Gifts of Spirit
by Rev. Dan Schatz
February 5, 2024

It’s nice to get some good weather, isn’t it? Yesterday I went out and just let the sunshine soak in – it was such a relief after too many cold and soggy days. I was thinking about the hymn we sang earlier, “For all that is our life, we give our thanks and praise.” I love the hymn, but if I’m honest, sometimes I find this part of the Winter difficult to praise. I mean, there are definite good points – Black History Month, more daytime, and probably some other redeeming qualities as well. Let’s not forget The Feast of Decadent Chocolate next week. But deep Winter can get dreary, and when it does, eventually so do I.

I know I’m not the only one. Maybe there’s a reason these first days of February are marked by quiet holidays  – Imbolc and Candlemas are so quiet that some of you may never have heard of them, and of course there’s the miracle that is Groundhog Day. The holy days of February are all about sowing the seeds of gentler times, and reminding ourselves that even though it is still cold and dank, light is growing every day, and the Spring has already begun, beneath the ground. We need that, when the Winter wears us down.

Twenty-five Groundhog Days ago, when my life was going through what I can only describe as a year long February, a friend gifted me with an invitation. “There’s this music gathering next weekend,” she said, “We do it every February. It’s very private, just performers. I don’t really have a say in it, but I checked with some of the organizers, and they said it would be all right if you came on Saturday.” I’d actually heard of this gathering; it was somewhat legendary in the folk music community. I even owned a couple of albums that had come out of it.

So I went, with gratitude, and within the hour found myself sitting in a small room in a Shriners Hall basement surrounded by some of my musical heroes – people I’d admired since I was a kid (and I mean, like just out of diapers age) – and whose music had sustained and warmed me through good times and hard times and loneliness, and more. And there we were – in a small circle, in a kind of squalid cellar, because fiddlers had taken over the big room upstairs – and one of these musicians, the biggest name of them all, and the gathering’s host, said – “Sing us something, Dan.”

Now, keep in mind that we’re talking traditional folk music here. When you’ve said someone is a big name, you haven’t said much. But still – gulp. It’s not every day one of your musical heroes asks you to sing something for them. So I sang an old Scottish ballad, and he said, “That’s a nice version of that song; where’d that that come from?”

So I told him – “I learned it from a singer in Connecticut who said he learned it from you.” He said “I hate it when that happens,” we all laughed, and sang some more, and before long I’d been invited back for Sunday. And then for the next year. And I kept going, every year. I became part of a community. Some of the most remarkable things that have ever happened in my life, came about because of that invitation, so long ago. Some of the dearest people I have ever known, and some of the best music I’ve ever been part of, came from that gathering every February.

And it was all because someone saw I needed community, and went out on a limb to help me find it. The gift that she gave me didn’t cost her any money, but was more precious to me than any money could afford. What it did take was generosity. It took looking at someone else, thinking about their needs and their life, and wondering “What can I do for this person?” “What can I give?” It wasn’t pity, or guilt, or any sense of obligation – just a generous impulse. “I think he would enjoy this. Let me see what I can do.”

When we are generous with each other, we do more than give people things or money. We create connection and community. We bring that deep and universal love that is in so many ways at the center of Unitarian Universalism, and of what to means to human, to bear. We form bonds with other people. We make connections that remain meaningful even when we’ll never see that person again. Maybe especially then.

Years ago I went to a conference in Washington DC. On my way out of a Metro station near the conference site there was a homeless man. I gave him a dollar. I don’t always do that, but this time I did, for whatever reason. By the time I’d gotten back, I’d already forgotten that had ever happened, but I was still in the same headspace, so when I saw a homeless man, I gave the guy a dollar. He stopped me as I turned to head off to the train, and said – “This is the second time you’ve helped me tonight. Thank you. It means so much to me that you see me and that you care. Bless you.” And you know how sometimes when people asking you for money say “bless you” they’re just saying it, because it’s what they think you want to hear? He meant it – and that blessing still carries me. More importantly, it still teaches me. Because I hadn’t meant to give the same guy a second dollar. And what I thought about it at the time was – a dollar is so little.

I never saw him again. Had I not absent mindedly handed him that second dollar, I’m sure I would have clean forgotten him – but my inadvertent moment of extra generosity forged a connection that has stayed with me all these years. And in a way, I think I was the recipient of the greater gift. Because he saw something in me that I hadn’t even seen in myself, maybe that wasn’t even fully there, and it made me want to live up to what he saw.

“We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.” When Unitarian Universalists talk about generosity in the proposed new language of our association’s bylaws, these are the words we use. It’s deeply theological language. The idea that generosity begins with gratitude and hope makes it about so much more than “give money.” It’s a gift of spirit, made with gratitude for what we have and hope for what for what is possible. Those words go on – “We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.”

Now, some of you may have noticed I’ve been preaching this year on some of the values listed in these proposed UUA bylaw changes. The purpose is not to sway anyone one way the other, but to give us all a chance to try them on for size, see if they feel right for Unitarian Universalism. We did pluralism in December, last week was on equity. But I admit “Generosity” gave me pause – so much so that last year, before General Assembly, I actually submitted an amendment to change the word “generosity” to “service.” Because I know how people use the word generosity, so often. We use it when we’re asking for money. “Give generously.” And it’s not wrong to say that, but I worried somebody would think a core Unitarian Universalist value is “give us money,” when it’s not like that at all. (And I was determined to keep this sermon away from the stewardship drive!) A small team worked on the amendment, but it never got enough traction to pass, so I let it go. (At least I mostly let it go. I guess I’m still talking about it, so it’s not all the way gone.) But nothing is perfect, and I decided that maybe part of my spiritual path of generosity ought to be a willingness to let go of what I’m most comfortable with in favor of what our democratic process yields. Besides, I said to myself, this isn’t meant to be a statement of faith. The whole thing is a covenant among congregations, not among individuals. When the UUA bylaws use the word “we,” they’re talking about congregations. And our congregations should be generous with each other and with the world.

