THIRTEEN SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PROPER 16

View from the Pew



“Watch your eyes, your ears, your lips, your hands and feet”

The first verse of today’s Epistle reads thus:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

As I was thinking about this verse, Romans 12:1, two songs and a chorus came to mind. Most of us memorized and sang the children’s hymn referenced above.  What would each of us be like, what would church be like, if we were to not only watch our “eyes, ears, lips, hands and feet” but offer them up to the Lord as a sacrifice? If we really do that, God sees that as true worship. In the Covenant that God made with Israel, people were required to offer sacrifices of animals. In the New Covenant which is made with all who will believe in Christ, we no longer make such sacrifices because Jesus, the Lamb of God, has made the Supreme Sacrifice of Himself to secure for us forgiveness of sins and Eternal Life.

What should be our response to the love God has so lavished on us? The apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, clearly states it: We must present our bodies - all our body parts - indeed, our whole self, our whole life to the Lord, who actually owns us.

Let’s do a self-check:

Is the Lord pleased with what I am viewing, saying, listening to, doing, and where I am going?

The second song that came to mind is one we sing often here, (selected as the one for offertory): “Take My Life and Let it Be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” The list of offerings here includes, but goes beyond, body parts, adding: our time, intellect, will, heart (emotions) love, silver and gold (whatever we treasure). You see, the Lord wants us to present our whole self to Him.

I close with the chorus that came to my mind. In thanksgiving to God, can we truly pray these words?

“God’s Son bled and died on Calv’ry’s tree

A Living Sacrifice that I might go free.

How can I offer less, a child of wretched birth,

Than this my life itself, through sin of little worth,

O Lord I pray, take this body made of clay

And let it be a living sacrifice.” Amen. 

Jean Lee