Why should we sacrifice?

 

The word sacrifice has some interesting connotations to it.  For some people, they think of the traditional sacrifices of the Old Testament  (and how much of a sacrifice it is to read about them in the Deuteronomy and Leviticus).  Occasionally images of Hollywood and different cultures come to mind.  Others picture ancestors that gave so much to find religious or other freedoms or perhaps even parents that worked two jobs in order to keep food on the table.

 

Yet many of us in the modern world are losing touch with what it really means to sacrifice.  We don't have to trudge in the cold snow to find fresh water or fuel to heat our homes.  Medical care is readily available and modern conveniences such as washing machines, dishwashers, cars and computers have made some of the most difficult tasks of yesteryear quite accessible.  Even 100 years ago, people would spend their entire lives looking for knowledge that is accessible in seconds via Google.  Even typing this Blog entry seems to be a breeze when compared to the typewriters of my father's generation.  While I join you in being grateful for modern conveniences, I worry that there will come a time when we have completely forgotten the importance of sacrifice, resulting in the loss of the blessings associated.

 

Joseph Smith, the first modern prophet of our church, once stated that “a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”  These are powerful words.  Yet in a world of modern convenience, they tend to feel old-fashioned.  Like many of God's truths, they are not, but understanding them takes work.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are often asked to do tasks that seem challenging if not onerous.  My colleagues at work often tease me about "church camp" (referring to the fact that our regular meetings last 3 hours on Sundays.  On some Sundays, additional responsibilities take up much of our time left over.)  Most members in the church currently hold "callings" or responsibilities to teach, serve, administer or even supervise the cleaning of the buildings.  We have no paid local clergy in our congregations.  There are some that spend 20-30 hours or more a week simply trying to serve the Lord and bless their fellow members.  Our full-time missionary force actually pays monthly for the opportunity to sleep in cold apartments, eat small meals and spend 16+ hours a day pounding the pavement, looking for interested persons to teach.

In the church, we are asked to tithe our income, contribute to the feeding and clothing of the poor, and travel long distances to participate in temple worship.  We abstain from some of the popular practices of the world including alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco and illegal drugs.  We follow an internal dress code of modesty and we strive to live chaste and loyal lives.  Sometimes I think that a long Sunday would be easier if we could drink coffee...

 

So why do we do it?  Because we follow our Savior Jesus Christ and He was willing to sacrifice for us.   I will quote from the words of Jesus Christ himself:

 

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-19)

 

Christ was willing to give up His life that we might find repentance and a place with Him.  And He knows that by asking us to sacrifice, He is actually directly blessing us.  As we look outward and stop thinking about ourselves, we follow his counsel given to the inhabitants of the Americas in chapter 9 of the book of 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon:

 

And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.

 

When I sacrifice for the benefit of my fellow human beings, I am following the counsel given in Matthew 25:40.  "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  The Lord knows that by allowing us to serve others, He is blessing us and them.  The Lord knows that as we truly sacrifice, we are forced to call upon His name for sustenance, thus bringing us closer to Him.  He knows that as we sacrifice, we will grow in love for those we serve, much as he developed love for us by giving His life.

 

Does it seem too hard?  Sometimes.  Unfair?  Occasionally.  Too rigid?  Sure.  But worth it?  Absolutely.  "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30).  Thank you, Lord for the opportunity to sacrifice for You.

For the last several years I have had the privilege to keep at least one beehive in my backyard.
For the Northeast Ohioans reading this, you may not realize how close the midwest is tied to
beekeping--and to religion for that matter. Lorenzo L. Langstroth, considered to be the Father
of American beekeeping, was a Reverend born in Pennsylvania and later moved to Oxford
and Dayton Ohio. He is credited as discovering "bee-space", the concept that if a 3/8" gap is
allowed between frames or the top board of the hive, then the bees will not glue the gap down
with propolis (a sticky substance) or create honeycomb in the gap. Although this was discovered
around the same time in Europe, this was a big deal as prior to this point, the tops of beehives
were glued tightly shut by the bees and were much more difficult to access. Langstroth also
developed and began manufacturing the removable frame hive (A.I. Root started selling his
hive and was for a long time the heart of US beekeeping manufacturing--right in Medina, OH).
The removable frame hive was an even bigger deal, as it allowed the beeswax combs to be
removed and reused. This allowed much more honey production from a single hive as the
bees didn't have to draw out new wax combs each year. Beeswax is energetically expensive. It
takes about 6-7 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of beeswax. Considering that honey was the
primary sweetener in the diet at that time. It's probably not too far off to think of this Reverend
as the Willy Wonka of Beekeeping. He passed away at the pulpit of a church just as he began to
preach a sermon on the Love of God. Evidently, Langstroth began keeping bees as a method to
help him overcome severe bouts of depression. I like this quote from Rev. Langstroth:

 "The attention of Clergymen is particularly solicited to the study of this branch of Natural
History. An intimate acquaintance with the wonders of the Bee-Hive, while it would benefit them
in various ways, might lead them to draw their illustrations, more from natural objects and the
world around them, and in this way to adapt them better to the comprehension and sympathies
of their hearers. It was, we know, the constant practice of our Lord and Master, to illustrate
his teachings from the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, and the common walks of life and
pursuits of men. Common Sense, Experience and Religion alike dictate that we should follow
his example."

