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Costless Offerings

Keraza Magazine issue 35-36 September 5, 2014

When David the Prophet went to Araunah the Jebusite wanting to purchase his threshing floor to build an altar to the Lord, Araunah wanted to give David the threshing floor for free, yet David strongly refused saying, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:24).

Costless offerings are a covert spiritual illness that sneaks into many without them noticing. While the person has a genuine desire to honor God by offering money, possessions, time, effort, and emotions, the principle of full-offering remains continually in opposition to the laws of the ego that seeks to take rather than giving, to clinging rather than release. From here comes the compromise solution of offering costless offerings. Costless offerings are where the ego maintains a portion of the sacrifice offered to God. This is a distortion to the process of relinquishing and renunciation, which is rendered imperfect, and so one offers to God a miscarriage, not an offering. This is further complicated by the person remaining deceived, being convinced by the ego of indeed having given much, to the extent that one might boast before the self and before others of the offerings!

Clear examples in the Holy Bible of costless offerings include Cain’s offering, which was an unwise choice; the dinner of Simon the Pharisee for Jesus, who did not offer water for His feet, a kiss for His mouth, or oil for His head; and Ananias and Sapphira’s field, of which they kept back part of the price.

As for practical examples in our daily lives, they are many: one offers time to attend a Divine Liturgy, keeping back the first hour, satisfied with attending before the reading of the Gospel; a second prays the Prime Prayer, keeping back eighteen psalms, satisfied with praying one psalm; a third fasts the Great Fast, reserving for bodily and personal desires the first weeks; a fourth spends hours praying with the lips while the mind is very far away; a fifth wants to serve, but without suffering the loss of good health in the service; a sixth exits for monasticism leaving the world bodily while the heart remains behind. There are many more examples that fall under the category of costless offerings, which cannot be categorized as loving the Lord "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37).

Picture with me that a friend wants to give you a birthday cake, you open the box to find that a third or a half has already been eaten! What will be your feelings then? What is the extent of your feeling of hurt and humiliation? Will not the first sentence come to your mind be the same sentence with which St. Peter rebuked Ananias: "While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart?" (Acts 5:4).

Look to our compassionate God who did not love us without a price, and did not offer Himself as a costless offering, but purchased us with a great price that cost Him emptying Himself, being God, and taking the form of a bondservant. Wonder, does He, who offered all, deserve in return a costless offering?

Bishop Youssef
Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States