Why sacrifice to the gods?
May. 8th, 2018 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
child_of_the_airThe issue of sacrifices and ritual offerings to the gods is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently from a pagan perspective. Partly this is due to wanting to have a better theological understanding of my own practice. However, I may also be somewhat self-interested, in that I've found it really hard to develop a regular and meaningful method of making offerings, and thus I'm motivated to develop an understanding that makes this less of a concern.
The expectation of making offerings to the gods seems to be near-universal among modern pagans. For traditional reconstructionists--people who attempt to follow the ritual practices of an ancient polytheistic religion as closely as possible--this is natural enough, since the traditions they are reconstructing generally heavily involved animal sacrifice. From their point of view, the question is really how to substitute for the fact that animal sacrifices are not really possible today for the vast majority of pagans.
However, non-reconstructionist modern pagan practices still seem to have a heavy focus on offerings. I suspect that this is due to two things: the fact that historically, most non-Abrahamic religions have required sacrifices, and the fact that Christianity and modern Judaism--the cultural contexts in which most modern pagans were raised--do not, and have often attacked them as "idolatry."
I definitely feel a pressure to make food offerings, both from Hellenic reconstructionists (my favorite Hellenic recon blogger regularly points out that worship without burnt offerings is meaningless in the Hellenic tradition) and from the pagan community in general. For the most part, I don't actually do so, though, both due to what I call the "offering disposal problem"--since I can't burn them or easily bury them, how do I dispose of offerings appropriately?--and due to the fact that I just don't have the time, energy, or executive function to maintain a daily practice that involves the complications of food offerings.
The few times I've made food offerings that have felt very meaningful and "effective" (to me at least; I hope the gods approved of them) have been in the context of group meals, where I've eaten with other pagans and we've set aside a portion for the gods. I first did this in grad school withaliothsan on a couple of occasions: we cooked meals together and afterward ritually deposited the gods' portion on the ground outside. More recently, the ritual sharing of a small amount of food, with a portion for the gods deposited under a tree, has been part of the Imbolc and Spring Equinox rituals I participated in this year with the pagan-Jewish family I'm friends with locally.
There is a practical reality that disposing of food offerings outside is reasonable for an occasional group ritual, but not as part of regular daily practice (it would attract rats), but I think the real significance of the food here was as a shared meal. The idea that the gods need offerings for sustenance, or that receiving food is a primary reason they concern themselves with humans, strikes me as somewhat blasphemous, honestly.
On the other hand, the sharing of food and hospitality is a significant way of creating closeness, especially in traditional cultures where food was more valuable than it is today. It's certainly something that I feel helps me feel closer to my friends, and I think that in this symbolic context, food offerings as a way to make a connection to the gods make a lot of sense.
A related theological issue was--unintentionally and ironically--raised by a fundamentalist Christian acquaintance from high school, who for a while had an AOL Instant Messenger status that read "I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing." As much as I distrusted the source, this made a certain sense to me: if the gods are self-sufficient, the purpose of sacrificial offerings must be the sacrifice--what it costs the sacrificer--and a sacrifice has to be something of value to mean anything. Food satisfied this requirement in the past, when it was regularly scarce, but for most modern Americans, myself included, it really doesn't today.
The conclusion I've come to is probably partly influenced by what I've heardashnistrike and my partner Jan say about the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, in its more liberal understanding as completing creation by improving the world. Learning more about Jewish theology in this context probably makes a lot of sense, since ritual sacrifice has a very important role in Jewish scriptures, but modern Jewish practice lacks it and Reform and (I think) Conservative Judaism teach that these sacrifices will not be reestablished even when the Messiah comes.
Since I generally understand the gods as related to, and patrons of, particular aspects of the world and human endeavor, it makes sense that the most useful sacrifice I can offer them--both in terms of benefit to them, and in terms of it costing me something--is devoting my time and energy to causes that I believe to be important to them.
Since I worship Athena as a patron of cities and of learning, my efforts to write and teach people about urban planning and transit issues, and to push for improvements in these issues are an appropriate offering to her. Since I have come to understand Artemis as a patron of mental health issues, effort I put into helping my friends with their mental health issues, and hopefully helping people in general with them, are an appropriate offering to her. Since Hestia is a goddess of the hearth, I serve her by cooking for others, and organizing gatherings that help people build social ties. (Not that I have been putting as much effort into that as I should be, admittedly.)
I have no place to speak on the issue of whether the gods find this interpretation of things acceptable, and these sort of offerings sufficient, but I hope that they do, and that if I can feel less guilty about not making burnt offerings, or regular food offerings in general, I'll be able to form a healthier relationship with them and be able to serve them better.
The expectation of making offerings to the gods seems to be near-universal among modern pagans. For traditional reconstructionists--people who attempt to follow the ritual practices of an ancient polytheistic religion as closely as possible--this is natural enough, since the traditions they are reconstructing generally heavily involved animal sacrifice. From their point of view, the question is really how to substitute for the fact that animal sacrifices are not really possible today for the vast majority of pagans.
However, non-reconstructionist modern pagan practices still seem to have a heavy focus on offerings. I suspect that this is due to two things: the fact that historically, most non-Abrahamic religions have required sacrifices, and the fact that Christianity and modern Judaism--the cultural contexts in which most modern pagans were raised--do not, and have often attacked them as "idolatry."
