Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of
Stewardship and Care
a sermon by Marcia Stanard
March 1, 2009
All rights reserved, 2009
Ask Much, The
Voice Suggested
Ask much, the voice suggested, and I
startled.
Feeling my body like the trembling
body of a horse
tied to its tree
while the strange noise
passes over its
ears.
I who in extremity had always wanted
less,
even of eating,
of sleeping.
Agile, the voice did not speak again,
but waited.
"Want more" --
a cure for
longing I had not thought of.
But that is how it is with wells.
Whatever is taken refills to the
steady level.
The voice agreed, though softly, to
quiet the feet of the horse:
a cup taken
out, a cup reappears; a bucketful taken, a bucket.
~ Jane Hirshfield
~
There is a funny little fish called
the goby. It’s about three inches long, and lives in the ocean, in the den of a
blind shrimp. Neither creature could
survive without the other. The goby goes
out into the ocean, but not too far, and gathers food, mostly plankton and
other goodies that float past, which it shares with the shrimp. In the meantime, the blind shrimp digs out
the burrow that the two share. The
shrimp works excavating the sand, while in the meantime keeping one antennae on
the tail of the goby. When a predator
approaches, the goby flicks its tail and the roommates quickly rush into the
burrow. This is known as a symbiotic
relationship, and they exist in many places in the animal kingdom, from clown
fish and sea anemones to cattle egrets and rhinos, symbiotic relationships
enable various species to thrive in ways that they couldn’t alone.
Our seventh principle as Unitarian
Universalists asks us to covenant together with Respect for the Interdependent
Web of existence, of which we are all a part.
Most of the time, we take this as the earth centered principle, and when
we think of the 7th principle, we think of things like our carbon
footprint, our need to eat healthy, local, ideally organic food, and
recycle. We think of our symbiotic
relationship with the planet, with the food we eat, and the natural world we
love and wish to protect.
All these are good and important
things. But today, I want to preach to
you about a different type of interdependent web. I want to talk to you today, about
church.
Now, I’m going to ask your patience
on this one. Because I know that
technically, you are not the UU Church of Corvallis, you are the UU
fellowship. But talking about fellowship
is a whole different ballgame. I am
using the generic definition of church here.
Not the building, not the Baptists or Episcopalians, but church in the
sense of any religious community that gathers together every week.
When I talk about church, in this
context, I’m talking about all of you.
I’m talking about this interdependent web that you create together, as a
religious community. Part of that
community is directed outward, like we saw today in the children’s time. We work together to make the world a better place. And part of it is, and should be, directed
inward.
Chuck Collins has a wonderful
article in this month’s UU World. He
writes about “working together to create common security”, and in the article
he quotes a
Collins is writing about what might
happen in the economic downturn that we’re in right now, and he quotes Drake
Bennett who writes of a new type of economic depression where people are
isolated in their houses, perhaps with additional family members crowded in,
watching television. Bennett writes of
the difference between the soup kitchens of the 1920’s and the possibility today for economic depression to instead accentuate the
isolation people are prone to today.
Collins’ hope is that instead of
isolating ourselves, the silver lining to the downturn could be a resurgence of
community building. Meals
at home. Slowing
down. Interacting with friends to
grow a garden, buy food in bulk.
I’m seeing the leading edge of this
in my own communities. I have some
friends in their late 20’s who’ve lost their jobs
recently. But they still want to
socialize, so we went over to someone’s house recently and played “Apples to
Apples.” People brought food and wine
and we played board games, and had a great time. This is building community.
And where better to begin to learn
about mutual aid and building community?
Right here, in church.
Most of us are blessed with other
forms of community. With
families or friends or co-workers, or classmates, or all of the above. But there’s something special about
church. I mean really, besides maybe
your family, where else are you going to walk up in front of a room full of
people and light a candle and say, “I have cancer.” Or “I lost my job.” Or “The
baby is going to be ok.”
