Offerings and Humor – Psalm 50

A text – Psalm 50:7-15

⁷ “Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you.  I am God, your God.
⁸ Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
⁹ I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds.
¹⁰ For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
¹¹ I know all the birds of the air,and all that moves in the field is mine.

¹² “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.
¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
¹⁴ Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,and pay your vows to the Most High.
¹⁵ Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

A reflection:

This was a festival psalm, sung three times each year, at Passover, Weeks (Pentecost), and Booths. People were expected to bring offerings from their labor – plenty of offerings. And yet this psalm says God will not accept these offerings. How do we make sense of it? I’ll let some words from Professor Rolf Jacobson explain, in his own clear way:

“Offerings are not in any way actual gifts to God. You can’t give anything to the person who already has everything. God made everything, and all that exists already belongs to God. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” And as Psalm 50 adds, with more than a fair amount of sarcastic wit, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.” You truly cannot give anything to the One who literally has everything.

“What God wants and what, in fact, God needs are these things: our gratitude, our confessions of faith, our prayers for help, and our praise. God does not need these things for God’s own self. But God does need these things for God’s mission. And God needs our offerings for God’s mission, too. God does, in reality, desire that we be generous—for the sake of God’s mission to love, bless, and be reconciled to the whole world.”

I love that Dr. Jacobson highlights that line where God speaks to God’s people with sarcasm – “If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.” We may not spend any time thinking about whether God has either hunger or a sense of humor. So many of us have kept God far away, we have so hallowed God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit that they do not seem approachable in prayer anymore. Our triune God is holy, to be sure. But our God wants us to lift prayers and thanksgiving whenever we want, in whatever mood we find ourselves. God wants a relationship with us. And not a relationship of a giant, distant, marble-carved God to a puny human far far away. A God consisting of love and generosity that we don’t sacrifice to but instead spend time with, listen to, and thank.

A prayer:

Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for being love and giving, who made everything that our lives depend on. Help us to remember that you desire our love and friendship, and that the way to show you that is to spend a little time each day with you. Amen.