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Sunday, March 7, 2010

A Meaningful Sacrifice

In my mind sacrifice is defined as surrendering something of value to gain something of greater meaning. This means giving up something important, usually a material thing, for the purpose of achieving a moral or spiritual objective. As a Christian, I believe we have a responsibility to honor the sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross by willingly making sacrifices for others less fortunate than ourselves. Unfortunately, it's a concept that doesn't get much publicity in modern America. Some would argue that we, as a nation, have lost sight of the concept of sacrifice and haven't been called upon to practice it in recent years. While I would agree with this statement in general, there are exceptions that show that sacrifice still exists in this country.

Last week a woman in California made a dramatic, but impressively meaningful sacrifice when she learned that several people in her office at the City of Lathrop would be laid-off as a result of the economic crisis gripping the state. Patricia Overy, although keeping her job, was disheartened by the news. She sat down and discussed the situation with her husband and she concluded that her family was better situated to handle the loss of a job and its income than most of the others facing a layoff. Even in the face of raising three children, dealing with health insurance, and the difficult prospect of finding another job, she decided to ask her supervisor to lay her off instead. As a result, another woman kept her job, a 63 year old whose prospects of finding a new job would certainly have been hindered by her age. The Overys don't sound like wealthy people, which makes the sacrifice that much more striking, yet it doesn't appear that it was a difficult decision.

Events like these are not receiving enough publicity in the press or the pulpit, but there are numerous examples of people volunteering for pay cuts to save the jobs of others, or of taking shorter shifts so others can keep their jobs. However, given that these examples seem to be coming from the most ordinary of our citizens, I once again wonder where the leaders of our nation are in this time. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were hearing stories like this concerning politicians, CEOs, entertainers and athletes? How many more great stories would there be, how much closer would we grow as a nation, if our leaders were actually leading by example?!

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