We live in a world where the rules
of communication and place are being completely redefined. Where living across the country from someone
doesn’t mean you can’t talk to them every day, for free, in any number of ways. We’ve got cell phones and instant messaging
and email and Skype. You can have
friends who live in
But when the crap
hits the fan. When you fall and break your ankle, or have
the flu or a new baby, the friends in
For a lot of us, you call the
church. I have friends, Tina and
Melissa, a young couple and the proud parents of a little girl, Amelia. Tina
stayed home with their daughter, while Melissa worked as a volunteer
coordinator for a non-profit. Life was
good. But then, Melissa got a brain
tumor. She was 28 years old. She had
surgery to remove the tumor, which was benign.
But brain surgery is a dangerous and complicated thing, and it took a
long time to recover. For months, she
couldn’t work, couldn’t be alone caring for the baby, couldn’t walk without a
cane or get through the day without a nap.
Tina cared for her, and the baby, drove her to her appointments for
physical therapy, occupational therapy, and the doctor.
Now they were lucky. They had good health insurance, which is one
of many things the church can’t provide.
But what the church did do, was organize a list
serve that brought them dinner several nights a week. For 6 months, this family was fed, and not
just with squash soup and tuna casseroles, but by the knowledge that people out
there cared enough to cook for them and bring it over.
There is a power in caring
community. There is a power in the
church that is unnamable, unknowable, but unfortunately, not unsinkable. Because
all it takes to sink a church, is for each one of us to decide that we don’t
have to support it. That
we can’t spare the money or the time or the energy to be here.
You have a fabulous minister in the
Reverend Gretchen Woods. But she is not
the church. You are the church. Every single one of you here today, to one
extent or another, is the church.
Whether you are on the board of trustees, or are the single largest
contributor or whether you just walked in the door today, you are the
church. It is your interests and energy
and volunteer work and presence in the pews and yes, your money, that allows
this place to exist.
But, I can hear you thinking, but
bringing over soup and taking care of one another isn’t about money. I can do
all that stuff alone.
And yes, on some level, you
can.
But on another level, without money
for the building, and the minister, and the music and the heat, the church
community wouldn’t exist. Without the
bonding experience of Sunday mornings and worship, and religious education the
community wouldn’t exist. It’s a
symbiotic relationship, just like the blind shrimp and the goby. Without you,
there is no church, and without the church, there is no community.
But a key piece is still missing
here. We know we need the church, to
provide community, to educate our children, to fill our souls, to provide us
with opportunities to change the world.
We know the church needs us, to
thrive, to continue, to grow. To fill the pews and show up for the classes and sing in the choir,
and to pay the bills.
But something is missing in this
analogy. We aren’t just blind shrimp and
gobies. We aren’t just involved in a
daily scooping out of the sand to keep the ceiling from falling in, though
occasionally it can feel like that.
But the real reason to support the
church is bigger than that. Or even, I
dare say, smaller than that. We support
the church because to do so, changes us.
Now, I’m not going to tell you that
throwing a couple of dollars into the collection plate is a life-changing
event. It doesn’t really work like
that. But what does happen when we put
our money together with that of others is a cumulative effect. Part of that is in the collection plate. Your five gets added to your 20, and her 10
and the organization you are supporting benefits.
But the biggest thing that happens
when we really give;
when we pledge, as we say in my home congregation our time and
our talents and our treasure is that it changes us.
Cecilia Kingman Miller tithes, or
gives 10% of her income to the church.
She does this as a spiritual practice, because, as she says, “Tithing
tells me that the income I earn—large or small—does not define who I am. Tithing teaches me, over and over again,
about my dependence upon others, and theirs upon me. Ultimately, it teaches me to place my trust
in something other than money, to understand that my security does not lie in
material things. Rather, my security
lies in community.”
She continues. “We, in all our material wealth, believe in
the myth of independence. We believe
that all we have is ours, rather than the community’s. And we believe that we must make it on our
own. Tithing forces me to put those
myths at risk. It tells me I belong to
something greater than myself. It frees
me.”
The act of tithing,
or being truly generous with one’s pledge, one’s support of this community has
the power to change us. In this time of
economic insecurity, many of us are afraid.
