Psalm 50 (II); No Bull! (Second Essay)

But God's message, upon arrival, is really quite simple. A child can understand it, but the most mature individual still has to put all his/her effort into it to realize it. God speaks about sacrifices, those little things we offer to God which say that we will do "X" for God or that we are fully dedicated to God's service. God wants to talk to us. "Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice" (v. 5). This gathering is the "accountability meeting." God will have a beef to pick with us.

The central point of God's complaint is that our sacrifices are missing their chief ingredient--gratitude. They might be made reluctantly or even bitterly, but they are given without the requisite thanksgiving. Then, the passage (not in our reading) goes on to make God's complaint more precise. Not only do the ones sacrificing continue to practice deceit and laziness, but they seem to think that they are giving something to God from their possessions. It is as if the mind of the sacrificer works like this: "I can afford to give God this sheep or this goat." It is not exactly the attitude which gives the damaged goods to God, the ones you can't eat anyway, but it is similar to it. God forestalls that attitude immediately: "For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine" (50:10-11).

That is, it already is God's. It is not as if we are giving something to God which God doesn't already have. Thus, what is really in view in sacrifice is the offering of the heart, the heart turned in gratitude to God. But, and I stress this point, it would not be sufficient just to say, 'Well, God is only interested in the heart. Therefore, I will dispense with sacrifices. I will keep the goats and bulls, supping on them with friends, giving thanks to God the whole time.' Nope, this won't work. We aren't really thankful to God unless we freely give to God what already belongs to God. But we need to part with things that are necessary to us in life. But give it with gratitute, with thanksgiving that we have something to give and that God is our God and will receive it and bless us.

III. A Warning

It would be nice if the Scriptures just ended with the exhortation or the good news. Just do "X" and you will be blessed. But there is often a warning appended. I don't really like warnings, but sometimes they are salutary. We need them because we are heedless of danger and we don't really see the serious consequences of a lot of what we do. We tend to focus too much on ourselves and the contours of our often-puny worlds. We ignore larger dimensions of the world in which we are placed. We don't think that our actions will have repercussions.

But sometimes they do. And that is the purpose of v. 22 of the Psalm. Notice the somberness of it:

"Mark this, then, you who forget God,/ or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver."

Oops. It looks like God takes things very seriously, that the coming of God was not just to sidle up next to us to watch an HBO Special. The coming of God was filled with the fire that burns as well as warms. But here the language of fire has disappeared and we have an image from the animal kingdom. In view is the lion or wild beast that tears asunder. The image is also present in the prophecy of Hosea. When Israel (Ephraim in the passage) was in trouble, it sought help from foreign kings rather than from God. Here is what happened:

"When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
and sent to the great king.
But he is not able to cure you
or heal your wound.
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue..." (Hos. 5:13-14).

God can speak through the Psalmist about tearing them limb from limb because God has already "rehearsed" the divine lines in this Hosea passage.

Conclusion

The Scriptures will not let us avoid the point, even in our permissive age and time, that there are repercussions to our actions. There is a piper to pay, a toll that our actions take. Orienting ourselves rightly to God through thanksgiving and gratitude will go a long way, however, to making sure that the rhythms of our lives and the longings of our hearts will lead to good and not to the fearsome fire or tearing limbs of the divine judgment.

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