that much, you give the most precious presents. God asks for our best, and in return, we also get God’s best. For God, it was a cross. That is what sacrifice means for us. It is not about a checklist for what to give when. It is not about numbers or percentages, but it is about giving deeply and giving honestly and giving earnestly and giving thankfully. It is giving our best and receiving the best.
We are all precious to God. We are God’s beautiful harvest, even with our ups and downs, and as long as we are here, we can look to tend to the harvest and to love the life we share. To God be the glory. Amen.