Joseph W.H. Lough
Revised Common Lectionary: First Psalm: Ps. 50; OT: Deut. 16:18-20,17:14-20
As everyone knows, the books of the Hebrew Sacred Text took shape out of an oral tradition that drew upon the experience over time of innumerable Semitic communities. Among these communities it is clear animal sacrifice was practiced. Of course, the very idea that God might demand an animal sacrifice, much less derive pleasure from it, justifiably offends all of us. And were the Hebrew Sacred Text a “religious” or “spiritual” book – a guide for private enlightenment and personal edification – you can bet that its editors would eventually have redacted those among its passages (such as those about animal sacrifice) that bring offense.
(Happily, however, although the Bible contains passages that I find enlightening and edifying, that is not its “purpose.” Indeed, that is as it should be. For unlike a coherent, comprehensive, integrated spiritual guide, the Bible (all 73 distinct writings together) has no purpose. And it has no purpose not only because each distinct writing has its own purpose, but because, insofar as many different communities have brought themselves into relationship with these seventy-three “books,” the “purpose” of these writings has everything to do with the relationship these communities bear to the books that they are reading. Communication is never a monologue. So, while there would be nothing so foreign to the biblical text than to reduce its meaning to my own isolated, individual relationship to the text, the text’s meaning never exists apart from that relationship.)
And so we find, unexpurgated, unredacted, and unapologetically animal sacrifice in our text.
What I would like to suggest is that today’s readings go straight to the heart of the Roberts Court and to its ruling on Citizens United.
How? Well, let us consider whether I (or you) want to embrace a God that accepts and enjoys or needs animal sacrifice. The psalmist would appear to be of two minds. On the one hand, the psalmist begins (vv. 1-6):
“Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge! Selah
Sacrifice: good. But then we come to verses 12-15:
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
Come again? Sacrifice good? No, sacrifice bad.
My best guess is that vv. 1-6 form the liturgical reading, while vv. 7-23 are the Midrash. But that’s speculation.
The question is how might the demand for (or prohibition against) animal sacrifice be related to the central theme of the text, i.e., the cause of the righteous?
In purely formal, legal, terms, the psalmist makes clear that animal sacrifice acts as surety for the agreement concluded between two parties, in this case God and God’s faithful covenant partners. Then begins the Midrash: how has this covenant worked for God? Answer: not well. And it has not worked well because the faithful covenant partners have mistaken performance of the sacrifice for fulfillment of the covenant itself. In effect, they have mistaken the easy road, the road of ritual form, for the hard road of practical performance.
But, so long as we observe the outward ritual form, isn’t that enough? It’s better than not performing the ritual at all.
Well, no, its not and here’s why. Do you really in a God Who wants or needs this ritual form? The psalmist is quite clear. God already possesses everything. Everything is God’s. So, what is it that you are adding to . . . every thing. The answer is no thing. I add nothing to what God already has.
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
So, what is it that you add to this? No thing. But this is not to suggest that God wants nothing. God wants some thing. The question is what thing does God want?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
God wants us to give thanks. For what? Well, for every thing. Since every thing is already God’s, every thing that you have is a brocho (ברכה), a blessing.
So, why is this significant? It is significant because absent this insight we may be inclined to imagine that God is in need of some thing, that God is lacking some thing, or that God is a kind of Being Who wants some thing. Of course, God does want some thing. God wants us, not the animal, but us.
Ok. Why? So that God can deliver us, that’s why. (And God knows we need delivering.) But, how does that happen? It happens when we stop treating our action as a self-contained ritual performance and when we begin understanding our actions as the vehicles through which God is emancipating us. To be quite clear, we are the agents of our own emancipation; it is through our acts of justice, truth, mercy, and love that we are emancipated.
This is why the “wicked” (vv. 16-22) do not inherit salvation; because they do not perform what is good.
The message of the Deuteronomist is not dissimilar. The Deuteronomist imagines a time – perhaps he is already living in or after such a time – when priests and kings will govern God’s people. And we all know what that means. It means that someone will claim that because he or she has a special relationship with God – a relationship that others do not enjoy – the people should give him or her more power and more things; perhaps in exchange for more divine blessing.
“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Here is the problem. If God blesses me because I give God some thing, then how are my actions in any way connected to emancipatory outcomes? Or, stated differently, if mere ritual performance earns me divine favor – redemption – then what relationship does this ritual performance bear to truly emancipatory deeds?
The same is true of political or religious leaders, judges and kings. If they treat me well, if they decide in my favor or pass laws that favor me simply because I have given them a ritual offering – a bribe – then there is no material relationship between this offering and the goodness that arises out of it. My performance bears no constitutive relationship to the outcome, but only a formal ritual relationship. The bribe makes the judge happy and the judge makes me happy. But, in fact, the judge is rendered less capable of weighing the relative merits of my actual deeds. “A bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.”
But the Deuteronomist goes further. There was a time, the Deuteronomist reminds them, when you lived under empire. And when you lived under empire, the rulers of that empire used their office as a means to take pleasure from others and enrich themselves. Well, says the Deuteronomist, there will come a day when you also have rulers. “Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.”
In the way that the Deuteronomist is thinking about this, when a ruler acquires things, or when she or he uses her or his office to obtain pleasure or power or wealth from others, that ruler has fallen for the ways of Egypt, of oppression, of bondage, of slavery. Yet, it is vital for us to draw the connection here: this is the way back to Egypt because it severs the necessary relationship between emancipatory action and ritual performance. The imperial ruler is a ruler; therefore she or he imposes her or his power on others. If I fail to perform the ritual requirement – offering my body or my wealth – to the imperial ruler, then I will be judged harshly. Therefore, I will fulfill the ritual requirement; I will give the ruler riches or horses or even my own body.
This, says the Deuteronomist, is not justice. It perverts justice. Only when the relationship between ritual performance and emancipatory action is transparent, only then is justice served.
And, so, Justice Roberts: how is your Citizens United ruling standing up?
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