My goal here is to share what I have learned in a religious context from keeping bees.
First, the Power of Community. In order to make a single pound of honey a colony of honeybees
(20,000 to 60,000 bees) must visit over a million flowers and in the process their collective
flight distances would circle the globe twice! A single bee in the summer lives about 1 month,
each trip collecting nectar the bee will bring in on average 30 mg of nectar. Multiple collecting
trips are made on the average day. Over the lifespan of that bee, it will produce only 1/12 of
1 teaspoon of honey! Yet colony wide over a year a honeybee colony can collect 44 pounds
of pollen and 264 pounds of nectar! In a recent sermon, M. Russell Ballard, an apostle of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared a sermon that involved learning this lesson
from honeybees.

"Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully
do their part....All of this symbolism attests to one fact: great things are brought about by many hands anxiously engaged in a good cause.Imagine what... millions could accomplish in the world if we functioned like a beehive in our focused, concentrated commitment to the teachings
of the Lord Jesus Christ." http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/be-anxiously-engaged?lang=eng

To further elaborate on the amazing social cooperation observed among honeybees, note that a "patch of flowers about ... half the size of a tennis court... represents less than 1/125,000 of the area enclosed by a circle with a 2 km radius (note that bees can fly out to a 3 mile radius
in search of nectar, etc.) yet remarkably a honey bee colony has a probability of 0.5 or higher of discovering any such flower patch located within 2 km of its hive." --Thomas Seeley, The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of the Honeybee. In his research Prof. Seeley remarked, " Honey bees' social organization enables a colony to produce with bees possessing only very limited information a steady-state labor distribution among nectar sources as effective as the one that would be produced if each forager were omniscient about nectar sources." --I find this truly fascinating. In other words, bees will find a small patch of flowers that is minuscule compared to the available area they must search nearly half the time AND that the bees are able to allocate their resources in a way that even though no single bee sees the big picture, they function the same as though each bee knows where all available flower patches are. Easy to see why Rev. Langstroth could so easily point to the honeybee as a witness of a Divine Creator and encourage other clergymen to draw from the lessons learned in their sermons.

Second, the Importance of Duty and Role. This relates somewhat to the first lesson. The power
of the whole hinges on the industry of the one. Honeybees, as they develop will progress
through a series of roles/tasks based on their age/developmental maturity. Initially, bees will
clean their own cell from which they hatched and then take a role in feeding other recently
hatched bees. They may then advance to accepting pollen or nectar from foraging bees that
have returned to the hive. The bees then store and place the nectar or pollen within the hive.
Once the stinger develops the bee may progress to be a guard bee, standing within the hive
near any entrances to prevent access to other insects, predators, or honeybees not of that
hive that do not come bearing food. Later the bee may progress to be a forager, beginning by
making small, looping orientation flights around the hive to gain their bearings. Once a forager a
bee will typically forage for either, pollen, nectar, or water depending on the current needs of the
hive. Similarly, I feel that people go through stages. My wife and I are very much in the building
stage, the raise your kids stage. Previously, when we had less children and those we had were
much younger, my wife was very active in visiting women in our congregation. She buoyed up
a lady struggling through depression and unemployment and later visited this same woman in
prison after she made some ill-advised life choices. She helped clean and salvage a woman's
home and belongings when the landlord evicted the single-parent family on a moment's notice.
While she strives to be just as active in her visiting efforts, she's remarked and felt comforted
that at times she has felt The Lord has helped her to gain a testimony of different aspects of
the gospel at different times in her life. When our children were younger, she felt that that was
a season/stage of visiting teaching excellence. After I was called to be the leader of the young
missionaries assigned to our congregation, my wife, though scared and nervous about my
assignment, turned what was previously a weakness of hers (sharing the gospel) into a strength
and source of joy. While she hadn't had much experience before with sharing the gospel, in
Northeast Ohio, her opportunities have been plentiful.

I believe that in our lives there will be seasons. During one season we may catch the vision of
family history work, during another we may be focused on sharing the gospel, during another
our efforts or successes may be in our marriage or raising our children. We may want the
blessings of a season that is not yet one we enjoy. For example, many couples struggle with
infertility and would love more than anything to have the role/duty of having children. Others
may yet be looking for a spouse. I take comfort that if I do my duty and seek to fulfill my roles
as I progress into them, that eventually, when The Lord feels I am ready that I'll experience the
blessings of all the seasons/stages that The Lord has prepared for me.

Lastly, timing is critical. In beekeeping, the amount of work necessary to upkeep a hive is not
extensive. The key is that when work needs to be done, it needs to be done at the appropriate
time. For example, without sufficient space in the hive, bees will swarm or leave the hive and
the strength and population of the hive will split and the ability of the hive to gather a surplus of
honey will be greatly reduced. Provide extra space late and it'll be too little, too late. Bees are
not procrastinators. When the weather is good, they're out working as flowers only bloom for so
long and there's only so much nectar that patch of flowers will produce. When it comes to our
interactions with people, an appropriately placed "Thank You," a timely, "I'm Sorry", following
up discipline of children with an increase of love afterwards are all examples where timing
can be critical. In the case of honeybees, their focus/goal is to produce and stockpile as much
honey as possible to protect against the unknown severity of the coming winter. Every available
window to achieve that end is utilized. We can follow that example, our goals and priorities may
be different, but they should be as well defined. The time we have with our children is critical.
We only have 18 or so years where they are in our home and the time goes by fast! Are we
stockpiling precious memories and experiences that will keep us spiritually and emotionally
warm in the winters of our lives?

These are some, of many, religious principles that I feel are learned from keeping bees. I know that God loves us! I know that if we turn our lives over to Him by keeping His commandments, He will magnify our individual efforts in our roles and duties and He will help us with our decisions, especially the time critical ones.

"So work the Honey Bees, Creatures that by a rule in Nature, teach the art of order to a peopled
kingdom."--Shakespeare