Sacrifice is something we speak of as the things that we lose, the things we give up, for the sake of some higher purpose. Our servicemen and women sacrifice their lives, both by their service and in some cases by their deaths, for the security of their country. Our firefighters and police officers sacrifice their own safety on a daily basis to protect the safety of their communities. Healthcare providers, doctors and nurses and the myriad technicians and support staff that keep our healthcare system running sacrifice their time, their sleep, their mental health, and often their bodies to provide care to people who are sick, injured, or in pain. Teachers sacrifice much of their own personal time and mental energy for the sake of their students, while taking on the burden of educational debt and being notoriously underpaid. In all of these cases and in many more, the families of those with sacrificial vocations make many sacrifices too, enabling their loved one to follow their calling. I have never been more vividly aware of the sacrifices of parenthood than when I worked as a hospital chaplain in a pediatric ICU, watching mothers and fathers give up everything to be beside their child’s sickbed. Marriage involves sacrifice, as we vow to forsake all others and stand beside someone through the good the bad and the ugly. Over time, those sacrifices might include one’s own freedom, mental and physical health, and independence as the health of one or both spouses declines and the caregiver role becomes primary.
In all the cases of sacrifice that we speak of or see in our day to day lives, we experience that which is sacrificed as lost. Lost lives, lost time, lost money and security. Things we cannot get back once they are gone. Most of the people making the sacrifices would claim they are worthwhile, but few would honestly say they don’t miss what they’ve given up. Teacherscountdown to summer; military spouses watch anxiously for orders to come down; parents of young children speak wistfully of the days when they only had themselves to look after, and the promise of retirement is a glimmer of hope for those whose vocations have time limits.
Our cultural experience of sacrifice actually has very little to do with what sacrifice meant to people like Paul and Peter and Jesus. The sacrifices of the ancient world were prescribed, ritualistic, and expected of nearly everyone at specific milestones and life changes. In the pagan Greco-Roman religions, sacrifices were made to physical statues, food and drink laid out before idols with the sincere expectation that, in some metaphysical way, the personhood represented by the statue would consume the offerings. In the Temple in Jerusalem, animals were ritually sacrificed methodically and with strict parameters for what, how, when, and why. In addition to animals, other offerings including oil, salt, barley, wine, and frankincense were made. In many cases, some or all of what was offered was then consumed, either by the priests or by the givers. Select portions were burned, that the smoke might be pleasing to the Lord, and the blood belonged to the altar. But for the most part, offerings were made, and some portion of those offerings were returned as food to the community. Sacrifice was not seen as something lost, but something offered. The expectation was that, although the offering no longer belonged to you, you might still share in its sustaining gift.
When Paul appeals to his brothers and sisters in Rome to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, he is not evoking the kind of sacrifice that is entirely consumed by the flames in the Temple. He specifies that they are to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, renewed and transformed and able to discern what is good and acceptable and perfect. The sacrificial life he speaks of is not one where all is lost; by the mercies of God, everything good and acceptable and perfect is gained.
Paul goes on to list examples of the kind of life that is possible when we present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We become one body of many members, each of us filling an equally important and unique role in the whole body of Christ. In making of ourselves a living sacrifice, we receive gifts through grace that serve us and the entire community, all to the glory of God. Through sacrifice, we receive more than we could ever ask for.
The Christian life does sometimes call on us to give things up that will never be restored to us in this life. Many of the vocations of sacrifice I mentioned earlier are filled with people motivated to do their work by their Christian faith. But so much of what we sacrifice to God comes back to us multiplied. What we give financially is magnified when combined with the gifts of others, and what could not be sustained by any individual or family becomes possible for the whole community together. What we give of our time in service of the altar, or the church kitchen, or the food pantry, or the thrift store, becomes life-giving for us and life-sustaining for others. What we give up by not conforming to this world opens us to the possibilities of the world as God intended, on earth as it is in heaven, even if it is only glimpses and moments of revelation.
In our culture we sometimes turn sacrifice into an idol of its own. We congratulate the worker who sacrifices leisure or time with their family as someone with a superior work ethic, ignoring the neglect of self and community that work ethic requires. We idolize the kind of sacrificial motherhood that expects women to lay down their personalities and desires in order to be deemed worthy of the gift of parenting and punish those who dare to behave otherwise. We expect those who have the least to prove that they deserve the help they desperately need, inventing litmus tests for worthiness and moving the goalposts so that no one’s sacrifices could ever possibly be great enough to save them from poverty we’ve decided they have done something to deserve. But this is not the will of God. This is not the transforming renewal of our minds that Paul calls us to receive by the grace of God. What is good and acceptable and perfect is what has been modeled for us in Jesus, whose own sacrifice of body and blood proved once and for all that life will always triumph over death. Because he died and was raised, we can present ourselves as living sacrifices, knowing that death has already lost and the idols have nothing to offer us.
With Paul, I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Not a lifeless sacrifice to idols, but a living sacrifice to God. This kind of sacrifice will always be returned to you greater than what you had to give. This kind of sacrifice will always be holy and acceptable and sufficient, even in its imperfection. Whatever is offered as a living sacrifice to God cannot be lost, because God is always about the work of restoration and redemption. What you give up here will be given back to you, always, and with it you will receive also the gifts of the entire body. So give of your life and labor generously. Give sacrificially. This is your spiritual worship.
Mother A Writes 