A Living Sacrifice

Smoke drifts up from altars all over Rome. Every day, in temple after temple, animals are offered to the gods. And Paul writes to the believers there: God wants a sacrifice too. But not that kind. He wants you.

For eleven chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul has been explaining the mercy of God. How all people have gone wrong. How Jesus died and rose again. How God makes people right with himself through faith, Jews and Gentiles alike, and gives them his Spirit. Now Paul turns a corner. If all that is true, he says, here is how to live. The church in Rome is made up of little groups meeting in homes, people of different backgrounds who don't always find each other easy. So Paul gets very practical.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Not a dead animal on an altar, but your whole living self: your hands, your feet, your words, your days. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Don't let the world squeeze you into its shape. Let God change you from the inside, so you can discover what his good will is. And don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, Paul says. Because the church is like a body. One body, many parts, each with a different job, and all belonging to each other.

God gives different gifts. If yours is speaking his message, use it in faith. If it's serving, serve. If teaching, teach. If encouraging, encourage. If giving, give generously. If leading, lead carefully. If showing mercy, do it cheerfully. Then Paul gives a list of what love looks like, quick and bright, like a string of lights. Let love be real, not pretend. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. Love one another like family. Try to outdo each other in showing honour. Keep your spiritual fire burning. Be joyful in hope, patient in trouble, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practise hospitality: open your door.

And then the hardest part. “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.” Ask God to do good to the very people who are hurting you. “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” Be glad when your friend wins, even if you lost. Sit beside someone who is crying. Live in harmony. Don't be proud; make friends with ordinary people. Don't pay anyone back evil for evil. “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” Don't take revenge; leave that to God. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. And the last line of the chapter sums it all up. “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Rome had a large Jewish community long before any Christians arrived. The Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Paul, says that many of Rome's Jews lived in the great district across the River Tiber. Most of the earliest believers in Rome probably came from that community and from the Gentiles who mixed with it. They met not in church buildings, but in homes and workshops, which is why Paul's instructions about hospitality and sharing mattered so much.

A living sacrifice. You'll find it in Romans chapter twelve. A whole life given to God, shown in ordinary love: blessing, sharing, welcoming, weeping and rejoicing with others, overcoming evil with good. So here is a question to carry with you. Who is someone you could overcome with good this week, instead of paying them back?