Sacrifice.
It's not a word or concept we fully appreciate in our society today. We are soft. My computer is getting slower and slower. My kids come over and clean it out now and then, and it gets marginally faster for awhile, but the thing is just old and most likely needs to be replaced. Mind you, it works, it's just slower than it was before by a few seconds here and a few seconds there. And that drives me nuts. Why? I mean, I have lived more of my life without a computer than I have with. I used to have to go to a library and look things up, or pull a book off the shelf here at home if I needed info. I had to order things out of a catalog over a phone, talking with a person. Or worse: I had to go to an actual store! And when I went into that store, I didn't have the model number, color, and all the technical specs for whatever it was I was there to pick up. Printed out in color, before I got into the car to drive to the store, with my GPS calling out the turns as I went.
No - we are a bit softer and we expect a bit more these days. And sometimes I wonder if that dulls our response to God.
God - "Go to Haiti and help rebuild."
Me - "OK - I have a week of vacation in July, and if I book now I can get a super saver rate, and use my air miles to upgrade to first class for free. And if I stay in the DR I can rent a car and get over the border with the supplies and tools I need."
God - "No, I want you to go now, and I want you to work with your bare hands, and I want you to sleep on the ground."
Me - "OK - what kind of adapter do I need for Haiti? I have to keep my Iphone charged.."
God - "Leave it all at home. Work with your hands."
Me - "Can I bring gloves at least?"
It gets worse. I have been part of our worship team for a decade or two. I watch people week after week sitting with their arms crossed on their chest. If they realized how similar that pose is to the way they sometimes prop up dead people in their coffins, I'm sure they would think about changing, but I guess it hasn't occurred to them yet. We provide the building with heat or AC as needed, light, a parking space out front, greeters and ushers to show them in, a seat, the words to the song is on a big screen with nice graphics, and the people leading are up there doing the best job they can to produce an atmosphere in which you would have to be just about brain dead not to feel called into worship. If there was a way to actually worship for them, I suppose it would complete the set, but so far we haven't figured that part out: they still have to enter in. They have to sacrifice that much.
There are weeks when I am able to keep my focus on God, and I can look out and see all kinds of people getting with the program. It's just that now and then I can't help but focus on those who seem to be asking us to just "try and get me to enter in: I dare you!"
But the Pastor has shared that there are weeks when he faces the same daunting task - preaching to a stone wall sometimes. And as a preacher myself in days gone by, and a teacher before that, I know the feeling. It is those moments of connection, those times when the whole place comes to life which have to keep us going: but they are like an oasis in a desert, and the oasis seems to be getting smaller while the desert grows.
But that is our sacrifice, as the one or ones up front. We do the prep, the practice, and painful prayer in the wee hours, and then we present with passion. And powerful alteration. But the idea of sacrifice seems to be one of those old-fashioned ideas which threatens our concept of personal peace and comfort.
Abraham finally got the son God promised him, and then God asked him to take the kid out and kill him on an altar as a sacrifice. OK. Not something we would even come close to these days. When Jesus came to earth - an act which most of us would consider to be enough all by itself - it was with the end goal of dying. And not by some quick and easy method. He endured one of the most painful experiences a human can go through as he died. He was an example of sacrifice, for us.
So - what is God calling us to do? It will be different for each one of us, but I can promise you one thing - it will involve sacrifice at some level. I have a quick test for us - myself very much included: if I am not experiencing some level of sacrifice in my service for God, then I am serving myself. And that is living a lie.
2 Samual 24:24 But the king replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them.
Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams (1 Samuel 15:22) - in this case, the writer is not discounting sacrifice - specifically sacrifices on an altar - but he is acknowledging that as important as the sacrifices were, obedience is even more important. And in today's society, Jesus made allowance for our sacrifice. We no longer have to kill animals on an altar. But, to simply do what God asks of us often does involve giving up comforts. And to us that is a huge sacrifice.
Lord - help me see what you have given to me. At great cost to yourself. And let me search for things which you are calling me to do - such as sacrifice. I want to give up those things which you call me to give up, knowing that I can trust you to replace them with things of eternal value. Amen.
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