When President Clinton unveiled his tax increase two months ago, he called Americans to sacrifice. But when “morning-after” polls showed a drastic drop in approval ratings, sacrifice quickly became contribution. Apparently sacrifice, which is in the vocabulary of faith, does not exist in the language of politics.
We seem to have a hard time with sacrifice unless we sense a direct benefit for ourselves. But expecting something in return is not sacrifice, it is investment. The two concepts are radically different.
Our upscale American existence has been sanitized of sacrifice. The notion of giving without thought of return has grown passé. The church, however, would do well to remember that selfless sacrifice is the foundation of our Christian experience. In fact, the story of the church is the ongoing history of sacrifice.
I am reminded of an event witnessed by Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, in Korea in 1950: The Red Chinese army has routed American and United Nations troops. Refugees flood south, their tales of atrocity sparking terror. Churches bulge with all-night prayer vigils conducted in an atmosphere of siege. It is winter, and the city has lost power.
It is four o’clock in the morning, dark and unbelievably cold inside. Many in the church are refugees. Most are dressed in nothing but thin, padded cotton. Women who watched their homes burn and husbands tortured to death gather their children close.
The singing is punctuated by tears, declaring both the worshipers’ need and their joy in finding the One in whom every need is met. The pastor prepares to take an offering for those still streaming into the city. “Something must be done to help our friends and brethren,” he explains.
What does this congregation have to give? Homes, businesses, and savings are gone. The people shiver in desperate need. The pastor continues, “And so we will give an offering of clothes.”
An old, emaciated man removes his vest and solemnly lays it on the Communion table. A young mother takes the sweater off her baby and tucks the infant inside her own clothes. A tiny sweater joins a tattered vest. Soon, the table is piled high. They give the clothes off their backs because of what is in their hearts.
That, fellow American Christians, is sacrifice. For that tiny refugee church, sacrifice was not a foreign concept, but a faith experience. Not something to be feared, but to be embraced. Asking for nothing in return, faith gave freely what it could not afford.
That suffering assembly in Korea did not make an “investment of faith.” It sacrificed that another’s child might be warm; that a stranger might cover himself; that someone they might never meet, and never be thanked by, might benefit from their gift. Sacrifice gives not out of abundance. It gives from the heart.
If our nation is to understand the biblical concept of sacrifice, the church must lead the way, as it has many times in the past. Now, as never before, we face opportunities to show a skeptical world what it means to give without thought for ourselves.
Like the members of that Korean church, we have our own needs. But we know there are those whose needs are far greater, whether they come from the streets of Buffalo or the urban battlefields of Bosnia; a Cincinnati slum or a Somalian village. We know they are our neighbors. And we are touched by their suffering.
Sacrifice may have become a foreign word to our American culture. It is too personal, too painful. But for the Christian, it is the first step to resurrection.
Robert Seiple is president of World Vision.
