Lent: Day 33

A Call to Sacrifice

Scripture: Mark 8:27-34
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and takeup their cross...”

During Lent we are asked to examine our life to see if it is in harmony with the way that Jesus called us to live. When we study the life of Jesus we discover that he lived a life of sacrifice and called his disciples to do the same. He sacrificed his life not to appease an angry and wrathful God but because he knew that only by sacrifice can the world be changed and redeemed.

Sacrifice is an incompatible word with the American Way which calls us to success and wealth rather than sacrifice. Many would agree with Gordon Gekko in the movie, Wall Street, that “greed is good.”

But there are many people who take the way of sacrifice seriously. Nelson Mandela was willing to go to prison for 18 years in order to bring change in South Africa and help end the oppressive rule of the white European immigrants who had taken the land and reduced the original owners to second class citizens. His sacrifice led to freedom for the indigenous people of South Africa and to the transformation of that nation.

Without going to prison or actually being crucified, there are many ways of service. I think about Jeff Wasilevich and Debbie Rissing who are leaving to serve as short term Volunteers in Mission South America and of my own granddaughter, Casey Conger, who departed January 30 to serve for two years as a Peace Corp worker in Paraguay. They understandthe meaning of sacrifice and are willing to give a part of their lives to help other people, which I think is the essence of the Christian Way, not the adherence to some dogma or ritual.

But sacrifice can be less dramatic but still significant. I think of the people from our congregation who give one night a week to work in the Resource Food Pantry, or who staff the PADS Homeless Shelter, or work as Literacy Volunteers, or deliver Meals on Wheels, or serve with the Helping Hands Ministry, or volunteer at the Hospital, to name only a few ways that people serve.

The needs of the world are great but the workers are few.

Prayer: “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred let me sow love.” Francis of Assisi