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Sacrifice

This was something sent to me by my brother-in-law. I was deeply moved by his words; I asked if I could share them here. He kindly consented. -Michelle

I recently attended a Sunday School class in which the teacher solicited stories of personal sacrifice. She had no takers. Most of us shifted awkwardly in our seats and hoped that somebody else would raise a hand. As I considered my own reticence, I realized that I don’t really think of everyday obedience as a sacrifice. For me (and for many, I imagine) paying tithing, obeying the word of wisdom, and keeping the Sabbath day holy don’t really feel like sacrifice because I give up so little and get so much in return. In almost every instance, obedience to gospel principles seems less like a sacrifice than an investment. And a pretty solid investment, at that. Rarely do I worry whether I will be blessed for keeping basic gospel laws or covenants. The peace of mind and spiritual happiness that immediately follow my obedience provide plenty of payoff, and this initial return is often compounded by fairly tangible increases—in health, in wealth, and in wisdom.

Nevertheless, sacrifice is supposed to be a central part of every saint’s life. Indeed, we are all under covenant to render sacrifice to the Lord. If everyday obedience, however, is less a sacrifice than an exercise in enlightened self-interest, where does this sacrifice occur? What do stories of sacrifice sound like?

We might begin to answer this question by considering the basic element of sacrifice: loss. You render sacrifice by giving something up to God. I want to suggest that there are two different kinds of loss that we undergo in the name of God. There’s general, rather temporary loss, and then there’s particular, more lasting kinds of loss. Paying tithing is an example of the first. Tithing is a universal loss in that every member of the church—without exception—is asked to sustain the exact same kind of loss. Although tithing is more difficult in some economic situations than others, nobody is singled out for disproportionate suffering. Additionally, the loss of tithing is pretty temporary. You pay your tithing one month and rarely think about it again. I don’t know of anyone, for instance, who has consistently looked back on their past, repeatedly regretting that he or she paid their tithing in any given month. And even if you miss out on a great financial opportunity because you choose to pay your tithing instead, there’s little question that, overall, you are better off for having paid your tithing.

But then there are the losses that aren’t distributed proportionally throughout the church, the losses that are individual and unique. In many cases, we feel singled out for specific deprivations. Why should I be forced to deal with acne, or hair loss, or weight gain when others do not? Why should I be afflicted with insomnia, or diabetes, or cancer when others are not? Why should I be the victim of abuse, or infidelity, or financial misfortune when others are not? When we are asked to endure all alone, seemingly at random, the losses seem greater, harder, worse.

And in many instances these specific losses—unlike those involved in the Word of Wisdom or the law of Chastity—don’t seem to bring any blessings in their wake. What kind of payoff can be expected by the dedicated student who is asked to sacrifice his plans to become a doctor when he is denied admission to medical school? Or the young couple who must give up their hopes for a family when they are unable to conceive children? Or the committed mother and father who have to offer up their parental love when a child succumbs to sin or disease or death?

I wonder, however, if we should not envision these heartbreaking experiences as occasions for sacrifice. Insofar as these denials and frustrations are losses that the Lord has seen fit to ask of us, they are not unrelated to the losses that we voluntary assume in more general forms of sacrifice. The big difference appears to be the question of consent. We choose to pay our tithing, volunteering to give that ten percent to the kingdom. We have little choice, however, in the more particular losses of life. Nobody asks beforehand if I want to suffer professional setbacks, financial hardship, or family disaster.

But it seems that our attitude toward these more particular, more permanent losses determines whether our hardships are made holy (“holy” being the root word of “sacrifice”) or simply remain hardships. Although we are not often asked to consent before the fact to our individual losses, we can consent after the fact. When we conform ourselves to the will of God, we can transform loss into sacrifice. When we faithfully continue to love our Father in Heaven—even when he unexpectedly strips us of our health, our livelihood, or our family—we effectively offer up as a sacrifice to the Lord whatever deprivations he has seen fit to impose. It is virtually impossible to see the death of a parent, a spouse, or a child as a blessing, but when we offer that loved one up to the Lord, trusting that he cares for us and knows what is best, we make a sacrifice like unto that of Abraham laying Isaac upon the altar. This, I believe, is where we really sacrifice.

The hard part in these instances, however is that we are often asked to surrender the very things that our faithfulness has caused us to desire. Husbands and wives, for instance, yearn to have families in large part because they believe that families are central to the Father’s plan. When God does not allow them this opportunity, the sacrifice might seem perverse. God has taught us to prize parenthood, and then he does not answer our pleas to become parents?

Yet the paradox that makes this deprivation so difficult to accept is precisely what makes its acceptance so powerful. The more illogical the sacrifice is, the more meaningful it becomes. This is the concept John Milton tried to convey in his declaration that obedience can only be expressed through compliance with commands that are completely arbitrary. If a law is not utterly arbitrary—if there is a natural and necessary correspondence between the command and the consequence of transgressing that command—then the decision to obey is not an act of faith but an act of reason. As Milton observes, faith does not really enter into the decision to abstain from ingesting poison. People who don’t eat poison aren’t being faithful; they’re just being reasonable. If, however, you are commanded to avoid one fruit arbitrarily selected from among a bunch of other fruits, then your choice to avoid the forbidden fruit can come from no other source than your commitment to obeying God’s will. For Milton, faith only becomes a factor when the intellect is made inoperative—when the command seems petty, nonsensical, or completely random.

Occasionally, it feels like our Father requires too much. When we are asked to give up even our most godly hopes and desires, the sacrifice might feel—even worse than petty or nonsensical—downright cruel. Yet it is then that we most truly sacrifice. When we place on God’s altar the things we cherish the most, then we most fully manifest our faith. When we acquiesce to God’s will and give our consent to the losses that make the least sense, then we are sincerely sacrificial.

Ultimately, I think, all stories of sacrifice sound the same. It is the submissive, silent “thy will be done,” that is murmured between soul-rending sobs over a rejection letter, an empty cupboard, a sick parent, an empty nursery, a tiny casket. “Thy will be done” makes a sacrifice out of suffering.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Whisperings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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