TO BE OF USE

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle Massachusetts
Sunday November 13, 2005



I thought I might start out this morning by sharing one of my favorite stories from Divinity School. A chicken and a pig were walking down the street when they came to a diner with a sign in the window that said “Breakfast Anytime.” The chicken says to the pig, “you know, you and I should get together and do something like this to serve our neighbors and fellow creatures.” And the pig replies “that’s easy for you to say. For you, bacon and eggs is just a donation. For me it’s a life commitment.”

OK, here’s another variation. A chicken and a pig were walking down the street when they came to a diner with a sign in the window that said “Breakfast Anytime.” So they went inside and ordered French Toast...in the Renaissance....


I feel very strongly that laughter is an essential element of a healthy human spirituality. We all need to be reminded from time to time not to take ourselves too seriously, to keep our grandiose pretensions in balance, and to remember that sometimes the universe surprises us in ways we can’t avoid or control, and which make a mockery of all our attempts to do so. And this is true even when (and maybe even especially when) the world doesn’t seem to give us much to laugh about. Wars and riots and earthquakes and hurricanes: so much suffering, and so little we seem to be able to do about it. Our donations seem like only a drop in the bucket, and even if we were to commit our entire lives to the cause, it just doesn’t feel like it would be enough. Nor do we really have the option of simply walking through an open door and emerge in in a better place and time, no matter how much we may daydream about enjoying French Toast in the Renaissance.

Yet the temptation, at least, to attempt to seal ourselves of from the unwelcome intrusions of the wider world is almost as overwhelming as the events themselves. At times it seems to me as if our entire social economy is built around this seductive fantasy: that if we could just somehow acquire enough power, if we could just somehow acquire enough wealth and status and worldly “success,” we might also somehow insulate ourselves behind high walls and locked gates from all life’s suffering and the misery of the world. Personally, I’ve never been wealthy or powerful enough to know firsthand whether or not this is true, but everything I’ve ever read on the subject tends to make me skeptical. Wealth and Power can obviously buy a certain degree of physical comfort and security, and perhaps even a measure of envy and respect from one’s less-fortunate neighbors (emotions which unfortunately lead just as often to resentment as they do to admiration). But the obsessive urge to acquire more and more beyond a certain level of safety and comfort might easily be considered a form of mental illness, especially if it done at the expense of the more fundamental social relationships with friends, family, and neighbors which ultimately make like meaningful.

Figuring out “how much is enough” is one of those problems everyone should have. Yet I don’t want to make light of it either. The challenge of balancing our ambitions for worldly success with the spiritual wisdom that teaches us simply “to be of use” to others is a difficult one. It’s more than just an inability to distinguish between our “wants” and our “needs.”’ Rather, this challenge reflects a need to differentiate between our natural but often unhealthy desires to achieve, to acquire, and even to dominate, and the equally powerful human aspirations to create, to understand, to love and be loved, to achieve inner peace, and perhaps even leave a lasting and meaningful legacy that will endure beyond our lifetimes.

These are the qualities that mark the difference between a life that is only self-serving, and life devoted to the service of others. It’s not just a matter of choosing between selfishness and selflessness. Rather, it’s the recognition that our own happiness is ultimately best served through a life that looks beyond ourselves alone to the safety and prosperity and happiness of others as well. It really is just that simple. And yet how quickly and easily we come to forget it when events in the world around us make us feel anxious and afraid, and our efforts to change things for the better seem futile.

The subject of altruism -- an unselfish concern for the welfare of others -- is something of interest not only to ethicists, but also biologists. One of the reasons that 19th century evangelical Christians like William Jennings Bryan (of Scopes Monkey Trial fame) were so opposed to the teaching of evolution in schools was their belief that the philosophy of Social Darwinism, with its soulless doctrine of “survival of the fittest,” tended to undermine more traditional religious teachings about compassion for the poor (ironic when you think about how these respective ideologies have evolved in our own day). When I was a freshman at the University of Washington, I had a biology teacher who was determined to convince us that, in the natural world, so-called examples of real altruism were merely myths, and that animals always instinctively act in their own genetic self-interest. I especially remember him explaining how one of the classical examples of animal altruism form the ancient world, the famous stories about dolphins who rescued shipwrecked mariners from drowning by keeping them afloat and assisting them to shore, was actually just an anthropomorphic misinterpretation of the natural playfulness of these intelligent marine mammals. “We’ll never really know,” he told our class one morning, “how many shipwrecked sailors were almost safely to the beach when a group of dolphins swam along and pushed them out to sea again.”

But it turns out that my freshman biology professor didn’t have it entirely correct either. Many intelligent social animals -- not just dolphins, but also apes, and dogs, and even rats -- demonstrate a fairly well-developed sense of empathy, and at times behave in ways that might even be considered compassionate. Yet they are also capable of organized and premeditated violent aggression, as well as acting with both self-sacrificing courage, and self-centered cowardice. They can be both generous and duplicitous, both kind and cruel. So it would appear that the so-called “natural” world is actually a lot more complicated than perhaps at first we thought. And the great insight of biology is not so much that we are no different than other animals in our struggle for survival, but that in many ways some animals, at least, are little different from us.

