ABUNDANCE!

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday February 22th, 2004

OPENING WORDS: “Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.” -- Hosea Ballou


I’ve decided that I could get used to this concept of the one-word sermon title. It’s so succinct, so efficient -- and yet so richly evocative as well. Joy! Love! And now Abundance! -- a word which means, literally, “overflowing,” thus making it a perfect compliment to these other topics of recent weeks. Abundant Love. Abundant Joy. Abundant blessings of all sorts: the word simply overflows with connotations of wealth and prosperity, freedom, success and happiness. It’s a word which positively inspires generosity and creativity; and then there’s always that lovely scriptural reference to John 10:10 -- “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I come that they may have life, and have life more abundantly.” Not “Eternal Life” in the sense of a life-span which lasts forever. But “Abundant Life” -- a life-force which overflows with the Spirit of the Divine, a life-style which is emersed in a consciousness of ultimate meaning and value.

The opposite of abundance might be thought of as scarcity, or deficiency, in which the blessings of life are reduced to a trickle. Poverty and Privation. Hunger, Uncertainty, Fear. I suppose it’s possible to have all these things in abundance as well -- our lives can overflow with the bad as well as with the good, although there is certainly abundant irony in that. And yet, often abundance is in the eye of the beholder...what appears abundant to one may seem barely sufficient, or even inadequate, to another, and how do we determine whose perceptions are correct? In his second Inaugural address in 1937, as America struggled to escape the privations of the Great Depression through a series of controversial federal policies known as the “New Deal,” FDR remarked that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Sixty-seven years (and eleven Presidential administrations) later, we seem to have forgotten this fundamental criterion of the worthiness of a society. Has our nation changed so much in just two generations, that we have metaphorically gained the whole world, and lost our own souls? Have we somehow allowed our relative material abundance to distract us from more essential spiritual values of generosity and compassion?

You know, I’ve often had to wonder how it is that such an unrepentant, dyed-in-the-wool Socialist like myself has found himself serving, and serving quite happily and successfully, in such affluent communities as Midland Texas, and Nantucket Island, and now here in Carlisle. I think part of it has to do with the fact that, although I’ve never really had much money myself, I grew up in a fairly affluent household, in a fairly affluent neighborhood, and thus saw close up (and at a very impressionable age) what that was like, along with the abundant psychological pressures that often emerge from wrestling with the temptation of confusing one’s self-worth with one’s net worth. And I think part of it has to do with the fact that I try never to take myself too seriously, which gives others permission not to take me too seriously either, but rather just seriously enough that perhaps they receive some fresh insight into their own lives from looking at life itself from a slightly different perspective.

We Americans like to think that we live in a class-less society. We don’t, really, but since our forebearers once fought a revolution based on the self-evident truths that all white, male property-owners of a certain age were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, it still gives us comfort to pretend that we do. And one of the consequences of this is that no matter how much (or really, how little) money we may have, we still typically feel like we’re “Middle-Class.” Even Bill Gates (who is certainly smart enough to know better), still basically feels like a very, very, very, very well-to-do Middle Class American. But for the rest of us, this same cultural phenomenon often means that we tend to assume that how we live is “normal,” -- while at the same time privately feeling that anyone who has considerably more than we do is somehow “extravagant,” and wondering how anyone else can get by on anything less. These assumptions don’t generally rise to the level of conscious thought; if we stopped to think about it we would know, intellectually at least, that they weren’t exactly true. But typically we don’t think about it, unless something dramatically changes -- unless we lose our job, or are in danger of losing our job; or (which is sometimes even worse) we receive a sudden financial windfall, like winning the lottery. Our comfortable notions of “appropriate abundance” become disrupted, and we are compelled to recalculate our entire relationship to the material world.

Tied in with all of this is something we sometimes like to call the “Protestant Work Ethic.” This term is derived from the writings of a German Sociologist of Religion named Max Weber, who lived and worked about a hundred years ago. Weber was trying to understand why Western Civilization was the way it was, and he basically ended up blaming it all on Puritan angst. Medieval economists (who were basically monks) understood that Personal Industry combined with Frugality (two good “religious” virtues) would eventually create wealth. But they also understood that Wealth often led to laziness and self-indulgence, which in turn often led to dissolute Poverty...and so they encouraged those who would listen to avoid this problem by continuing to work hard and spend little, and contributing their excess wealth to the less fortunate in the form Christian Charity, which would help you get to heaven. But John Calvin believed that the ultimate fate of any particular individual’s immortal soul had all been determined by God before the beginning of time; it was all predestined, and so (according to Weber) this resulted in a situation where Protestant Christians transformed the spiritual “other-worldly asceticism” of the monastery into the “Worldly Asceticism” embodied in the Spirit of Capitalism, in which industry and frugality continued to remain virtues, but accumulated wealth was reinvested in expanding the enterprise, since Charity was now irrelevant to one’s salvation, while success was considered a tangible sign of God’s pre-determined favor. The wealthier you became, the more it meant God loved you. Or at least that’s how Max Weber saw it.