I still worried a little, but I also began to notice something in my own behavior. At this General Assembly, when I went to dinner, I found myself tipping better than I used to. I like to think I’m normally a good tipper – but I made sure to put in a couple of extra dollars at every meal, and each time I thought, “Generosity.” After I went home, I noticed that I was giving a little more to causes, or GoFundMes, even for people I didn’t know, and I thought “generosity.” Whenever I found myself choosing to offer someone my presence or my help, or whatever I had to give, when I had no responsibility or obligation to do so, I thought “generosity.” It was almost ironic.

So yes, maybe it’s not the word I would have chosen, and yes, in the proposed bylaws it’s about congregations, but I started to realize that generosity is a value worth holding in its own right, and not only for congregations.

It’s not about giving money, although obviously giving money can be one way to express generosity. But generosity doesn’t lie in quantity, and it certainly doesn’t lie in privilege. Bill Gates has given billions away, but that doesn’t make him more generous than that homeless man, who only had his observations to give. It doesn’t make him more generous than someone who has time to give, and gives it freely. It’s not about how much we give or how we give. Generosity doesn’t come from the wallet. Generosity comes the spirit.

“We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.” These are the roots of our generous spirits.

It starts with gratitude, and the humility gratitude gives us. When we cultivate a spirit of gratitude, we recognize that we don’t have the resources, community, friends, family, life situation, whatever it is, simply because we’re so great and entitled. We have these things because people have given them to us, or given us the tools and the knowledge to create them for ourselves, or maybe our privilege has given them to us, or maybe we just got lucky. I went to a great college and graduate school, but that couldn’t have happened if I didn’t have teachers who cared, and people around me who were excited about learning, and instilled a sense of curiosity and wonder in my mind and my heart. Their generosity of spirit is a big part of why I am as I am today.

This sanctuary is beautiful, but we wouldn’t have it if it were not for the gifts of so many people – not just the money to pay for it, but the love and sheer time and effort and sometimes heartache that has gone into making this a spiritual home. Our congregation is a gift in our lives, and we put so much into it, but most of us wouldn’t be here if we’d never been welcomed, never been acknowledged, never had another person go out of their way for us. We have so much to be grateful for, and our gratitude inspires us.

There’s an old fashioned word for God that I think deserves a comeback. It’s a way of thinking about the divine that even a humanist like myself can get behind – the word is “Providence.” We thank Providence. We are grateful to that which provides.

If the divine is Providence, than generosity becomes a spiritual practice, maybe even a form of prayer. It becomes our way of making hope into reality, connecting with what is most sacred and taking part in the divine. We become part of what moves this world, ever so gently, toward the good. All because we thought of somebody else, and went a little bit out of our way to make their lives better.

When I think of it that way, our justice work becomes a kind of generosity too, because true justice lies not in creating the world that is most appealing to us, but in creating the world that is best for all people. Learning to let go of some of our privilege, if we are privileged, and put other people at the center, as hard it can be to do – is also an act of generosity, and giving, and gratitude, and hope.

So we covenant to share our faith, our presence, and our resources.  We share our faith not because we think we’re better than everybody else, but because we know that there are people all around us who are in desperate need of the kind of community we are creating together right here.  We have neighbors who are searching for the fulfilment of a community that doesn’t cherry pick who is worthy of love. There are people around us who need what we have to give. We give it freely, but sometimes we get shy about offering an invitation. We shouldn’t be. Sharing our faith is generosity, too.

Or we share our presence. Just showing up can mean so much – showing up for Black lives Matter, showing for LGBTQA rights, showing up for immigrant rights. We learn to offer our presence without the need to control, because when you’ve been kept down, it means the world to know that someone is near who will offer their arms to lift you up on your own terms.

And of course we share our resources – with each other as UUs and as UU congregations, with the community we live in, with our neighbors in need, with a world that needs our voice. When we volunteer for Safe Harbor, as we were invited to do today, we give from the spirit. When we come together to work with organizations like UU Justice PA, so we can protect democracy, or the environment, or the right to choose, we are giving from the spirit. And when simply act in kindness for another human being, that’s a gift of spirit, too.

Our generosity is rooted in gratitude, stirred by love and fueled by hope. It’s what allows us to do more than exist in community; through gifts of spirit we create community that is more than the sum of its parts. Whenever we give from the spirit – whether it’s our time, our presence, our support, our money, our “Yes,” our love, we create connection. We acknowledge our interdependence and take responsibility for our place as co-creators of all that is to come.

When you think about, it’s so cosmic and important that it almost seems daunting. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Because it also feels good to be generous. You get a little rush. Don’t be afraid of that pleasure. Sometimes people act like there’s something wrong with that, as if it enjoying generosity cheapened the impulse. I’m here to tell you I think that’s a bunch of hooey. We should feel joy when we make someone’s life better. We should feel good about ourselves. It’s our brain’s way of telling us we did something right. No one asks us to be so self-sacrificing that we make a misery out of giving. And if anybody ever does ask you that, run. That’s not generosity; that’s abuse. All that we are asked is that we take part in creating a loving community here, and all around us by engaging our generous natures. That’s all.

That is living our values. That is a gift of spirit. That is a gift from the heart, that the heart grows with the giving.

 

 

If, here, you have found freedom,
take it with you into the world.

If you have found comfort,
go and share it with others.

If you have dreamed dreams,
help one another,
that they may come true.

If you have known love,
give some back
to a bruised and hurting world.

– Lauralyn Bellamy