Offertory, Offering, Prayer
This sermon is part of a midweek series on the parts of the liturgy.
Text: Lev. 7:11-17, 2 Cor. 8:1-15, Matt. 7:7-11
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As the Israelites wandered through the wilderness on their journey to the Promised Land, they received grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy. When they thirsted, the Lord gave them water from a rock. When they were hungry, He showered manna on them from the heavens. When they decided they wanted meat instead of miraculous bread, He sent flocks of quail to their camp. They received everything in abundance, even in the desert wasteplaces they traveled. They filled themselves to satisfaction, so that tonight St. Paul repeats the words that described their state: “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” The Lord saw that every one of His people had more than enough. And in an even greater show of generosity, He told them to expect even more when they arrived in the land that was their inheritance. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land,” He told them, “a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.”
And then, when the time was right, the Lord taught them what to do with such an abundance. They had received the Lord’s name, so now they were to imitate Him. What better way to imitate their God than to demonstrate the same kind of generosity He had shown them. So when they harvested the fields He was giving them, they were not to harvest it right up to the edge. They were to leave the edges for the hungry and helpless to glean. They were not to shake the trees for their fruit more than once. Leave the fruit that stayed behind for those who needed it more than them.
Even beyond this, the Lord provided a way for them to show generosity and care for their fellow believers. When they arrived in the Promised Land, all the tribes were given their own territory, and every family was given their portion—all except for the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi was instead expected to tend to the tabernacle full time. They would offer sacrifices, lead services, and teach the rest of God’s people the ways of the Lord, in season and out of season. Because of this, they would have no time to grow crops or raise herds, so they were given no land. In a world before the dominance of cash, as ours is, this meant that the Levites’ food would have to come from somewhere else. So the Lord provided a way. The food for the tribe of Levi would come from the offerings given in the tabernacle. A portion of the offerings of grain and wine and meat given in the tabernacle would be shared with the Levites so that all God’s people would have food. The Lord would give them what was His—a portion of the sacrifice offered to Him—so that they would live.
In some ways, offering or sacrifice is very unnatural to our most base instincts. We have a natural tendency to hoard, to store up, to save everything we get so that we can enjoy it; or because we fear that it won’t be enough. Our own society sees strong trends in both directions—fear of the future and self-centered consumption. But in other ways, sacrifice is very natural to human nature. If we look at nearly every religion in the world, there’s some element of sacrifice. From the Hindu leaving food for an idol to the Greeks offering the inedible parts of an animal to Zeus to the 2.5% offering from the surplus of what was earned in Islam to the tax deductible offerings given by atheists and agnostics to the nonprofit of their choice, nearly every religion understands that sacrifice is part of their faith system.
But this is where our God is different. He does not ask His people for sacrifice in order to unlock some sort of good favor from Him. He doesn’t need our offerings at all. “For every beast of the forest is mine,” the Lord says in the Psalms, “the cattle on a thousand hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all its fullness are mine.” No, when it comes to our God, the offerings and sacrifices we make are for the good of our neighbor, not for the benefit of God or ourselves. As Paul speaks glowingly of the Christians in Macedonia, “For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.” They knew that the almighty God had no need of their gift, but they could not bear to hear of the struggle their fellow believers were undergoing, so they gave for the benefit of their neighbors, even the ones they would never meet.
And so, in our own Divine Service, the offering—and the offertory, that musical element given near the same time as our tithes and offerings, given to the Lord in recognition of all He’s given us, follows the readings and the sermon. We’ve heard what our Lord has done for us. We’ve heard how He’s forgiven our sins and laid all of eternity before us. We’ve heard that our name, the name given to us in Baptism, in the Invocation, has been restored to us, so now we walk in our Lord’s way again by acting in faith and offering sacrifices for the good of our neighbor. We offer ourselves, as we sing in the offertory, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” or other songs. We offer the earthly gifts God has entrusted to us. We offer our praise, that thing we so often desperately crave for our own accomplishments. What greater act of faith can we have than to offer God what is His own, recognizing He is so generous that He’s given us more than we need? What closer way can we follow Christ than to offer what’s ours for the good of someone else?
Now we don’t do this because we think it will get us something nice in return. And we don’t do it because we feel guilty about it and think that this will set us right with God. We do it because this is what our Father does, and we bear our Father’s name. We belong to His family and this is what His family does. We do it because we care about the people that the Lord has put around us, people who need daily bread, who haven’t had as much manna scattered around their tent, who have had a bad season and are in need of help. We do it because we know that our Father who is in heaven will give us our daily bread, and that He will make us His instruments to give daily bread to others.
Once we’ve stepped forward in faith, what do we do next in the Divine Service? We take yet another step forward and we ask God for all that we need. We call this the Prayer of the Church. We pray for those who have requested our prayers, for families, for the sick, for the government, and for those who serve the Church. Again, this is a marvelous act of faith: looking to God for all that we need. It’s also an act of service to our neighbors, even those who might never know that we’ve approached God’s throne on their behalf.
Everything in the Divine Service is meant to build and strengthen faith. When our Triune God comes to us in the service, in the Word, in the Sacraments, in the prayers and preaching, and gives us so much good, He then provides opportunities for our faith to be exercised, compounded, tested, and purified by allowing us to be the hands and feet that serve our neighbor. He will always provide abundantly, if we have eyes to see. In the name of Jesus, the Generous. Amen.
