Surrendering Ourselves

Today we complete the muses on Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Deadly Social Sins with thoughts on "Worship Without Sacrifice". The Mahatma was not referring to ancient forms of animal or human sacrificial killing as a form of worship - rather he was suggesting that if we're just going through the motions, then we're not truly worshipping. I'm a leader within my United Methodist congregation and time and again am confronted with the 20-80 rule (20 percent of the people doing 80 percent of the work). The rest either show up or not, and the average pledge to keep the church open is less than $500/year (in a town where the average income tops $80K)! People do not come to church regularly either, in fact, the largest church in the Methodist denomination sees congregants attending worship an average of 1.7 times each month. Hmmm, do we have a problem with comittment?! Why is worship without sacrifice a deadly social sin? How does our lack of sacrifical worship lead us to sin in a social context against each other? Now remember, I'm defining sin in a broad theological sense as any action which disrupts our connection to God. Sin is not one of the 7 deadly (not contained anywhere in the Christian Bible by the way), it is that action or set of free will decisions that keep us from loving God above all else and neighbor as self. Sacrifice is defined in many ways, but the one that I think is closest to where we want to go is "destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else". So if we are attending a faith community and/or worship service and not surrendering ourselves (our worldviews, our judgemental natures, our need to control, our brokenness, etc) for something else (i.e., God) then we can not be transformed. If we are not transformed, then we can not see the needs of the "other" and feel a call to do something about it. If we can not see the needs of others then we allow the world to perpetuate the social injustices (yes, Glenn Beck they exist) and status quo that leads to upwards of 50 million people living at or below the poverty line in the U.S. I have found that the more I commit myself to the exploration of my spirituality, the less judgemental I become - the more tolerant I am of difference, the kinder I am. This is true no matter what doctrine you practice. Immersing yourself in a spiritual discipline and practicing the same diligently and intentionally, will lead to a new vision and a new way of being. In the Christian tradition God says, "see I am making all things new." This new vision is what lead me to create Possibilities Journey, Inc (www.possjrny.org) which seeks to re-integrate all faith communities into the healthcare system. The reason we are convinced that we need to do this is because of the lack of attention to spiritual aspects of illness and recovery. Also to the lack of meaningful after-care and elder care in our current system. Surrendering my worldview has allowed me to see something much greater to work for than a paycheck. What is it that you need to surrender to combat some of the myriad social sins of our world? Peace for the journey, Dan