a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday November 26th, 2006
I thought I’d start out this morning telling you all about the terrible dilemma I faced yesterday trying to decide whether I should take advantage of the gorgeous, crisp, clear Autumn weather and go outdoors to rake up the leaves in my yard, or instead remain indoors like I do almost every other Saturday and work on my sermon instead. Didn’t want to spend too much time ruminating about it either, since every minute I spent thinking about the alternatives was basically just one more minute when I wasn’t doing either; so I quickly decided to compromise, and to go outdoors and rake up SOME of the leaves while THINKING about my sermon, with the thought that I could always preach a little shorter sermon if I had too -- a compromise which I figured would please just about everyone EXCEPT those few tormented souls who actually PREFER long-winded sermons (and of course those few equally-tormented souls who are obsessed by the sight of a few unraked leaves lying around, and can’t rest until they’re gone), not to mention my dog Parker, who, had she been given a choice, no doubt would have much rather spent the time outdoors with me doing something more interesting than watching me lean on a rake.
Now I appreciate the fact that there are some people who find yard work spiritually inspiring, but generally I’m not one of them. For me, yard work has always pretty much been seen and understood as a form of involuntary servitude imposed upon me by my father, or my grandmother, or still later my former wife...something I would just as soon have avoided if possible, or at the very least done as little as I could possibly get away with. I do appreciate the sense of satisfaction that comes from the tangible completion of a job well done...and yard work certainly lends itself to that sense of accomplishment much better than a lot of the more intangible work many of us do to make a living. But for my own part (especially when I was still a kid), I generally found myself learning how to look busy while looking off into the distance thinking profound thoughts, all the while keeping an eye peeled for my father, or my grandmother, or (later) my former wife. And of course I did eventually figure out that I could actually USE the rake and still think profound thoughts, although for safety’s sake I tried to draw the line at tools with sharp edges or mechanical equipment.
And at the end of the day, I actually ended up raking a lot more of the leaves yesterday than I’d planned to, since as it turns out I’m ALSO one of those tormented souls who can’t really stand to see any unraked leaves lying around either, especially once I’ve started to rake them up. I’m getting better about it, of course, especially now that I’m back in therapy. But like a lot of folks, I still generally prefer to finish what I start, even when in the greater scheme of things I know it’s really not that important that I do. And this sometimes also leads to a reluctance to begin something I’m not sure I’m going to be able to finish, even though I understand perfectly well that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step....
Last Sunday (and really for a good deal of the past year) I spoke again about the essential relationship between Gratitude and Generosity: how our feelings of thankfulness for the many blessings we have received in life, including the gift of life itself, both inspire us and in many ways obligate us to share those blessings with others in creative, generative ways. These “debts of gratitude” are what bind us together in community, as members of an interdependent network of mutual accountability and support which forms the foundation of civil society itself.
And now today I want to explore this concept a little more deeply by looking at two other sets of interrelated values which, together, round out my own understanding of the life of Faith, and what it means to be a person of Faith, living within a Faith Community. But perhaps I ought to start out just by talking a little again about the idea of “Faith” itself. Faith is often understood (or perhaps I should say misunderstood) as “a Belief in Things We Know Aren’t True.” Yet a more accurate definition might be something like “trust” or “confidence” -- in other words, a belief in something we know we can’t prove, but also know in our heart of hearts is true anyway, and are therefore willing act confidently on that belief trusting that things will turn out the way we expect them to.
The Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard called this attitude the “leap of faith,” while Harvard psychologist William James wisely observed that often our own confidence can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, allowing us to accomplish difficult tasks where others failed simply because of their own self-doubt. And this is a very different proposition from the kind of “wishful thinking” that often passes for faith, which tells us that that individuals can achieve anything they dream, if only they believe it hard enough.
Yet there are also many times in life when we are asked to take things “on faith” -- not because we can verify for ourselves the truth of what we are being told, but because we are confident of the trustworthiness of the person who is encouraging us to “keep the faith.” And this is what makes Faith such a delicate matter, because once Trust has been broken it is very difficult to have confidence in that person ever again. Learning how to keep faith with others, by defending our own trustworthiness so that others can always be confident of us and of what we say, is at the heart of becoming an authentic person of faith, as well as a responsible member of a faith community.
