Why do we sacrifice?
Usually it’s to get something that we consider will fill the void and make us who we want to be.
· We sacrifice our time to get money so that we can be secure financially
· We sacrifice our money to buy possessions so that we can be housed, fed, clothed and maybe even show off just a little.
· We sacrifice our time so that we can be good parents, good lovers, good friends, good moral people.
· In religion, we sacrifice in order to be good Christians, good Jews, good Muslims, good Hindus, whatever. We sacrifice to please god or the gods. We sacrifice to go to heaven.
We often think that the other guy has what we lack. The money, the relationship, the spirituality. We want a house like his house, we want a body like her body, we want a wife like his wife, kids like her kids. We want to be spiritual and zen like she is. We want to powerful like he is. We want to be intelligent and informed like she is.
In ancient religious rituals, the idea of sacrifice was very literal and embodied. They took an actual goat or a sheep or even a person. The “sins” of the people (all the ways that the people fell short, all the ways they didn’t measure up, all that they lacked) were placed upon this sacrifice and when it was gone, the lack was gone.
Supposedly.
This is why it’s called a “scapegoat”. It takes the blame for everything. So long as it can be the problem and we can get rid of it, we don’t have to actually face the lack inside ourselves and our societies. We can absolve ourselves of it, rid ourselves of it.
For a bit.
Until it’s time for another sacrifice.
The scapegoat is alive and well today. Not only can we direct our feelings of lack onto another person, like the president for example; but onto whole categories of persons. If only those liberals, conservatives, whites, blacks, women, men, christians, jews, muslims, immigrants, millenials, democrats, republicans, would just CHANGE! THEN we’d have the society that we want to have!! THEY are the problem!
So we make the sacrifices to get what we want. The house, the car, the relationship, the president in office, the amendment to the constitution. And when we sacrifice and get the thing we were hoping to get by making the sacrifice, we are left with two outcomes:
1) The realization that there is only more to be acquired, so further sacrifice is needed
or
2) The realization that the sacrifice was complete and there is no more to be gotten.
We almost never get to #2. In fact, #2 is intolerable for most. If we ever reach it, we have to face the lack that we feel with nothing left to do about it.
We have climbed to the top financially only to find that we still feel insecure.
We have the spouse, the kids, the house, the car, and we still feel inadequate or lonely.
We lose the weight and still don’t like our body.
We do the good deeds and still don’t feel like good people.
We give the sacrifices for god and still feel separated from god.
And if we have truly given all there is to give, we are left sitting with our lack with nowhere to go.
Most of us, at this point create another thing to strive after. Another thing to obtain or attain in order to satisfy this lack. After all, who has ever truly given ALL there is to give? In capitalism it is ever increasing wealth with no stopping place. In Christianity, it is spiritual perfection – becoming “like god”. With our bodies, it is continued dieting, exercise, enhancement, surgeries.
No matter how good a thing is, it can always be better
There is a parable told by a philosopher:
There is a man looking for a treasure in a field. He keeps turning over rocks in that field in the hopes of finding the treasure but never finds it. Rather than let go of the notion that there is a treasure, the man will find a rock so large that it cannot be turned over, just so he can maintain his idea that the treasure exists.
But Grace.
Grace is a concept that confronts this cycle we get ourselves into.
Grace says that NOTHING more is needed.
Grace says no sacrifice is needed.
None.
Grace says – there’s no special thing to be obtained that will make it all OK.
Grace says your neighbor doesn’t have the special thing either.
Grace says there’s no scapegoat to blame for not having it because there’s nothing to be had.
And then… only then…. When we’ve admitted that the “other” does not have the secret, special thing… can we love the other.
As long as I believe that there is more that is needed and that you have more of the special thing than I have: more zen, more money, more love, more peace, more knowledge, more power. I cannot love you. Not really. As long as I believe that you are the reason why I can’t get what I want, personally, politically, societally, I can’t love you. Not really. As long as I am in a position of sacrificing to know the secret that you seem to have and I don’t. I can’t love you. Not really.
First grace
Then love.
“I desire mercy (grace) not sacrifice. Go and learn what this means” Jesus.
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