Choosing Mercy, Not Sacrifice
Dr. Richard Beck acknowledges the temptation to oversimplify our reading of the Bible, but urges us to stay with the tensions it raises:
We find ourselves, as readers [of the Bible], in between competing visions and values, which creates a different set of challenges for us as interpreters of Scripture. A “book, chapter, and verse” approach to reading the Bible is simplistic and inadequate, because other books, chapters, and verses sit in tension with the passages we like to share on social media. Quoting isolated Bible verses will inevitably produce lopsided and distorted readings of Scripture….
How, then, are we to engage with the tensions we find in Scripture?
Let me suggest we emulate how Jesus read the Bible. Let’s imitate how he resolved the tensions in the Old Testament.
For example, the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees concerned the tensions … between the Torah and the prophets. You see this especially in Jesus’s Sabbath observance and his welcoming of sinners. Over and over again in these cases, the Pharisees pick Leviticus over the prophets. Ritual purity was chosen over human compassion. Jesus, by contrast, privileges the prophets. For Jesus, alleviating human suffering takes priority over Levitical prohibition. Overcoming social marginalization is preferred to religious purity.
In Mark 2:23–28, Jesus defends his disciples against criticism from the Pharisees for plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath. Beck explains:
The hermeneutic Jesus deploys here is stunning. Torah observance is intended to promote human flourishing. The Sabbath is for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath. According to Jesus, whenever Torah observance interferes with or inhibits human flourishing it can be set aside. Let me underline the point if you are missing how Jesus is reading the Torah: Jesus sets aside one of the Ten Commandments to extend compassion in letting his hungry followers eat. This is a regular theme in the gospels, how Jesus consistently sides with the prophetic concern over human suffering against Levitical demands for religious observance….
This line from Hosea 6:6—“mercy, not sacrifice”—is a concise summary of how Jesus read the Torah, the hermeneutical key Jesus deployed to resolve the tensions between the Law and the prophets. Where the Pharisees promoted social distancing and moral quarantine to maintain Levitical purity, Jesus cited the prophetic tradition as justification for his practices of inclusive table fellowship. When found in conflict, mercy is to be privileged over sacrifice. In the choice between human flourishing or Levitical purity, between the weightier matters of the law or fastidious religious observance, mercy must win out.
Jesus shows us how to read the Bible as the Book of Love. Yes, there are a lot of strange and confusing commandments in the Bible. But the Bible itself provides us with a hermeneutical rule whenever we find prohibitions, even one of the Ten Commandments, interfering with human flourishing and our compassionate response to human suffering. Whenever you face a hermeneutical fork in the road and must decide upon a reading of Scripture, read the Bible like Jesus did. Choose mercy over sacrifice.
Read more about Richard Rohr at cac.org
