The theme for this reflection came to my mind when I was following a conversation among UU Ministers recently about Mahatma Gandhi’s saying that “worship without sacrifice” is a perversion. I thought it was an appropriate topic to address at this time, for several reasons, two in particular – our Catholic Christian friends will soon be observing Lent, the traditional time for personal self-denial, and we are all thinking about the sacrifices involved with war, and involved also, I think, with avoiding war. Almost no-one I’ve spoken with lately expects that the international, or even the local, scene is likely to get much better in the near future without lives lost, ideals compromised, the forgoing of personal comfort and convenience and serenity. But I’m not sure that it comes naturally to any of us to connect this kind of sacrifice with the idea of worship. If we do connect them, it’s probably only through association with what we think of as primitive religious rituals involving killing animals or people to appease some god or other.

And like “sacrifice,” the word “worship” is in itself a hard one for many Unitarians to embrace, because it seems to suggest a kind of self-abasement and attitude of human unworthiness before a supernatural Being. So if we put “worship” and “sacrifice” together, we’re on very touchy ground! But I want to suggest that these words can be used in ways that make perfect sense even to us. Worship literally means affirming and shaping things of worth; sacrifice means giving up something precious; those are the senses in which I’m going to use the words this morning. And I want to suggest that by connecting them as he did, Gandhi may have been pointing to a truth that’s just as applicable to our time and situation as it was to his.

Just to put Gandhi’s words in context, here’s the rest of what he said -- in 1947, not long before his assassination -- about what he saw as “seven major blunders” – or perversions, or deadly sins, as some have called them. Gandhi had a conversation with his grandson Arun. He handed Arun a talisman upon which were engraved the "Seven Blunders" out of which, said Gandhi, grows the violence that plagues the world. I’ll put them to you now, and we’ll take time for a few moments of silent reflection on each. They were:

Gandhi characterized these unbalanced states as forms of "passive violence," which fuels the active violence of cruelty, crime, and war. He said, "We could work till doomsday to achieve peace and would get nowhere as long as we ignore passive violence in our world."

So how might our theme for today, “worship without sacrifice,” be what Gandhi called a “blunder,” a major perversion, part of a pattern of “passive violence” which fuels hatred and war? As I explore this with you, I’m indebted to the thinking of UU Minister Dr. Laurel Hallman, who addressed this theme with her congregation back in 1999. Laurel pointed out that in common conversation among Unitarians you'll be more likely to hear words like autonomy and independence and self-reliance than the word “sacrifice”. In the Western world there’s been a move away from sacrifice as an honoured value, a move towards a culture of entitlement, as in “I’m worth it!” That’s even affecting what we mean by worship –“I’m worth it!” It’s hard to understand what Gandhi might have meant by linking worship and sacrifice, even knowing how he sacrificed himself, during his life and with his death, for the liberation of his country, which he considered ultimately worthwhile.

Laurel Hallman asks, “What good is sacrificing one’s life in the war to end all wars, when another one follows closely behind? Or to sacrifice ones’ son or daughter in Vietnam [or the Persian Gulf] in the name of patriotism, when our involvement in the war itself is questioned by history, damaging even those who survived? ........ [or] Why sacrifice oneself for civil rights when the problem of racism persists and persists and persists at ever more subtle levels?........ Take care of yourself, it seems most of recent history is telling us, and the rest will follow. If you are self-reliant, and resilient, you will model what is needed for your children. God helps those who help themselves, after all. And patriotism turns into nationalism so quickly. And politics do not inspire higher values anyway.........

How unthinkable it would be, for most of us, to plan a trip to Mecca, for instance, which might take all our lifetime savings, a holy sacrifice of homage and duty. Equally pointless, perhaps, consciously and intentionally to deny ourselves some specific thing we need or want in the way that Catholics would “give up chocolate for Lent”. While there may still be sacrifices small and large being made all around us, sacrifice has faded as a religious concept, as a high value in religion, as a thread which weaves itself through the centuries of faith in all its forms. And where it persists, we have fundamentalisms rising up in its name. We have brutal regimes in many places; ignoring their brutality may in itself be a blundering form of passive violence.

But it may still be true that, without using the word sacrifice, we do give all that we have to something. We all give the days of our lives to something. We die for something. If not as martyrs to some great cause, then we die because we have lived. We have walked this Earth as an embodiment of what it means to be human. Our lives, at the very least, are examples of what it means to live. We give all that we have to the living of our lives. We give our time, we spend our money, we do our jobs. We give of the qualities of our spirit. Hope, joy, peace, as well as muddle, or even hate. We give of our resources. To the car dealer, to the bank for our mortgages, to the checkout clerk at the grocery store. We give and give and give of the time and resources of our lives. Worship is participating in such acts of worth -- participating in choosing worthy values. In this daily giving of ourselves, of the minutes and hours of our lives, the labor of our bodies and minds, the affections of our hearts, we pour out the actions which are in keeping with our values. Tending to our values, we give all that we have. And gathering here, to pay attention to how we do that, is the ritual form we give to our worship.

