The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The word sacrifice has been on my mind lately. It’s never had a large fan club that I know of. Essential and noble as it is, people who claim to be big fans of it are not to be trusted. There is nothing glamorous about sacrifice.

In the realm of religion, sacrifice has a long history and gods, in particular, seemed to eat it up. It conjures up images of burnt offerings and slaughtered bulls or birds, and blood, always a lot of blood. The basic idea of a sacrifice was to get on the good side of the gods, or for the Jewish community, Yahweh. Not unlike today, back then God often got a bum wrap. God was frequently assumed to be cranky so the good folks were offering a lot of sacrifices, and even the Buddhists who didn’t practice ritual sacrifice, knew it was not a good roll of the dice if you came back a bull or a goat or a dove. Even Jesus’ parents got in on the action, sacrificing two turtledoves at the Temple when he was no bigger than a bread loaf (Lk. 2:24). Later, when he grew to be a man, Jesus himself, for whom nicknames and titles were like magnets to metal, was called “the Lamb of God” by some, but he could have just as easily been called “The Turtledove of God.”

The thing is, for the Jews, an animal sacrifice was supposed to be a sign of reverence, faithfulness, a contrite heart, a holy disposition. But the God of the prophets didn’t take kindly to faux righteousness, to people going through the motions, playing God for a sucker by offering animals and grain meal but violating their neighbors and the needy. God gave them an earful about this duplicity saying:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Is. 6-7)

Which brings me to today, brings me to this lethal virus that pays no nevermind to anyone or anything that gets in its way. Which brings me to the doctors and nurses and medical technicians and lab workers and firefighters and EMT’s and hospital chaplains and custodians and food service workers and medical support staff and elder care workers and all those people who run toward trouble to help by getting in trouble’s way, instead of running the other way to hide. We stand in awe of those who have committed their lives to serving others, to promoting the common good, to standing with those who are alone or suffering or afraid, to bringing life and love and care to a ward or widow or world, especially when it takes a rapacious infection to steal attention back from the world’s power mongers and self-serving demagogues and dictators and greed breeders and purveyors of injustice and stokers of prejudice, violence, and hate and callous cynics and pompous pundits and to draw our attention to the multitude of unsung heroes and hidden saints all around us who are the extraordinarily ordinary humans who are also noble and courageous and thoughtful and generous and hospitable and kind and compassionate and willing to help and to put their lives on the line day after day in simply magnificent and magnificently simple ways.

The word sacrifice comes from the combining form of two Latin words sacerˆ- meaning holy + facere– meaning to make. We make a situation holy, especially a bad situation, when we shift out attention from what benefits me to whatever serves the most the best. We make a bad situation holy when we cease considering what serves my need and begin considering our inherent need to serve. We make a bad situation holy when we bring a calming presence to someone who is anxious, when we bring deep sympathy for someone who is hurting, when we bring reassurance to someone who is frightened, when we bring eyes that say “I am with you. I am a proxy for all those who love you but can’t be with you now,” when we bring tenderness and lead with mercy and make a sacrament of a shared sandwich or laugh, of tears, gratefulness, and hope.

It seems to me, that among the many things we will learn in and through these difficult days, weeks, and months is that while sacrifice literally means to make holy that it also seems to make us human as well, or more human, or the humans we were created to be if we but cooperate with the one from whom our being comes, and if we do unto others as we would hope they would do unto us.

Raimundo Panikkar and Thomas Berry, two of our late great Catholic theologians, each pointed out that sacrifice is not first or mainly a human affair but a cosmic venture to which we hook our belts, our lives, our destiny. Panikkar writes: “Sacrifice is at the center of the world, its force, that which gives it the strength to be, to be what it is and what it shall be, that which supports the cosmos and maintains it in existence . . . Sacrifice is not only the creative act, it is also both conservational and the actively transforming act of the whole universe.”

Berry and Panikkar understood that the movement of the cosmos, the way of all the earth, and the ongoing unfolding of life from the first flashing forth of the universe “in the beginning” until now and into the future is through an ongoing litany of transformations that involve sacrifice and new birth, the giving away of something (i.e. dying) to give way to something else (i.e. new life in greater abundance). “The earth” itself, says Berry, “is a kind of sacrificial offering.” Jesus understood and embodied this movement, this litany of “sacrifice and delight.” He taught that sacrifice means to give ourselves away. That those who risk losing their lives for the sake of Jesus and the dream of God will find the life within life itself.

Beginning tomorrow evening, the Christian community celebrates Triduum (Three Days) which is not so much three separate liturgies but one long liturgy that moves from Holy Thursday to Good Friday (one day), from Good Friday to Holy Saturday (two days) and from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday (three days) in which we see—perhaps this year even more clearly and poignantly courtesy of the dreadful and dastardly COVID-19—Jesus’ enactment of The Great Giveaway and its paradoxical power to heal and restore and to make holy and whole and fully human and eternally just and to bring to fruition the extravagant love of God and everlasting delight.

Alan Jones, theologian, former Dean of the Episcopal Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and prolific writer on Christian spirituality states, “The purpose of sacrifice is delight.” That is, sacrifice that is genuine and real and not neurotic is for the sake of life and joy and delight. Perhaps the passion of God we celebrate this week in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus can shed some light on what is happening in our midst. And perhaps when, not if, we get to the other side of this pandemic, that those who have survived and have the opportunity and blessing to thrive, will understand a bit more tangibly and fully, that their life and opportunity to flourish is because of someone else’s sacrifice, someone else’s willingness to risk losing their life to help someone else keep theirs, someone else’s willingness to dare to make holy. Jesus said there was no greater love than this, and its happening right now all around us, all around the world minute by minute by minute. When all across the globe people are fighting to breathe, doesn’t this take your breath away?