Sermon by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, March 24, 2002
There is a story told about Horace Greeley, the great 19th century journalist and editor. Apparently trusting in his wisdom and creativity, a concerned church member wrote Greeley about her congregation, which was in distressing financial straits. She wrote that they had already tried fairs, strawberry festivals, oyster suppers, box socials, mock weddings, grab-bags and lawn parties. Would Mr. Greeley be so good as to suggest some new device that might keep the struggling church from disbanding? To which Mr. Greeley replied, with famous brevity, 'Try religion'.
I don't think that what Greeley meant by his terse response was along the lines of, 'Pray, because that's all you've got left'. And despite his terseness I don't think he meant to be unkind or dismissive of the woman's concerns. I don't know very much about the man and I know nothing at all about this exchange beyond what I've told you. But I choose to believe that what Horace Greeley meant when he said, 'Try religion', is that the nettlesome issue of keeping the institution solvent must be inherently folded into its mission as a religious institution. That is, stewardship is a religious issue. It is connected to the most fundamental qualities we hope to lift up and instill in those who pass through our doors: attentiveness, gratitude, compassion, forgiveness and, right up there with them all, generosity.
I don't think of generosity in quite the way I used to. I once saw it, as I think many of us do, simply as the ability and willingness to give largely and graciously of what we have. It had connotations of ownership and relinquishment: we examine what we have, and then choose to give up some portion of it to a person or a cause or a need. That giving makes us feel large and expansive, which is how we know the difference between simply giving something and giving generously.
We can all remember times when we entered into an event or a religious service at which we knew, right from the beginning, that we would be asked to give something. We go in with a notion already formed of what we'll give: the ten dollars that sits in our pocket for that purpose, or the check already written. And when the collection comes around and we put in that predetermined amount we usually feel pretty neutral and matter-of-fact. It wasn't any big deal. But every once in a while we get surprised. Every once in a while the collection is preceded by a message or a plea we find so compelling that our pre-written check gets quietly torn in half and we write out an amount double or triple what we'd planned on. When that check gets put into the basket, we feel larger. We have given generously, in a way that makes us feel connected to the cause we're supporting.
There is nothing wrong with that feeling of generosity and much that is right with it. But I find I am thinking about it a little differently these days, impelled partly by the theme I explored last Sunday.
In that sermon I talked a little about how we deal with loss when it comes our way: whether we are among those who cut our losses or keen over them, whether we cling tightly to what comes our way or touch it lightly. It now seems to me that how we deal with loss is fundamentally linked to how we deal with giving. They are deeply entwined because both have to do with how we understand what we have versus who we are. If I think of the things that come my way through life as shoring up my self-hood, as being mine in the sense of identity, then it is almost impossible not to cling. What I have is carefully tallied and often hoarded and is never quite enough to make me feel secure. Generosity is difficult and loss is almost unbearable.
But if I understand that I never really have anything -- that all that appears to be mine is on loan to me -- then I live with an inherent lightness of heart and lightness of touch. Generosity becomes quite a different thing, because I no longer think in terms of relinquishing something I own -- my money, my car, my house, my fair share -- but in terms of making useful or beautiful or more abundant something that simply passes through my care for a time.
It seems to me that this attitude reflects the reality of our world more truthfully. What is it that is permanently mine, after all, when I know perfectly well that even this body is simply on loan? And what is it that I have actually earned, when I know in my bones that all things on earth are gifted to us?
The life I am living is utterly dependent on the gifts of sun and rain, on the movements of wind that shift the temperatures, on the turning of the earth. It is dependent on the lowliest of other life forms: the worms that turn and till the soil, the insects that patiently make the plants fertile, the microbes that slowly recycle death back into life. When we remember that nothing at all is ours to keep, and when we remember how much is grace and gift, doesn't it alter the way we think about how and when we give away that which we hold briefly in our hands?
