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Most of us by now are familiar with the tried and true joke about the difference between an offering and a sacrifice.  The story goes that a hen and a pig are having a conversation early one morning and the hen is bemoaning that she must go lay some eggs so the farmer can have yet another breakfast and she says, “but  I guess its a sacrifice I must make.”  The pig snorts and retorts— “sacrifice, you don’t know the meaning of the word sacrifice. When the farmer wants breakfast, he doesn’t just want an offering like eggs, he wants bacon!  Now that requires a sacrifice.”   Most of us have made offerings of time and money and talents for Christian causes at various points, but the question becomes have we made sacrifices or just offerings? 

There is such astress on taking care of the poor and the indigent in the Bible that it seemsclear to me that one priority for most every Christian is some kind ofinvolvement in the ministries of compassion, and when I say involvement thiscould involve financial support,  missiontrips (or say Katrina relief  ventures ofa periodic sort), and indeed it could even involve relocating so one can engagein such ministries. Two of my students have deliberately moved to the verypoorest part of Lexington Kentucky to reach out to that community andour whole church is backing them with all sorts of support and commitment.  There is a side benefit to getting involvedin a compassion ministry.  Once one goesand digs a well for a Kenyan village without water and languishing in povertyor one goes and helps the homeless in New Orleans, and poverty takes on a realface and one stops calling them ‘those people’ it is hard to keep living thelifestyle of the rich and famous without a guilty conscience.  Guilt in this case is good, if it reflects anawareness that you are living a selfish and self-centered life that God is notbest-pleased with.   In other words, you begin to learn whether what you are giving is just an offering, or a sacrifice.  My suggestion is that we should each of us strive towards self-sacrificial living, not self-indulgent living, following the example of the Master.

Let me share one of the side benefits to getting involved in ministries of compassion. It will do you as much or more good as it will do those you are helping.  How so?  It is very likely it will change not only some preconceived notions you might have about the poor and down and out, but it will change your own self-talk when it comes to possessions and what is really important in life.  It is very difficult to stare into the face of a child that is hungry and say to yourself, ‘well that’s just not my problem, I have my own family to attend to’.  In fact as that great English cleric John Donne once said– “no man is an island entire of itself…. any man’s death diminishes me for I am a part of humankind”.  In other words, doing works of compassion helps us begin to understand the actual way the command to love our neighbor as ourselves can and should be fulfilled. 

One of my favorite stories is the story of one Rev. Spofford, who felt called to sell his possessions and move to the Holy Land and work with both ex-pat English speaking persons and with the Palestinians living in Jerusalem, bringing the Gospel to them.   When he sailed to Palestine he had left his family behind to finish the packing and tending to the closure of their worldly affairs in the motherland.  However, when the family set out for the Holy Land a huge storm overtook the boat and it sank.   Rev. Spofford lost his wife and family in an instant.  What would he do?  Would he go home and abandon the mission he felt called to, and grieve as a person without hope?   In fact, what he did was write a famous hymn as he resolved to stay in Palestine– you will know it as ‘It is Well with my Soul’.  I would urge you to go and read that hymn now. Here is a man who had his priorities straight, and he knew that regardless of our human circumstances we are expected to make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill the call of God on our lives. And that necessarily means a commitment to a life of self-sacrifice, including when it comes to one’s possessions.