Trustworthiness, Gratitude, and Generosity all might be thought of as “inner” virtues, in that they originate out of our own experience of living, and then are expressed in our interactions with other people. But there is a second, similar set of virtues which are much more relational in nature, and these are Compassion, Understanding, and Forgiveness. Compassion is literally the capacity to “suffer with” -- an ability to feel the pain of someone else as if it were your own. Compassion is a feeling of sympathy, which combines with our feelings of Generosity and Gratitude in order to create the intuitive basis of humanity’s most basic ethical principle, the so-called “Golden Rule” to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
Understanding takes this principle a step further, from feeling to thinking. Understanding is more than just the ability to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, it’s also an ability to see the world through their eyes as well -- to step outside the limitations of our own personal experiences and familiar worldview, and to imagine intellectually how the world looks from a perspective different than our own. This ability to Understand is obviously increased by good communication -- by the open and honest exchange of information and experiences -- and also simply by the willingness to consider and explore different points of view. The more open we are to listening and learning from one another, the broader our capacity for Understanding becomes.
And then there is Forgiveness. You’ve heard me before quote Albert Camus that “To understand all is to forgive all,” but sometimes that process works just as well in the opposite direction. Sometimes we simply need to learn to forgive one another on general principles -- to look beyond the shortcomings of those who may have hurt or offended us, and to let go of our natural desire to balance accounts and settle old scores, in order to make mutual understanding possible, and avoid additional ill will in the future. Understanding naturally generates Forgiveness, but Forgiveness can just as easily generate Understanding, if only we are willing to take that first great leap.
At the heart of all three of these “relational virtues” of Compassion, Understanding, and Forgiveness is the capacity for Empathy, which is perhaps most easily described as simply a basic, fundamental “gut” awareness that other people have feelings too, and there is a lot more to the “real world” than merely our own appetites, ambitions, and desires. To my mind, Empathy is probably the single most important thing we need to teach our children, and also the single most important quality we need to cultivate continuously within ourselves.
Individuals who lack the capacity for empathy are technically known as sociopaths; and yet often times it seems as though our society itself rewards those individuals who are most ruthlessly and single-mindedly focused on their own personal ambition and self-interest to the exclusion of everything else, and that the pressure of competing with those who care for nothing or no one other than themselves forces us into the position of “looking out for Number One” as well. The Scripture cautions us “what does it profit a human being to gain the whole world and lose their own soul?” And yet a society which so ruthlessly separates its members into “winners” and “losers,” in the struggle simply to keep body and soul together, can easily distract us from this lesson, and focus our attention in a different direction.
But I’d like to suggest that this particular characterization of competition is both misdirected, and ultimately self-destructive. Our competitors may well be our rivals and our opponents, but they are not necessarily our enemies -- rather, they are also in many ways our partners, who challenge us to become better and to improve ourselves by pushing us to higher and higher standards of performance. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a race to the bottom. Properly understood, competition can also inspire us to ever greater levels of accomplishment and achievement.
These two weekends around Thanksgiving are sometimes known as “Rivalry Week” -- it’s the time of the season when High School and College football teams typically square off against their traditional neighboring opponents, and when you’ve attended as many schools as I have, you can always find someone to root for this time of year. And with the notable exception of “The Game” between Harvard and Yale, my teams all did pretty well this year; but what I really want to talk about is something I noticed about the interviews with these young athletes which take place after the game. You almost never hear the victorious players bad mouthing their opponents, or boasting about their own superiority. Rather, they tend to talk about all the hard work which lead up to their success, and the two words which come up again and again are Discipline and Sacrifice -- two words which contain obvious religious connotations.
Discipline is basically the practice of being a Disciple: the rigorous, organized, and focused lifestyle of becoming a profoundly committed and devoted learner. And Sacrifice means literally to “make sacred” -- to willingly give up something of value to ourselves in support of a more important purpose. It is through the addition of these virtues of Discipline and Sacrifice that we transform ourselves from mere “Generous and Compassionate Understanding Souls” into real Philanthropists, whose love for our fellow human beings is transformed, through devoted commitment, into truly effective “Labors of Love.”
So, Discipline and Sacrifice. Compassion, Understanding, and Forgiveness. Empathy, and Trustworthiness. Gratitude and Generosity. I know, the list keeps getting longer and longer. But who ever said that becoming a “Faith-Filled Soul” was going to be easy? It’s work, hard work. But unlike so much of the work we do, like raking leaves and washing dishes and taking out the garbage, it is work truly worthy of our close attention and best efforts. And yes it’s also true that we don’t often end up with that satisfying pile of raked leaves at the end of our efforts. The rewards of this “Labor of Love” are often slow to accumulate and difficult to see.
Yet if we are truly honest with ourselves, and keep faith with one another; if we reach out to others in Compassion, Understanding and Forgiveness, and Generously express our Gratitude for this gift of life itself; if we cultivate the Discipline and are willing to make the Sacrifices that will guarantee that our “leap of faith” is successful, then the benefits to both ourselves and to the world will literally be immeasurable.
