Sacrifice – it’s an interesting word and one that I come back to a lot in my line of work. We talk about ‘Sacrificial’ giving all the time, but this weekend at Greenbelt I’ve had cause to reflect on what it actually means, both to me personally, in my work and to the parishes I support.
It’s a big word. It’s a scary word and the tendency is to downplay it – Sacrifice, we tell ourselves, means how much a thing inconveniences us. My giving is sacrificial because it means I go without some of the material pleasures of life. My volunteering is sacrificial because it is time that I could have given to my friends, my family or to catching up with Dr Who on iplayer.
But what I have heard time and time again this weekend isn’t about inconvenience, it isn’t about how many hours I spend in terminally dull PCC meetings, it isn’t about getting up at stupid o clock to be at a church on the other side of the Diocese for their 9.30 Mass, it isn’t about the percentage of my income I give away.
True sacrifice costs more, and less, than that. True sacrifice exposes us, it opens up our very being and offers it to others – it costs us, at the very core of our soul. Living sacrificially isn’t about time, or talents, or treasure. Sacrificial living calls us to expose ourselves, to show the Self that God sees to the world and to offer it, to invite others to share in it.
This is true generosity, the generosity of the spirit, the generosity that risks all of ourselves and offers it, not just to God, but to each other. When we are truly ourselves, when we place that true self in Gods hands, we are freed from the day to day inconveniences and, though it is risky, it might hurt, it might terrify and it WILL cost – we are freed to fully experience the person God has given us to be in sharing it with others.
Greenbelt for me this weekend was a very ‘raw’ place – where masks were dropped, where risks were taken and where, through the sacrificial generosity of one another, we took small steps closer to the God who dwells in the core of each of us.
Adventures in Generosity 
What a lovely post x
Thanks Rachel – it was quite a weekend and I’m still processing a lot of it. xx