The First Church in Belmont Unitarian Universalist

Alms, charity and gifts of other kinds are required of followers of most religions.

Gratitude and Giving

This coming Thursday is when we in the United States celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving; and on Friday at sundown, the Islamic New year begins. One of the five pillars of Islam is the giving of alms.

This overlapping of two holidays gave rise to today’s theme of gratitude and giving in my mind.

This is also the first of my sermons that is the result of collaboration with the Worship Assistants. Though this sermon is mine and you may blame me for it,Doug Burden, Katharine Canfield, Eloise McGaw and Edwin Taylor met with me and we shared thoughts and feelings about today’s topics and that conversation informs what I am going to say. I would add that there were enough ideas in that conversation to provide fodder for at least five sermons. I have been selective.

In many religious traditions, giving has been elevated to a commandment, whether the giving of the first fruits required in the Torah or the giving of alms required by the Qur’an. The intent of such rules is to remind us that everything we have is a gift from God or, for some of us, the universe. That concept is important: everything I have–by which is meant not only things but also relationships–everything I have is a gift. Though couched in the form of commandments, the intent of the religious traditions is to remind us to be humble about what we have, to remind us to be grateful for what we have, and to remind us to be generous with the gifts we have been given.

Our Universalist forebears preached the doctrine of Universal salvation, that all are ultimately saved. The so-called Ultra-Universalists—who believed that all human sins were cleansed by the death of Jesus and so were forgiven–were accused by more conservative Christians of preaching a belief that would lead to lawlessness. Why would people bother to be good if there were no punishment from an angry God for misbehavior? The Ultra-Universalist counter claim was that people were so grateful for the undeserved forgiveness of sins that their joy naturally led to a life of goodness and service to others.

Our Unitarian Universalist values live today in our support for the UU Urban Ministry, the Partner Church program, UU Mass Action, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. I urge you to view requests for support-like the turkeys in the pews this morning and the Guest At Your Table boxes that have been passed out, as opportunities. I know how easy it is to see these as bothersome, but I urge you to think of them as a means to put your values into action.

I know that my life is filled with gifts.

My wife loves me: that is a gift. There is nothing I did to earn or command that love; she gives it of her own accord.

We have a beautiful daughter: she is a gift, a miracle baby. Twice we suffered miscarriages at five months, and our daughter Heather was a preemie. I know that she is a gift and sometimes–I remember to be filled with gratitude for that gift. I did nothing in life that was good enough to deserve being Heather’s father; a lifetime of good works would not be enough for me to earn the gift of her presence in my life.

And my life, my very existence, is a gift which I did nothing to deserve.

I also recognize how much I have been given by others, and how little I did to deserve the gifts from them.

I am under no illusion that I am a self made or a self-sufficient person. All that I am is in part due to the help, the support and the kindness of others.

There have been times in my life when I received financial help; at times significant financial help. But usually what I needed and received was a word of support, a hug, or the presence of another person.

I remember one person in particular, a friend of mine named Ronette whom I first met in high school. There was a time when I was in a very low ebb in life; I felt like a failure in many ways, I felt drained of strength and I had no sense of where I was going.

Somehow I found myself at Ronette’s home inKennebunkport,Maine. I spent two weeks there recovering. Ronette made sure I had food, left me alone when I needed to be alone and was there when I wanted to talk. She seemed to just know when the right time was for each of those.

I spent most of my time sitting on her porch looking at the beauty of the world around her house.

It was a time of deep healing.

As often happens, life moved me in various directions and I slowly lost contact with Ronette.

A few years ago, Ronette’s daughter contacted me to let me know that Ronette had passed away.

I do not believe I ever said the words, “thank you“ to Ronette, and I certainly never paid her back for her kindness to me. And now that she is gone, I cannot repay her.

Of late I have found, however, that when I do something for another person, thoughts of Ronette cross my mind. I see her face or I feel her presence and have the sense that in some way any acts of generosity that I engage in today are a means for me to give thanks to Ronette for her help to me. I do not believe that she knows this, I believe that death takes us past knowing the things of this world; but I know what she did for me and I can act in gratitude for her gift.

I have been given so much, not just by Ronette, but by many people and by life itself. So much that I could never repay it. But I can repay some of it.

I want that same feeling, that same sense of gratitude I feel towards Ronette to fill me when I recognize all of the undeserved gifts I have received from other people, from life and from whatever divinity may exist.

How shall I express that gratitude?

I cannot predict in advance, but my heart will know

For me, I want first to just sit with my gratitude. Let me feel it and allow it to flow through me. I have so much, so many gifts, so much gratitude and I want first to learn to appreciate what I have. I want to do that because giving out of appreciation and gratitude is different than giving out of obligation or guilt. Now any reason for giving is a good reason, especially for the recipient of the gift, but giving out of appreciation feels better and motivates me to greater giving.

Second, I want to acknowledge that the gifts that I received, the ones for which I am grateful, are the ones I did not earn and do not deserve.

Of course, if I earned them, then they are not a gift; they are payment. Gifts are things I did not earn and do not deserve. And true gifts are given without strings.

When I give, do I give in the same manner?

Many of us do not; we want to know that the person to whom we give is deserving of the gift. Whether personal gifts or support through what remains of the welfare system, we do not want people using our gifts to purchase booze, drugs or what we think of as luxuries.

There is a story from Talmud (completed 1400 – 1500 years ago) which speaks to this.

Mar Uqba used to support a poor man by sending him on the eve of each Day of Atonement four hundred zuz. When the rabbi’s son took the money on one occasion he heard the poor man’s wife say, “Which wine shall I put on the table? Which perfume shall I sprinkle around the room?” [There it is, booze and luxuries.] The son, on hearing these remarks, returned with the money to his father and told him of what he had heard. Said Mar Uqba: “Was that poor man raised so daintily that he requires such luxuries? Go back to him and give him double the sum?” (Ketuboth, 7a.)

anonymous; Rodkinson, Michael L. (2007-12-23). The Babylonian Talmud, all 20 volumes in one file. (Kindle Locations 231-235). B&R Samizdat Express. Kindle Edition.

The claim behind that story is that we ought to be careful about the kinds of stipulations or strings we put on a gift and we ought to remember that “need” is not just about survival.

That flies in the face of some of our thinking about the division of people into the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor”, which in England was encoded in law in1563.

But I believe that my very life is a gift which I did not do anything to deserve. I am one of the undeserving; I am one of the unworthy. Whether you believe your life is a gift from Divinity or a gift from the Cosmos, are there stipulations on it? Will it be taken from you if you do not use it properly? Did you prove that you deserved the gift of life before it was given to you?

Finally, I want to look for opportunities to give. Give what?—give whatever is needed. One person might need a smile or a hug; another might need a word of hope; another might need a ride or a hot meal. Still others may need my money, may need the universal, magical power to buy whatever is needed by them.

Wherever my gifts come from: God or the Cosmos, family or friends, may I be filled with overflowing grateful for them and may that gratitude move me to acts of generosity towards others and towards all living beings.

So let it be.