Laurel Hallman suggests that sacrifice, as we UUs can still perhaps understand and use the word, is not a denial of ourselves, but the living out of ourselves, our values, our worth-ship. We give our resources to the common good, at the same time that we know we must be able to support ourselves and be responsible about our future. We give ourselves to our children, even as we realize that they are separate from us. We give ourselves to our work, even as we know that we are not only what we do for a living. And we give ourselves to Life, though what Life calls us to do is not always what we might be inclined to choose. Giving whole-heartedly is in itself a value; remember what Thoreau said: “I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived.” And I think it was Shaw who said that he wanted to be all used up by the time he died, with nothing uselessly left over.

Do we sacrifice when we come here for what some of us call a worship service and all of us probably agree is about worth-ship? Is Gandhi right when he says there is no worship without sacrifice? I do believe so. Sacrifice may not be what we thought it was. Sacrifice is the gift of ourselves to life, to love, to children, to the larger good, to causes and creative work. When we come together on a Sunday morning to affirm and shape this giving of ourselves, we are worshipping, “worth-shaping,” and giving – sacrifice -- is at the heart of it. Yes, Gandhi was right: the idea of worship without giving is a big blunder! If we hold tight to all that we have, and withhold ourselves from one another, we are worshipping only possession and grasping.

Sometimes – perhaps often – our giving is at such a noticeable cost to our own comfort that it comes close to the traditional sense of sacrifice. When we think about worth-shaping, giving to the things we believe in, it may be well to remember that our convenience, even our well-being, may suffer. In the March issue of our newsletter, The Window, you’ll read a piece by Rhoda Riemer about what happened when she took part in the “rice for peace” action which has been a project of several groups and individuals. Rhoda had been hesitant to include the part about a visit from the police, but was encouraged to do so by her companion Mark Paul, who said: “..... people need to protest thoughtfully and be aware that protesting [must] deal with the real world as it exists.  There may be consequences to protesting - whether possible police visits, arrests, or being caught up in violence.  This doesn't mean doing nothing because of what could happen, but doing what one is comfortable with and with integrity if one chooses not to be the centre of attention or a martyr.”

While agreeing with this, I think I’d go a little further than Mark and encourage people to try stretching the bounds of what they’re comfortable with -- just a bit, anyway. Our worship and our sacrifice don’t always have to be circumscribed by ease and comfort. But I think Mark probably meant the inner comfort of maintaining one’s integrity or wholeness. That’s a precious treasure, beyond all considerations of convenience. As Mark said, “This doesn't mean doing nothing because of what could happen, but [acting] with integrity.”

The willingness to give up one thing for another, sacrificing it for what we perceive as a greater good, is intrinsic to our human nature, I believe. We give up possibilities every time we make a decision, no matter how simple; the very word “de-cision” means “cutting off”! It’s equally true at all levels, and while it may not matter very much in the long run that you give up the possibility of blue trim on your house when you decide to paint it green, some of our choices have extremely long-lasting and far-reaching significance. Consider these words, for instance, from a man who probably knew something of what he was saying: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly when that was said, but the author lived from 1890 to 1969. He was the U.S. General and 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He knew that worth-ship, the affirming of our values, always involves sacrifice of one kind or another, and that every choice we make has a cost, for others as well as for ourselves.

How do we decide what extent of giving, what kind of sacrifice, at whose cost, will be our truest worship in this time when we’re being asked to make decisions and take stands? Hee and now, in relation to the looming war in Iraq, how do we decide what commitment we will make? There are few of us, I think, who would opt for peace at absolutely any price, and fewer still who would embrace war except as a last resort, but in between there are so many possible places to stand. When you’re stumbling along the way to your own human and imperfect decision about what should be done in Iraq, I ask you to consider a question of Gandhi’s, and then a question of my own. Gandhi’s question, which he posed in 1942, during the Second World War, is this:

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

And my question, following from that, is paraphrased from a message I received yesterday – and if it seems to some of you to have faint Biblical overtones, I do not apologize:

Choose well where you will take your stand, and what form your worship and your sacrifice will take. Choose well, and keep in mind the children. As for me and my household, knowing the complexities, respecting your decisions, we hope to serve peace, not war. Whatever sacrifice we each prepare ourselves to make, may we worship in truth, in love, and in the open hearted spirit that calls forth from us, the best we have to give, as we live this hour together and every day of our lives. So may it be. Amen.