Breaking your Donkey’s Neck (or What to do Instead)

AM Psalm 40, 54 • PM Psalm 51
Exod. 34:18-35 • 1 Thess. 3:1-13 • Matt. 5:27-37

My modern reaction to our Exodus reading, calling for animal sacrifices, is relief, moral superiority, and to move on quickly to nicer, more spiritual topics. However, many anthropologists think there is more to this story. Some argue that animal sacrifice goes very far back into early human history—long before the Israelites, long before the Hebrew Bible. These thinkers cannot accept that it was just primitive senselessness.

Here is a sampling of theories about these practices: Animal sacrifice was a way to reduce social violence among tribes. It inserted human influence into the cycles of catastrophe and abundance beyond our control. It was a way of expressing gratitude for life and reminding people of their dependency. During the evolution toward human moral conscience, a scapegoat helped to manage real psychological conflict arising during the early stages of moral awakening.

When I think about it, sacrifice of many kinds is still an honored practice. Personal openness to truth and justice requires the sacrifice of enabling opinions that I hold about my enemies—and, even more alarming, the sacrifice of precious beliefs I hold about myself. Science requires the painful sacrifice of last year’s scientific ideas. Modern people continue to make ever-changing sacrifices. Already in today’s Psalm 51 there was a new understanding that “you [God] take no delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Moral and spiritual development, like biology, requires exchanges. Today we call these sacred exchanges by many names: humility, generosity, forgiveness, the spiritual disciplines, parenting, letting go of attachments, and many others. Each of these sacred exchanges sacrifices something that was precious to us. The exchange is often mysterious or indirect (for example, it is not always clear how forgiving might help us). Maybe wisdom is a spiritual science of what to sacrifice for what, which sacrifices are pathological, how sacrifices work indirectly and unpredictably, and especially how divine grace (a sacrifice for us) works within as the groundwork—and ongoing catalyst.

Written by David Orth

David was a missionary kid who moved around too much, but loved it anyway: Texas, Costa Rica, Guatemala, North Carolina, Amsterdam, Chicago, and Fayetteville.