JustThinking | living sacrifices

… or lukewarm dead beats? asks Danielle Strickland

I heard some teaching recently about Romans 12… the chapter on faith beginning and lived out - I mean, it is a full chapter.

Kierkegaard said that the ‘living sacrifice’ thing could be considered insanity. Faith, he suggested, made absolutely no sense… he referred to the story of Abraham and Isaac when God asked Ab to sacrifice the most important thing in his life (the promised child, his future, his life, his blood… the ultimate sacrifice). Soren (Kierkegaard) suggested this is absolutely insane. Bonhoeffer on the other hand said, “when Jesus bids a man, he bids him ‘come and die’.”

A new friend of mine was telling me about how she found God in China. A friend asked her if she’d like to know God - she said yes right away and her friend gave her a Bible. When she read through Genesis (and got to the part about Ab sacrificing Isaac) she said she gave the Bible back and said she didn’t want to know this God. Insane indeed.

My friend went on to explain that her friend prayed for her and she opened her heart to God - and when her heart was open she suddenly understood - it finally made some sense.  She understood that faith wasn’t insane but the only way forward. Now, although she finds herself in difficult circumstances (a single mom with chronic pain and two high-needs kids) she is a beautiful reflection of God’s grace and love. Her faith remains.

Now, it is hard to get the whole story from my new Chinese friend because of language difficulties, so ‘open your heart’ most likely doesn’t explain it,  although ‘transform your mind’ helps. The second verse in chapter twelve of Romans suggest that if we refuse to conform to the world but be transformed (made new, metamorphasized – from death to life) by the renewing of our mind, we would be able to discern God’s will. His good, pleasing and perfect will.  Of course, this is what happened with Ab and Isaac: when they embraced the dying and ‘opened their hearts’ to God’s will,  they found that the God they chose to believe was beautifully kind, compassionate and would provide another sacrifice. Their minds were renewed and God’s plan emerged.

What I’ve been wondering is when and how do I present my body as a living sacrifice? When do I embrace the insane to open my heart and find God… losing my life to gain it. When? I hate to believe it but it seems that I almost never do. I prefer to figure it out on my own… to rationalize the hard call of discipleship into half hour slots of ‘quiet reflection time’ and to call lukewarm mediocrity a blessing instead of recognizing it as a curse.

I guess I’m wondering how I can lose my mind and open my heart. Any ideas?

Writer: Capt. Danielle Strickland is currently the Social Justice Director of the Southern Australia Territory. She digs traveling, reading, running, speaking, basketball and movies. Her passion is grace, mercy and justice… and all the stuff in between. Her favourite question is ‘how hard can it be?’ and most of her days are spent answering it.

2 Comments to JustThinking | living sacrifices

1. Danielle, I’ve found losing your mind is relatively easy in the inherited churches, while opening your heart requires being around those who hurt. It is sometimes possible to do both at once.
   Blessings.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on October 25th, 2008

2. interesting post. The teleological suspension of the ethical which Kierkegaard talks about when he mentions the Abraham and Isaac story was something he was all for, as far as I understood it. However I’m yet to be convinced that it’s a God honouring way to do church. It’s not radical to put a vague notion of the will of God over and above what we know to be right, it’s fundamentalism. If that’s what it means to be insane, I’ll take the lukewarm mediocrity any day. Just a thought.
Unrealben on October 25th, 2008

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