There is an old story about a fabulously wealthy man who died, and two of his servants were arguing over how much money he had actually left behind. After a few minutes a third servant passed by, the oldest one, and they asked, "Well, you would know: how much did he leave?" And the oldest servant, surprised, said, "Why everything, of course!" All that we have is temporary, all that we have will leave our hands. So why not think about where and how it will leave our hands, and what effect we'd most like it to have on our world? Why not enjoy the giving of it away?
In one of her poems, Jane Hirschfield writes:
I want to give myself utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf;
as this lake that,
no matter what comes
to its green-blue depths,
both takes and returns it…
I want the place by the edge-flowers where
the shallow sand is deceptive,
where whatever steps in must plunge,
and I want that plunging….
That's how I think of generosity now: as a whole-hearted plunge into our lives and into the world, handing back everything, letting it pass through our open hearts and through our open fingers. This is how it comes to seem one of the most fundamentally religious values we could possibly teach. What is it each of us holds in our hands? How are we called to shape it or change it, where are we called to place it as we let it go?
I learned recently of a wonderful religious ceremony the Iroquois practiced with their children. When a child reached the age of three, the whole community would gather around the fire and honor him or her. The child would be placed at the center of this circle of love, and all kinds of good things would be given. The child was draped in the softest of clothing and robes, given wonderful things to drink, presented with the best of foods. And then in the middle of this lavishing of gifts, from the darkness outside the circle a voice would call out, "I'm thirsty! I'm thirsty!", and the child was expected to take of what had just been given, to go to the person and say, "Here, take some of mine." And another voice would call out, "I'm hungry!", or "I'm cold!", and the child would take some of the food that had just been given, remove the cloak or the blanket that had just been given, and give it again, pass it along.
Everything that is ours is simply on loan. What will we do with that knowledge?
In his presentation to UU ministers in 1999, Stephen Gray told about a UCC congregation in his conference that had embarked on a radical new process of conducting their annual fundraising campaign. Always before they did what most congregations do: they figured out how much their budget needed to grow in the coming year and held that up as a goal, asking their members to raise their pledges and make the budget. But when they really thought about it they decided that this method had nothing to do with the religious values they hoped to teach. So on something of a leap of faith they asked that their members give based not on the church's need, but on the giver's need. They asked people to consider very deeply what they needed to give, based on the grace of their lives.
One older member went to the chairman of the fund drive to ask by what percentage he ought to raise his pledge. He had always pegged it to the budget increase: if the budget was to go up by two percent, so would his pledge; if it were to be five or ten percent, he'd raise his pledge by that amount. But this year the chairman just said to him, "Give according to the blessings you feel have been yours this year".
As it happened, the man had been through a successful open-heart surgery and had greeted the birth of his first grandchild. And when he thought in terms of what he needed to give, he more than doubled his already generous gift. It wasn't because he held the church in any way responsible for his blessings. It was because he saw that there was a flow of blessings to which he could contribute by giving out of the abundance in his life.
I think there is great wisdom in this approach. It can't be denied that it takes money and budgets and planning and careful allocation to run a religious institution. But there are better ways to deal with that reality than by the apologetic asking and the haphazard giving that too often characterize our fundraising.
This is the place in which we hope to make a crucible to teach us our best ways of living, as deeply as we can learn them. This is the place in which we help each other shine some light through the fog of carelessness and routine so that we can wake up to our precious lives. From all that passes, so briefly, through your hands, from all that has come to you as grace and gift , how much do you need to give to your religious home this year?
The poet Rumi writes,
"Lord, the air smells good today!
Straight from the Mysteries within the inner courts of the Divine,
A grace, like new clothes, thrown across the garden --
Free medicine for everybody!
Face to face with the lion I grow leonine;
Walking out of the treasury building I feel generous.
Anybody still sober in this weather must be really afraid,
don't you think?
May we be unafraid: wide awake to the grace and blessings of our lives, hands and hearts wide open as we learn more and more about how to give ourselves away. AMEN.