I definitely feel a pressure to make food offerings, both from Hellenic reconstructionists (my favorite Hellenic recon blogger regularly points out that worship without burnt offerings is meaningless in the Hellenic tradition) and from the pagan community in general. For the most part, I don't actually do so, though, both due to what I call the "offering disposal problem"--since I can't burn them or easily bury them, how do I dispose of offerings appropriately?--and due to the fact that I just don't have the time, energy, or executive function to maintain a daily practice that involves the complications of food offerings.
The few times I've made food offerings that have felt very meaningful and "effective" (to me at least; I hope the gods approved of them) have been in the context of group meals, where I've eaten with other pagans and we've set aside a portion for the gods. I first did this in grad school with
aliothsan on a couple of occasions: we cooked meals together and afterward ritually deposited the gods' portion on the ground outside. More recently, the ritual sharing of a small amount of food, with a portion for the gods deposited under a tree, has been part of the Imbolc and Spring Equinox rituals I participated in this year with the pagan-Jewish family I'm friends with locally.There is a practical reality that disposing of food offerings outside is reasonable for an occasional group ritual, but not as part of regular daily practice (it would attract rats), but I think the real significance of the food here was as a shared meal. The idea that the gods need offerings for sustenance, or that receiving food is a primary reason they concern themselves with humans, strikes me as somewhat blasphemous, honestly.
On the other hand, the sharing of food and hospitality is a significant way of creating closeness, especially in traditional cultures where food was more valuable than it is today. It's certainly something that I feel helps me feel closer to my friends, and I think that in this symbolic context, food offerings as a way to make a connection to the gods make a lot of sense.
A related theological issue was--unintentionally and ironically--raised by a fundamentalist Christian acquaintance from high school, who for a while had an AOL Instant Messenger status that read "I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing." As much as I distrusted the source, this made a certain sense to me: if the gods are self-sufficient, the purpose of sacrificial offerings must be the sacrifice--what it costs the sacrificer--and a sacrifice has to be something of value to mean anything. Food satisfied this requirement in the past, when it was regularly scarce, but for most modern Americans, myself included, it really doesn't today.
The conclusion I've come to is probably partly influenced by what I've heard
ashnistrike and my partner Jan say about the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, in its more liberal understanding as completing creation by improving the world. Learning more about Jewish theology in this context probably makes a lot of sense, since ritual sacrifice has a very important role in Jewish scriptures, but modern Jewish practice lacks it and Reform and (I think) Conservative Judaism teach that these sacrifices will not be reestablished even when the Messiah comes.Since I generally understand the gods as related to, and patrons of, particular aspects of the world and human endeavor, it makes sense that the most useful sacrifice I can offer them--both in terms of benefit to them, and in terms of it costing me something--is devoting my time and energy to causes that I believe to be important to them.
Since I worship Athena as a patron of cities and of learning, my efforts to write and teach people about urban planning and transit issues, and to push for improvements in these issues are an appropriate offering to her. Since I have come to understand Artemis as a patron of mental health issues, effort I put into helping my friends with their mental health issues, and hopefully helping people in general with them, are an appropriate offering to her. Since Hestia is a goddess of the hearth, I serve her by cooking for others, and organizing gatherings that help people build social ties. (Not that I have been putting as much effort into that as I should be, admittedly.)
I have no place to speak on the issue of whether the gods find this interpretation of things acceptable, and these sort of offerings sufficient, but I hope that they do, and that if I can feel less guilty about not making burnt offerings, or regular food offerings in general, I'll be able to form a healthier relationship with them and be able to serve them better.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-08 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-08 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-08 08:55 pm (UTC)That conclusion makes intuitive sense to me, always has. But explaining why is something else!
no subject
Date: 2018-05-08 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-08 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-09 01:45 am (UTC)One thing I don't see mentioned as much these days is that most food offerings, in most religions, have actually traditionally gone to feed somebody. In Greece and Rome, the offerings were killed and cooked ritually, and then everybody sat down to eat them as a feast-- this happens several times in the Iliad, and those feasts tend to be where important conversations are had and important decisions made. The sacrificial part of it is that the animals are not being killed when they usually would be and are not being used to increase the herds and flocks. In ancient Judaism and in ancient and modern Hinduism and Buddhism, the offerings go to feed the priests and their families. In fact, in the one animal sacrifice that still regularly happens in Judaism today, the Hasidic kapparot, the slaughter of a chicken is performed ritually; the one making the offering purchases the chicken, brings it to the ceremony, and takes it home to eat.
So the idea of offering food that then goes entirely to waste is, as far as I can tell, modern and not based on literary or archaeological evidence.
This caused me to decide that my food offerings could be any food I prepare/purchase ritually and do something worshipful and special with, whether that's making a holiday meal for a large group or buying canned goods and giving them to a food bank. It's made that sort of activity feel a lot more sacred and I think helps keep me mindful while I do it....
no subject
Date: 2018-05-09 12:24 pm (UTC)My understanding about Greek culture was that domestic animals were only ever killed and eaten as sacrifices: it was partly how they legitimized killing them for food. Even then, it was important that certain parts of the animal be burned, while the rest could be eaten.
There was also a distinction between "olympic" and "cthonic" sacrifices: the latter--to gods associated with death or certain sorts of fertility--were supposed to be burned completely and not consumed by anyone. However, olympic sacrifices were more common.
I had no idea that any form of animal sacrifice still existed in Judaism today!
But I can certainly see the idea that no one should eat offerings as something that is partly just a modern invention. Possibly in part because the idea of a professional / full-time priest class doesn't really exist in most modern paganism, for obvious reasons.
In any case, I do like your idea for how to deal with food offerings: that makes a lot of sense to me!