November 23, 10:30am (Kevin Westling)
Abundance is a state of mind. It is possible, and you’ve seen it happen, that someone can be surrounded by tremendous good fortune and good company and nonetheless feel bereft and utterly scorned by life.
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Sermons @ Trinity
November 8, 2009
“State of mind”
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good morning.
Springtime is calving time.
If you ever lived in close enough proximity to cows
that the scent of their manure
was just as crucial an ingredient
in what nature smells like
as dark, moist soil after a thaw;
or the sniff of rain riding on a breeze
in advance of a storm;
then you probably know what it’s like
for a calf to suck your finger.
We used take our kids to the dairy barn in the spring
and let them stick a finger out
for a newborn calf to suck on…
Oh the sweetness of it will melt your heart.
So Wendell Berry’s poem
speaks to me of joy with the very same intensity
as the psalmist who wrote number 126.
Abundance is not an economic measure.
Abundance is not derived from a recipe
calling for a cup of sustenance
added to so many parts creature comfort,
and mixed into a creamy froth
with the egg whites of security
and adequate caloric intake.
Abundance is a state of mind.
It is possible,
and you’ve seen it happen,
that someone can be surrounded by tremendous
good fortune and good company
and nonetheless feel bereft
and utterly scorned by life.
Or, conversely,
someone can be dying at an age we would consider premature,
and in pervasive physical discomfort,
and yet somehow be in touch with gratitude
and bask in the warmth of friendships.
You see what I mean? Abundance is a state of mind.
We talk about abundance around here a lot –
about “thanksgiving for the abundance of our lives.”
And it would be easy to imagine that
“thanksgiving for the abundance of our lives”
is a very presumptuous attitude.
And I don’t, for a minute,
pretend that we are always in touch with our gratitude or even the things for which we might feel gratitude.
But I do know this:
that grimacing
and resenting scarcity
is a bitter alternative to assuming abundance,
and one that is debilitating.
Abundance, as a state of mind,
does not look to measure how much I got,
relative to anyone else.
Abundance, as a state of mind,
is not achieved with a competitive edge.
Abundance, as a state of mind,
really has very little to do with quantities of anything,
and everything to do
with gratitude for everything.
Abundance is as simple as a warm coat that holds you like giant hands against a bitter wind; or,
in deep belly laughter
erupting unannounced
in the darkness of grief or sorrow; or,
in a wordless, touchless kindness
delivered in silence at just the right moment,
and with precisely the right discretion; or,
an unexpected invitation
to take part in the life of another,
an invitation to know and be known
without ever having asked first to be a friend.
Abundance is discovered in little moments,
none of which in and of themselves
are enough to make us whole –
or to keep us whole.
But little things,
added one upon the other,
that finally create a cushion…
a bit of softness
that feathers the more rude,
brusque and even violent pains and hurts
from which we cannot be protected.
Or, conversely,
take them all away;
take away all those looks of tenderness,
all those ordinary and feather-light acts of friendship
that float like dust in a sunbeam through the window;
take them all away,
those silent, tender morsels of human kindness
too ordinary to register on the scales of our attention…
and suddenly all that ordinary hurt
and routine pain,
will rub against bone –
and we will wince from the fierceness of life
lived without the fat of joy,
endured without the sweetness of ordinary kindness.
You see what I mean?
Abundance,
a kind of cushion against ordinary loss
and routine pain,
is almost completely in the mind…or spirit if you like.
Assuming we have enough of the basics to live,
then abundance and scarcity are concepts,
they are attitudinal.
Now please do not get me wrong.
I’m not preaching some kind of prosperity gospel here!
I do not for a minute believe
that what you and I believe
will protect us from harm.
The rain falls on the happy and the grumpy alike,
just like it falls on the just and the unjust.
(Jesus said that, by the way).
By abundance and scarcity
I do not mean wealth and deprivation.
There is no doubt that
food,
shelter,
peace,
healthcare
and a sense of community
are the necessary ingredients of a diet
to foster wellness;
and where one or more of those elements are missing,
that wellness is endangered.
But how much of any of those ingredients we need,
and how much constitutes enough,
is a fierce debate.
But assuming the presence of the basics,
then abundance is in the mind.
I have only once ever been without the basics,
and it was horrible –
but even then,
I knew where I could go
to get our of my predicament.
So I can’t really say I know what it is like
to be without the basics.
But I have witnessed people who live
without a lot of the things you and I
assume are basic,
and live well and with a sense of abundance.
Our ideas of abundance and scarcity,
and our ideas of the basics
have been brutalized by consumerism.
So it is not an easy, neat conversation
to talk about and describe abundance and scarcity
especially if what we hear in those
is wealth and deprivation.
But for our purposes today,
let us assume the basics are covered.
If the basics,
whatever they are, are covered,
then abundance is composed of minions of small joys
and delicate morsels of kindnesses and loves
that may not even register on the scales of happiness.
Abundance is the ability to feel
the warm and gentle rain of infinitesimal goodnesses
that fall upon us in nearly every moment.
