“The tax collector, standing afar off… beat his breast, saying ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified… .”

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            The Righteous Hosea, writing in the sixth chapter of his prophecy, says:

“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? … I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I kill you with the words of my mouth—then my judgments go forth like the sun. [But] I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos 6:4a, 5-6).

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Five simple words, brethren, but with a powerful double entendre, when interpreted in the greater context of the prophecy. For those less familiar with content of Hosea: the Promised Land is by this time divided into two kingdoms—in the north, Israel; in the south, Judah. Northern Israel is to be exiled by the Assyrian host. This takes place circa 722-721 BC. They are exiled on account of their many evils, as Hosea comments later in his prophecy:

“They delight the king with their wickedness, the princes with their lies. They are all adulterers, burning like an oven… . Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless—now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria. … They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they [have] turned from me. … Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! [Though,] I long to redeem them…” (Hos 7:3-4a, 11, 14b; 13).

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” The people of Ephraim (a name used biblically as a substantive for all the northern tribes) are liars, adulterers, and idolaters. They are wicked, immoral, and brazenly so. Importantly: they are utterly and totally and unabashedly un-repentant. They revel in their idolatry. In the words of the Prophet: “[They] love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor” (Hos 9:1b). But the Lord says (and now I have repeated it three times): “[But] I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

            The Lord is prepared to punish Israel. He is prepared to chastise them by means of a foreign nation. “Their heart is deceitful,” says the Prophet, “and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones” (Hos 10:2). God will make an example of Israel. “But I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Does God enjoy chastisement? Does God enjoy punishment? Does God enjoy violence and wrath enacted against his child, Israel; his bride, Israel?

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matt 23:37).

These are the words of our Lord in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Do you understand? The same God who punished Israel following Hosea’s prophecy, who “demolished their altars,” who sent them into exile, where there was pain, and suffering, and death; this same God says, “I do not want to punish her, but to embrace her, to comfort her, but… she was not willing.”

            “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” When we read those words, we innately understand them as God’s desire for his people, meaning, “God wants Israel to act mercifully as opposed to sacrificially,” that is, fulfilling the legal obligations of sacrifice. And that’s a perfectly sensible interpretation. It is in fact the one meaning of the double entendre I mentioned earlier. No amount of sacrifice, you see, will alleviate Israel’s wickedness. You cannot go a-whoring; you cannot neglect the needs of the poor; you cannot bow down at the altars of rival gods, and then “Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo” your way out of it. Two pigeons here, a ram there, and then “Prestidigitation! All is forgiven! All is forgotten!” God does not want a people who “play games” with morality. He wants a holy people, a gracious people, a people who worship “in spirit and in truth” (cf. John 4:24). God desires mercy and not sacrifice.

            But—and really hear this now—God also desires mercy, and not sacrifice, for himself. What do I mean by this?

“I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, says the Lord God; but rather, that he should return from his evil ways and live” (Ezek 18:23).

“I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner.” Brethren, we serve a God who is in no way vindictive; is in no way spiteful—so very much unlike us! He is terrible and awesome and powerful and just, yes. But none of that terror and power does he desire to direct against us. Rather, he desires:

“… that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people” (1 Tim 2:3-6; italics mine)

God disciplines Israel by the hand of the Assyrians, brethren, and later Judah by the hand of the Babylonians, not because he needs to or desires to, but because he deems it most remedial on account of their sins and (and. AND. AND.) unrepentance. Israel is exiled; Judah is exiled—not on a whim, but—on account of their sin and unprepentance.

            Jump forward with me 700 years to Jesus’ short parable in St. Luke’s Gospel, the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Do you see how easily our salvation is accomplished, brethren? Do you see how easily our salvation is accomplished? “O God, be merciful to me a sinner!”

“When the people heard [his preaching], they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, everyone one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38).

Later in Acts, St. Peter says, similarly,

“But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying, … ‘Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshment may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:18-19).

“But I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” It is so simple a thing to assuage our Lord’s wrath as repentance. We will hear this reiterated again next week in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (cf. Luke 15:11-32). God is our Father awaiting our return; he is the “Lover of Mankind,” as so many of our hymns repeat. He is the Shepherd who willingly and joyfully goes out to find the sheep that was lost (cf. Luke 15:1-7). He desires mercy, and not sacrifice. But he also desires, brethren, our repentance (in the Greek metanoia, “to turn back”); he desires for us to repent of our own accord. We do not need to climb mountains! We do not need to plumb the depths of the earth, to dive to the depths of the sea. We do not need to impress God! We can offer him a whole laundry list of accomplishments and accolades, and it will not matter one iota:

“God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess!” (Luke 18:11b-12).

This does not matter to God! Does he care that we are moral, righteous? Yes, of course! But is our righteousness—flawed and inconsistent as it is—a substitute for true godliness? No! What God desires is a repentant spirit upon whom he may pour out his Holy Spirit. “Repent and be baptized, … and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

            Brethren, it is the season of Pre-Lent. The Great Fast is nearly upon us. During our Lenten seasons, there is always a temptation to take pride in our ascetic practices: “I am fasting more than usual. I am attending services more than usual. I am tithing more than usual. Thank God, I am an Orthodox Christian.” Be careful, brethren. God does not desire our sacrifice for a season. He does not desire our asceticism as a mark of pride. But God desires a soul formed in humility: true humility and true repentance. Indeed, there is only one prayer, one spirit, one disposition necessary: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!