There are plenty of problems with Weber’s sociology, but the great irony is that because his ideas were so innovative and popular at the time they were first published, in many ways they have become self-fulfilling. In large part this was due to the fact that they provided a theological justification for yet another philosophy, known as Social Darwinism, which was already popular at the time Weber was writing. As you might guess, the Social Darwinists believed that human civilization was essentially a struggle for “survival of the fittest” -- society is divided into “winners” and “losers,” both the rich and the poor get what they deserve, and any attempt to ameliorate the suffering of the latter only makes civilization itself less strong. Social Darwinism is a self-serving philosophy which worships both power and privilege, while essentially renouncing the fundamental principles of compassionate ethical conduct commonly shared among all of the world’s great religions. Yet because it sounds “scientific,” and because of Weber’s observation that within some sects of Protestant Christianity wealth was historically considered a sign of God’s favor, it has proved surprisingly resilient, especially among those who have accumulated some degree of wealth, and who want to believe that they are among God’s favorites.

And even those of use who explicitly reject these values and assumptions sometimes still have to deal with their implicit consequences. In my experience, this problem shows up most directly when we enter into the process of trying to figure out for ourselves the precise relationship between work and lifestyle that we believe will produce for us the greatest level of personal fulfillment. It’s a task we typically first confront when we are young and making decisions about our careers, but in many ways it remains a challenge all our lives, as we continue to grow and learn about what truly makes us feel happy and fulfilled. I personally believe, for example, that frugality is still a very satisfying lifestyle choice. I understand that contemporary American society is mostly based on “consumption,” and the notion that somehow acquiring more stuff will provide us with happiness...and at times I still even buy into that...although I try not to take it too seriously. But you can all probably tell just by the way I dress all week long: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” -- I have a whole closet full of stuff like that.

My main problem comes on the other end: trying to figure out where the line is between frugality and parsimony. I don’t mind living cheaply, and I certainly want to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, but I sure don’t want to be thought of as a cheapskate, either in the way that I treat myself or in my interactions with others. And this brings me to the second part of the equation, which is the realization that generosity is not only an act of charity, of “Love” -- it is also an act of Creativity...a way in which we put our life-energy to work in the world in order to change it for the better. When we allow our Creativity to overflow...when we live life abundantly, sharing our industry with others, good things happen. And this, more than any other thing that we can do, is what gives live meaning.

I want to leave you with just three more brief observations which you can take home with you and ponder over the next few days or weeks, and then maybe when you get a chance you can tell me what you think. And the first of these is the insight that you can almost always get by on a lot less than you think, and that it’s a lot better to figure this out BEFORE you actually have to do it. I have a colleague out on the West Coast who is encouraging folks, as a Lenten discipline, to try to live for six weeks on the minimum wage for their area. I mean, think about that for a moment. Even if we took the mortgage off the table, and ignored things like our pensions and our health insurance, how many of us could actually “get by” on $6.75 an hour, or $270 a week...before taxes? And yet there are lots of people in this country who are trying to get by on this, or even less....and the realization that if you had to you could too is actually rather liberating....which is not at all to minimize the hardship of those who are trying to do it for real. Thoreau said it as well as anyone: “if you are restricted in your range by poverty...you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences.... It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler.”

This brings me to the second observation, which is that the Best things in Life truly are free. “Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only,” Thoreau wrote. “Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul....” And this is not to suggest that because the best things are free, we don’t need money at all. But remember never to let the scramble for money distract you from enjoying the things that money just can’t buy. Because if you do, you are getting ripped off. You are cheating yourself of the World’s most abundant treasures, the things which ultimately make life worth living.

And finally, don’t forget the principle of Noblesse Oblige -- “to those to whom much is given, much is expected.” This simple idea is what truly ties together all of the activities of a meaningful and fulfilling life. When life has treated you to abundant blessings, pass them on. And if life isn’t treating you so well at the moment, don’t be too proud or stubborn to accept and enjoy the shared abundance of others. Because when we let it be what it truly is, Abundance Overflows. It can’t be contained, it can’t be hoarded, it can’t be bottled and sold in stores, or even saved for a rainy day. But the good news is, there’s more where that came from. And that knowledge is what gives us life, and gives us life more abundantly.


READING: from Walden by Henry David Thoreau

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society....We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No [one] loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul....

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth....”