Self-Giving and the Nature of Sacrifice - part 1

It is common in the Wesleyan tradition to talk about "self-giving." Most often times (in my experience) I hear sermons about it in regards to Tithing. While that may be relevant at the time I think we would be remiss if we didn't think a little more deeply about what it means to live a sacrificial type of life. Let us begin with the Eucharist.

Communion. The Lord's Supper. The Holy Table. It is the sacrament of bread and wine. All too often this precious time in the life of the Church is relegated to "special events" i.e., Easter, Lent or possibly Pentecost. In some church traditions, like the Lutheran and Greek Orthodox, the sacrament is the central part of the worship services. It is in the One Meal that the Christian Church fully identifies itself with the sacrifice of Christ. It is in the sharing and partaking of that one holy food that we join together spiritually and physically and allow ourselves to share in the sufferings of Christ. What we are saying, essentially, is that we as Christians want to give ourselves for others in much the same way Christ gave himself for the Church. Now we are not saying that everyone who eats and drinks will have to be crucified but there should be some measure of self-giving and sacrifice in the life of a true follower of Christ. 

What that sacrifice may entail or how we will be asked to do it will vary depending on the individuals relationship with Christ, their spiritual depth and maturation, their circumstances and their surroundings/environment. For some, like the Christian Church in communist China, the mere act of becoming a follower of Christ entails a sacrifice of some kind. For us here in the quiet comforts of America Christianity has become less of a religion and more of a talking point for conservative and liberal media alike. That particular topic, the difference between Christianity in the Americas and other nations, is a topic for another time. What we want to emphasize here is that there is no normative level of sacrificial involvement when it comes to the Body of Christ. We are called to serve, give ourselves and sacrifice. What that may entail for each one of us is the decision of the Triune God.

What we can say is this: the normative Christian experience should be a sacrifice of our own sinful and selfish desires in order to grow in grace. We ought to be willing, when (not if) God calls us to retreat and repent from our sinful ways, to lay ourselves on the altar and give up whatever the Spirit lays his finger upon. While the personal, financial and physical sacrifice for Christians is subjective (that is based on their personal experience) the call to sacrifice ones own desire to please oneself is objective (that is based on the Word of God as its final authority). 

Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 to give ourselves as "living sacrifices." We are to be "holy and blameless" sacrifices ready to serve and please God with our lives. This cannot happen if we think the call to sacrifice is only subjective. We must, on the other hand, refrain from making all sacrifice (including financial, physical, etc.) on the part of the believer objective. This leads to Fundamentalism. The opposite of this approach (grounding ALL sacrifice in the subjective experience of the individual) leads to Liberalism. Let me expound upon this distinction with an illustration:

Tommy and Billy are both 18 years old, they are Christians, and they both attend Churches where the Word of God is preached truthfully and expounded upon in the Spirit. Both are fully committed to Christ in their daily lives and are active in their respective Churches. Tommy lives in suburban Atlanta, while Billy resides in communist Cuba. One day Tommy is presented with the opportunity to do drugs from a close friend of his. Tommy refuses, knowing it would be displeasing to God, and as a result loses the friendship. This is a sacrificial act on Tommy's part. He knows (in some sense) what the consequences for his actions, whatever he may choose, will be. On the same day Billy, who lives in Cuba, has the chance to save himself from physical abuse if he will denounce his faith in Christ. Billy refuses and as a result is badly beaten. Both of these actions are sacrificial. The severity of consequences does not detract from the reality that both of the boys are faced with an opportunity to either stand up for their faith or compromise. In each case choosing Christ will inevitably cost the boys something. In this sense the sacrifice is subjective. 

On the other hand, let us assume that the boys meet one day during a missions trip. They begin to talk about their faith in Christ, what it means for them, and then they start discussing the individual sacrifices each one of them has had to make. It would be wrong of Billy to discount or discredit Tommy's sacrifice because it did not look like his own. That is Fundamentalism - stating that unless your experiences are exactly the same (or relatively similar) as mine, then they must not be genuine. It would likewise be wrong of Tommy to tell Billy that he really didn't have to give up his sinful ways because each individuals experience of spiritual sacrifice (the sacrifice of the sinful self) is their own and cannot and should not be applied universally to all Christians. That is Liberalism. Hopefully you can see the distinctions.

All Christians are called to sacrifice their sinful ways in order to live holy and blameless before God. This is a Scriptural command that can and should be universally applied to all persons who call themselves by the name of Christ. Each person is also called to a level of personal sacrifice that is unique and special (subjective) to their own individual experiences and spheres of influence. Let us not confuse the two. 

Next time, we will look at the Biblical model for sacrifice, what it demands of those of us who are called Christians, and how and why we should be striving for it on a day to day basis in our own daily lives.