Count me among those who love life experiences, multi-sensory adventures, and excitement tinged with just a bit of risk. Especially if the experiences include exploring the world, enjoying nature, pushing myself physically, learning something new, sharing time with people, or hiking anywhere in the Sierra Nevadas. I would like to think that my enjoyment of such things is an expression of my appreciation of God’s many gifts as well as how God has uniquely shaped me to move through the world. Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4:4 come to mind here: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving.”
However, there is a difference between enjoying God’s good gifts and prioritizing an endless steady stream of more and more pleasures, experiences, and good feelings. In other words, as followers of Jesus who freely enjoy God’s good gifts, we must also cultivate a place for self-sacrifice, for putting others ahead of self, for privileging the needs of others over our own.
A number of years ago, we decided to serve gluten-free Matzo bread for communion out of consideration for members of our church who are gluten intolerant or have celiac disease. I received some surprising pushback from a congregant who expressed strong resentment for having to give up something because of the needs of others. I was shocked at the lack of willingness to show care for others in this practical way. I found myself wondering, if someone is upset about a once-a-week inconvenience involving one bite of communion bread, what happens when some real sacrifice is called for?
One of the spiritually-formative qualities of weekly worship is that as a matter of course, no one gets their way all the time. Every Sunday, you may have the opportunity to sing a song that is not your favorite or listen to someone who “doesn’t do it for you,” to sit next to someone you don’t agree with or even to eat communion bread that is not to your liking. Shared worship provides a regular opportunity to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn, to stretch in consideration toward others who have different needs from you.
Why is this so important? Because we follow a Lord who laid down his life out of self-sacrificial love. If we are to be Jesus’ people in the world, the ethos of our congregation must be rooted in his generous and gracious way of self-giving. I’ll close with this magnificent quote from Fleming Rutledge, who is reflecting on Jesus’ model of self-sacrificial love:
To show any sort of care for others at all, some sort of sacrifice is necessary every day—to be magnanimous instead of vindictive, to stand back and let someone else share the limelight, to absorb the anger of a teenager in order to show firm guidance, to be patient with a parent who has Alzheimer’s, to refrain from undermining a colleague, to give away money one would like to spend on luxuries, to give up smoking, to bear with those who can’t give up smoking—all such things, large and small, require sacrifice. What would life be without it?
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