Monday, February 23

Scripture: In addition to the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, you shall offer them and their drink offering. They shall be without blemish. (Numbers 28:31).

Observation: The phrase “without blemish” occurs often in Leviticus and Numbers to describe the quality of animal sacrifice that God expects. Here, God is instructing with laser precision what sorts of animals should be sacrificed in the tabernacle during the Festival of First Fruits, when the first barley was harvested in the spring. The priests were to select from the flocks “two young bulls, one ram, seven male lambs a year old” and “one male goat” (Numbers 28:27, 30) and sacrifice the animals – meaning slaughter them on the altar, saving a portion of each animal for feeding the families of the Levites and burning up the rest – along with the grain from the first harvest of the year, or the “fruit fruits,” which was sprinkled on the altar and consumed in the fat-fueled flames. Numbers uses the word temimim for “without blemish.” The Old Testament also uses this word to mean “blameless” when a person is honest, pure, and clean. In specificizing that the animals for sacrifice were to be “without blemish,” God is forbidding the Israelites from giving God the sick, maimed, or runty animals of the flock, the animals which could not be sold at full price, the animals that would not be cooked for dinner if there was a better choice available. God is saying, essentially, “Don’t give me your leftovers, your sloppy seconds, your bargain bin, your afterthought. Don’t give me anything less than what you’d give your own child. Give me your first and best, or give me nothing at all.”

Application: How often do I give God my leftovers? Too often. My leftovers are my remnants, what I have left after I have cared for my other priorities. My leftovers are the time I give God after I’ve satisfied my heap of commitments in an overstuffed schedule, my money after I’ve spent the bulk of it on stuff I didn’t truly need, my mental bandwidth after I’ve overloaded it and gone into the red, my physical energy after I’m spent and I can’t fathom giving an inch more. Because I didn’t give God my first, I used up the rest, and now God gets my last, which is usually my zero. When I don’t make God my first priority, I find he becomes my zero priority; the bucket of my life fills to the brim, and there’s no room left for the God who gave me the bucket in the first place. Imagine if I treated my spouse and children this way. “Sorry folks. I don’t have much in the tank for you today. You get my leftovers.” Which is to say, you get the attention, energy, strength, and mind of a weary, drained person who did not think you, dear one, worthy to have the first and best I can offer. God and the people we love (which I sure hope includes God) deserve my first fruits, my best, my cream of the crop, not the dregs at the bottom of my cup after I’ve emptied myself in lesser pursuits.

Prayer:

My most beloved people - and You fall under this category, I hope you believe me – are not getting my first fruits, I know, I know. I serve up leftover love, which isn’t love at all but a pitiful attempt at focusing on the beloved in front of me while I scan the to-do list seared on my brain right behind my eyes and hide the panic I feel; I serve up the sloppy seconds of my strength and resolve after I’ve spent all except the dregs on pursuits that sure seemed important at the time but now with my beloved in front of me seem like a waste; I serve up my afterthoughts, proving and I’m embarrassed to say that my beloveds were the afterthoughts all along; I serve up my bargain bin after I’ve piddled away the money and caffeine-endued productivity and fresh brain power that filled up my bin once upon a time. You are the Master who made the bucket I drain on worthy and unworthy alike. Give me the patience and wisdom and forethought to give my beloveds – and I promise I’m including You – the first and the best of myself, for though the dregs would say otherwise, I want them and You to have all of my heart, my whole heart, and not a blemished exhausted stale portion forgotten in the back of the fridge. Onward we go: amen.