Returning for a moment to the realm of human ethics, altruism might best be described as coming in at least three distinct flavors. The first of these is generally characterized as enlightened self-interest, in which our generous good works also contribute to a greater good from which either we or those close to us also benefit. The second consists of the proverbial “random acts of kindness” where our good deeds may not necessarily benefit us directly, but they don’t really cost us much either. And the third is the genuinely self-sacrificial, that “last full measure of devotion” which we praise so profoundly as a society at times like Veterans Day, and for which we reserve our highest public praise and honor. Biologists may be skeptical, but community, society, even civilization itself, all depend upon a certain degree of altruism -- a spirit of public service in which individuals do not merely seek to serve their own self-interests (whether enlightened or merely avaricious,) but also commit themselves “to be of use” to the greater good. True Community is built upon a foundation of reciprocal obligation and mutual trust, and without them Civil Society truly does devolve into the law of the jungle, and a Hobbesean war of all against all.

Ideals of public service and nobless oblige are deeply rooted in both the Universalist and the Unitarian traditions. The Scripture teaches that “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded;” and both Universalist farmers and Unitarians merchants and mill owners took this prescription very much to heart. Yet “Christian Charity” was not considered merely an activity for the well-to-do. The “genteel poverty” of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with its family values of service, duty, sacrifice, and love of neighbor, reflects an understanding of “usefulness” which places our ability to do good for others squarely at the center of our own self-worth, regardless of our family’s net worth. My favorite statement of this 19th century commandment “To Be of Use” is the motto of Edward Everett Hale’s “Lend a Hand Club” (which I know we have read here in church before). “I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

These notions of usefulness were also intimately connected to the idea of Character, and to the traditional religious doctrine of Vocation. The belief that every individual not only has a general but also a specific “calling” from God -- a potential, a destiny, which is uniquely our own and which it is our duty to fulfill -- is a persistent theme in American religious life, from the days of the Puritans down to our own. Yet sometimes this encouragement to “follow our bliss” becomes disconnected from the more basic responsibilities of love of God and love of neighbor. People find their identity in their relationship to a community as much as they do from the introspective examination of their own souls. Who we are and what we do not only reflect one another, they also shape and define one another, as we grow over time into the individuals our Creator intends for us to be.

In his bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life (which you may recall was the inspiration for this series of sermons), Rick Warren uses the acronym SHAPE to describe his understanding of how people of faith might best determine the unique contribution which each of us is called to make, and through which our lives find their true meaning, when we commit ourselves fully to achieving it. ‘S’ stands for the discernment of “Spiritual Gifts.” These gifts are talents and abilities which have been freely given to us, but which we must first “unwrap” before they can be put to use. No one individual receives every gift, yet when we use our gifts together cooperatively everyone benefits. ‘H’ stands for listen to your Heart. One of the ways we discover our gifts is to pursue the things we truly love, to be honest with ourselves rather than following the tastes of the world. The things that excite us, the things which most interest us and command our attention, the activities which we naturally embrace with enthusiasm and enjoyment, are fantastic clues for determining where our true gifts may be found, and where they may find their best employment. And the opposite is also true: if there are some activities which you always seem to find frustrating, or which cause you to grow easily discouraged, perhaps your gifts lie in other areas.

‘A’ stands for applying your Abilities. We all have different gifts, but we also have abilities which we have worked to develop, and which reflect our spiritual gifts honed to a high level of skill. Applying our abilities means using our skills for the good of others rather than mere personal satisfaction, and remembering that whatever we do in life should somehow reflect our higher purpose. ‘P’ stands for empowering our Personalities. It’s not just our skills, but also our temperaments, that make us who were are. Some of us our introverts, and some of us are extroverts. Some of us are very practical and detail oriented, while others are more emotional, or perhaps enjoy vivid and creative imaginations which allow them to see things that others don’t. Some of us like variety, and some of us like routine...but understanding how our personalities work and what our preferences are likewise an important step in defining our unique call to service. Finally, ‘E’ stands for employing our Experience. Not everything we try in life turns out as well as we hope it might. But even our failures and disappointments can teach us things that will someday prove useful, and which are often more important than the things we learn from success.

So, discern your Spiritual Gifts, listen to your Heart, apply your Abilities, empower your Personality, and employ your Experience. And above all, remember than we live not for ourselves alone, but for all the living creatures who have come before us, or who will follow after.

Last Monday I attended the reception for Hal and Shirley Sauer at the town hall. And I was very moved by the brief speech Hal made after receiving his award, after all the other speeches describing Hal’s decades of service from being a Cub Scout leader to his current work on the Board of Appeals. It was just two sentences, and although I can’t remember it word for word, here’s the gist of it: “If all the work I did over the years did some good for the town, that’s great. But it was nothing compared to the good it did for me to do it.”

I personally find Hal’s example very inspirational. And I hope it will be an inspiration for all of you as well.