16th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 18C

16th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 18C September 8, 2013 Sacrifice—it almost has become a dirty word in our culture. Even the definition from Miriam-Webster is kind of scary: “an act or offering to a deity of something precious; especially the killing of a victim on an altar.” Yikes! Our lectionary crafters and the gospel writer of Luke seem to be unrelenting in confronting us with a Jesus who’s words are extreme, uncomfortable—words about hating those whom we hold dearest, words about counting the cost, taking up crosses, and yes, that unpopular notion of sacrifice. Even in the church, where we talk about Jesus’s sacrifice every single week, sacrifice has become almost taboo. Feminist and liberation theologians remind us that for a long time the concept of sacrifice was used to subjugate people—especially women and poor people and people of color, and the people who weren’t in power. We were told that it was our Christian duty to sacrifice, and for many, many years the church wielded that notion over people. Now, the church is afraid to talk about sacrifice because 1. It’s not popular, and 2. People have so much competing for their time and attention and resources, and we fear that such an unpopular notion will drive them away, back out into a world that eagerly touts the joys of easy convenience and instant gratification. But you know what? I’m not afraid of talking about sacrifice with you or with others because I see you, and you are already sacrificing. I see you parents who give up almost every weekend you have in order for your children to enjoy the benefits of competitive sports. I see you who work grueling hours at jobs that do not feed your soul so that you may have the money and the resources to do what you need to do. I see you older folks who live on fixed incomes and sometimes have to choose between food and medicines at the end of some months, or those of you who must choose what you are able to do and accomplish within the growing limits of your physical capabilities. I see you who wake up at ungodly early hours of the day to exercise; I see you who are attentive to what you put into your bodies in an effort to lose weight or to be healthy. And of course, being a part of a community such as the church often means choosing between our own ideologies and the needs of others. Yes, you all know much of sacrifice already. And why is it that you are making these difficult choices? It is because certain things, people, relationships are important to you. We sacrifice for what is most important or most valuable to us. Over and over again in the gospels, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is here now, that eternal life begins now. This means that being a Christian—a follower or disciple of Jesus on the way isn’t about what we think or “believe.” It is about how we live and love and order our priorities, and it is about what we allow to possess us. “You sacrifice according to your priorities. And in today’s [gospel] passage Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God he proclaims and the kingdom life he exemplifies should be a priority, actually be the priority. So maybe we should contemporize Jesus’s parable and ask, ‘What parent wouldn’t count the cost before signing up for the traveling soccer team, and what new employee wouldn’t consider whether she is willing to work every weekend her first year?’ You are already making sacrifices in your lives, and Jesus tells us that Christian discipleship or the Christian life calls for the same.”i I’ve told you before that I had a rich experience a few months ago when I heard Bishop Greg Rickel speak about stewardship at Gray Center back in May. I was completely confronted when he talked about the incredible importance of telling the truth in our churches. He said to us, “How often do we say, “We didn’t have enough money, time, resources, energy to do_________(whatever, you fill in the blank). But the truth is really that we didn’t choose to spend our money, time, resources, energy to do that. And I was caught short, confronted by this important difference because I know this is so very true for my own life. How many times do I say in one week, “I didn’t have enough time to do that.” When really the truth is that I didn’t choose to spend my time that way. So the question that Jesus is inviting all of us to examine this week, with his challenging demanding words is “How do I choose to spend my life?” And the reality of God is that God takes whatever small portion of our lives that we offer to God and God multiplies it one thousand-fold. God accepts our scarcity and transforms it into abundance because abundance and fecundity is God’s nature. But deep down we still know that we have chosen to offer God only this tiny bit, when we have so much more that we are choosing to spend elsewhere. And we are ashamed, and that becomes even more of an impediment that we put between us and God. Jesus calls us beyond that. He calls us to examine our lives, the use of our time, those priorities and people we hold most dear. He invites us to say honestly—not I didn’t have enough…but rather this is what I chose. But he also invites us to sacrifice more for our relationship with God—because no matter how important these other people and priorities might seem to us now, when all pieces of this life are stripped away, it is only this—your uniquely created self and God. That is the most important thing there is. That is the essence of eternal life. So this day and this week, may we all be unafraid to speak the truth about our lives. To count the cost. To look at our lives, our calendars, our commitments, our titles, our relationships, our material goods, our checkbooks and to really and truly examine how we are spending our lives. And then let us prayerfully consider what God is inviting us to sacrifice in order to grow more deeply and more fully in the knowledge and love of God and in living a life of following Jesus. i. David Lose from his blog www.workingpreacher.org