We’re afraid of losing our jobs, our houses, our
security. Even for those of us who are
actually in pretty good shape, the times and the news make us afraid. But the best antidote to fear is hope. If we believe in the power of this community,
if we believe in the power of this church, if we believe in the power of love
to overcome fear, then generosity is a powerful practice of that belief.
I have to tell you a funny
story. A few years ago, someone
approached me on the street and asked me to sign up to donate to Mercy
Corps. Now, Mercy Corps is a fantastic
organization. Based in
So I politely declined, went to my
car in a parking lot and backed up. I
was distracted and looking somewhere else, and as I stopped to turn the wheel
and pull out, I noticed that I’d come about two inches from hitting someone’s
fancy SUV, parked behind me.
Well. I can take a hint. Especially one as obvious
as that. I pulled back into my
space, parked the car, and signed up for automatic deduction from my checking
account. I don’t miss that amount each
month. It’s out before I know it’s
there. And no, it’s not a ton of
money. But it makes me feel like I’m
doing something about the problems in the world that are too big for me to
solve alone. And that spiritual practice
changes me.
We are so used to thinking that we
have to provide for ourselves, and that no one else is going to take care of
us, that we are afraid to give. I know I
see this scarcity mentality in my own household, and in my own head. We’re so used to supporting ourselves, and to
having to support ourselves, that the church gets put in the charitable giving
pot that, for many of us, is the leftover money. But for many denominations, that 10% comes
right off the top. Do they love their
God or their church more than we love ours?
Is tithing simply a way into heaven—rent paid on space in the afterlife,
and therefore something that we don’t need to do because we don’t believe in
all that silly stuff?
I think that we are so concerned
with how we spend our money to support our values that we sometimes miss the
way that we can have the most effect.
It’s expensive to buy organic food and fair trade coffee and a new Prius. And yet we do
many of these things because they support our values. Because we know that how we spend our money
says something about what we value.
But let’s think about the spiritual
practice of removing some of that money from the pot in the first place. Of placing some of that money where it can do
good locally, right here. We are more than the cars we drive or the
coffee we drink. Together, we can create
change that is sustainable right here, in this congregation. Together, we can remind ourselves that rich
or poor, we are incredibly blessed.
It’s been a difficult year for me in
some ways. Last summer, I separated from
my partner of over a dozen years. We
have two children, and continue to share a house, for reasons both financial
and familial. But I’ve been given an
incredible gift out of this experience.
My analogy was that my family was a clay bowl, holding us together. We were safe in there. It was comfortable. And when the bowl crumbled, that was
scary. But the most amazing thing I
discovered in the dissolving of the bowl was that I was held by the pond. The pond was everyone who offered to pick up
my kids, or let me sleep in their guest room.
One friend even gave me a key to her house. The pond was the Holy, walking me through
this last year, holding me up when I know I could not have done it alone.
We are held in this beloved
community. Sometimes, it takes
stretching to see this. Sometimes it
takes the spiritual practice of generosity to see how blessed we really are.
When we have practiced generosity,
we are more able to be open to receiving.
It’s much easier to give than to receive for most of us. Giving is a powerful act. We feel generous and helpful and
important. Tithing,
or giving generously to our religious community is an even more powerful act,
because it’s not just about us. Tithing
is a reminder that we are not simply alone in the world, blessed by our own
hard work, pulled up by our proverbial bootstraps. We are children of the Holy, responsible to
care for one another.
At some point, every single one of
us in this room will need help, in one way or another. The practice of generosity will allow us to
be gracious recipients as well. It is
not our moral failings that make us need help, any more than our inherent
goodness that makes us wealthy according to the standards of the world. We are simply and always, blessed.
As stewards of
this earth, of this community, of this congregation, and of each other, give us
the blessings of growth and stretching. Let us be
mindful of how the practice of giving affects not only those who receive, but
those who give as well. May we recognize
the many ways we are so richly blessed, and share that wealth with the
community that provides us with sustenance for the journey.
May it be so. Amen.