See what I mean?
Abundance is a state of mind.
To have that state of mind,
we must have the ability to recognize,
to register,
to feel
and ingest
the consistent rain of goodness
that falls in and around and through scarcity.
In a calf nursing your finger
the mercy of God blooms.
When a calf can become a portal on the holy
then we are in that state of mind.
The reason abundance is important for us,
or that state of mind,
is that it prepares the soil of our insides
for spiritual growth and development.
If indeed we have the basics,
whatever they are,
but we also are haunted by a sense of scarcity –
we don’t have enough
we can’t get enough
someone may take away our sense of enough –
then we will be unable to grow
and mature
and bloom spiritually.
That is why the theological idea of Hell,
the threat of damnation
and the fear
that God’s love and acceptance
operates in an economy of scarcity,
is so spiritually debilitating:
fear is corrosive
and drives people to huddle
under the cloud of scarcity.
We cannot get very far spiritually,
or should I say our roots cannot grow very deep,
if we are driven by fear
instead living in the mind of abundance.
Jesus was pretty clever to use that old widow
as a metaphor for abundance,
but we don’t know her motives.
She might have dragged herself to the temple
shaking in fear that she was going to Hell
if she didn’t spend her last two cents on repentance.
If that were the case
then she is not a model of abundance for us.
But that wasn’t Jesus’ point.
Let me shift gears here, ever so slightly,
but not really at all.
I am not going to ask you for money.
I know that when we hear that reading from Mark
that somewhere inside
many a church-goer groans,
and a little voice says, “Ohhh, here we go again.”
But just so you won’t be waiting
for the other shoe to drop,
no one is going to ask you for money
when you come to church to worship.
I hate that…
I can’t tell you how much I hate
using worship for a purpose other than worship.
No one came here to be sold anything,
or to buy anything.
We came here
for an encounter with God in community.
We came here
for an encounter with God in community.
We don’t get that
if we are fearful about whether
we believe the right things or not;
or whether we giving as much as we could or not;
or whether we are giving as much as we could to the right places or not;
or even if we are wearing the right clothes or not.
We will not encounter God
in the voice and energy and prayers of community,
if we are looking over our shoulder,
checking our wallets
or worrying about whether we are having the right thoughts or beliefs or not.
In order to encounter God in community
we have to trust
in the authenticity of that community;
and in the authenticity of the leaders
of that community.
That won’t happen if we are wondering
if there is a hidden agenda or some special appeal behind what is actually being said.
So,
you won’t be asked for money
when you come here to worship.
We stopped passing the plates for that very reason.
That is why we put out those urns –
so you and I can make an offering or not,
with autonomy and with dignity.
I am not going to ask you week after week
to put money in the urns,
and no one is going to watch
as a silver plate gets passed in front of you.
I will tell people each week what the urns are for
because we always have new people,
and believe it or not,
some new people want to know how to give.
But you and I are adults.
We know what we value,
we know what we are invested in,
and we know that Trinity – all that it is –
is paid for by us.
We know it takes us all working together.
We know that if we are not personally invested in Trinity then it will disappear.
It is not mysterious,
it is not miraculous,
it is not anything other than it is.
It is up to you and me, all of us,
and you do not need me to tell you to give,
or how much to give,
or when to give.
If you and I give generously it will be enough.
If we don’t…it won’t.
If we don’t,
it won’t be because we haven’t found the right trigger to pull – that is for marketing among strangers,
not for sharing in community.
Likewise,
if we do give generously,
it won’t be because we found the right gimmick
or manipulated one another’s self-interests.
That is consumerism not community.
It will be because we are in the mind of abundance.
When we are in touch with our gratitude,
when we are in the mind of abundance,
nobody has to ask us for anything
because we want to share what we have…
may even feel compelled to out of joy;
or maybe just because it is needed.
You know at least 50% of us,
maybe even more,
are here as refugees
from another church or religious tradition –
here because they were weary of inauthenticity
or wounded by something or someone,
or for whatever reason,
seeking an encounter with God in community
they were not finding elsewhere.
Because we are who we are,
as a community,
our standards for authenticity
and for personal responsibility
must be high…very high.
So no ask for money in worship. Period.
But the case will be made elsewhere –
in the mail where you can use it as part of a personal
discernment on your own terms.
If you are on the mailing list
you will receive letters all month long
from different people in the community.
They will ask each us to get in touch with our gratitude for Trinity.
Then, we are going to have a
Thanksgiving party on November 22nd –
No ask. No gimmick. No agenda.
Nothing manipulative or tricky, only a party.
It is Thanksgiving:
a party in thanksgiving for the abundance in our lives.
No ask in worship.
That is not what we are here for.
No ask in worship.
Abundance is discovered in little moments,
none of which in and of themselves
are enough to make us whole –
or to keep us whole.
But in the little things,
added one upon the other,
that build up the fatness of joy –
a cushion against the pains and hurts
from which we cannot be protected.
It is a state of mind…abundance.
It is thanksgiving for the abundance of our lives.