READING: A Wonderful Message by George Carlin
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. ; We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips , disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for some day that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
DEBTS OF GRATITUDE...
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday November 19th, 2006
In the summer of 1980, just before the start of my final year of Divinity School, I learned what has turned out to be perhaps the most important lesson about ministry that I have ever learned at any time in my life. But after two very comfortable years in the bosom of Harvard Student Housing, I finally had to give up my cozy little room in Divinity Hall to make room for an incoming student, and move out into the “real” world of the Cambridge rental housing market.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really afford even a small studio apartment of my own, didn’t own a stick of furniture to put in one either, for that matter; and was really at something of a loss for what I was going to do, until finally, through the help of some friends, I was able to find a vacant room on the campus of the nearby Episcopal Divinity School, which not only I could afford, but which also came with a meal plan.
The only problem was, the Episcopalians wanted the entire amount for a year’s room and board IN ADVANCE, and I didn’t have it. So I went to my field education supervisor, Rhys Williams, to ask whether the church might be willing to consider advancing me the entire amount of my meager student minister stipend for the year, so that I could have a place to live. I figured it was kind of a long shot, but I didn’t really have any other options...so I went to Rhys, and I explained my situation, and what he did next kinda surprised me.
He didn’t talk to the church treasurer, or take my request to the Standing Committee for a vote. Instead, he took out a checkbook from his desk drawer and wrote out a check to me personally for the entire amount. And then he told me not to worry, that the church would continue to pay me my regular stipend every month just as they had for the past two years. And when I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t sure I would be able to pay him back, he explained to me that no doubt in the course of my own ministry there would come times when someone else would be sitting in my office expressing a similar sort of need, and that if I had the resources at my disposal I should help that person just as he had helped me.
Now as far as I’m concerned, this story could easily be my entire message for this morning; but I want you all to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, so let me elaborate a little. Today’s sermon on “Debts of Gratitude” and next week’s message on “Labors of Love” are linked together, at least in my own mind, around a common and culturally pervasive economic metaphor which seems to understand the world as some sort of “marketplace,” in which our lives are simply (or basically) a long string of “transactions” through which we attempt to exchange things of value for other things of value in an on-going effort to acquire things of increasingly greater worth.
But setting aside for a moment the unasked (and therefor unanswered) question of What IS “Truly Worthy” of being “Valued,” it’s intuitive to assume within the context of this metaphor that being in someone’s debt is something to be avoided. Indebtedness has a negative connotation in the marketplace: it is, after all, a commitment to repay past considerations with future favors, an obligation which binds us to return value with interest. No one is really supposed to LIKE being in debt; or at the very least, it would seem much more preferable to have others indebted to us, rather than the other way around.
Yet these social networks of mutual obligation are in many ways what bind human beings together as a society. And understanding this principle, one also realizes that it is often far easier to initiate a new relationship by allowing the other person to do you a small favor, which then places you in their debt, thus allowing you an opportunity to return the favor at a later time, reinforcing the reciprocal connection between you.
The indigenous, aboriginal peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast near where I grew up practiced this principle of reciprocal obligation to a remarkable degree, through a custom known as “Potlatch,” -- a practice which so upset the Christian missionaries among them that they eventually convinced the Canadian government to pass a law against it. A potlatch was a celebration, a party hosted by a prosperous family, during which they literally gave away everything they possessed to the other members of their village, thus acquiring immeasurable amounts of prestige and social influence in exchange.
The missionaries saw this custom as wasteful and improvident, because it seemed so contrary to traditional European commercial values like thrift, industry and frugality. Yet the New Testament itself also contains some very provocative teachings about debt and the nature of indebtedness, not the least of which can be found at the heart of the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us.” The Greek word ofeilhmata means literally “that which is owed” or “that which is due,” and in Luke’s gospel at least it is explicitly equated with the forgiveness of sin or armartia which in this context is probably best understood as a “missed” obligation or unfulfilled duty owed to God.
But then in the very next section of that chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus shares this parable: “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be open for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be open. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?...”
When I first read this passage many years ago, I basically thought it was saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Even if somebody is your friend, they aren’t too likely to get up in the middle of the night to give you something just so that you can entertain someone who is (to them, at least) a stranger. But if you just keep pounding on their door long enough and hard enough they will eventually get up and give you what you want, just to make you go away, even though they aren’t too likely to stay friends with you for very much longer.
But now (thanks to my expensive seminary education) I’ve come to see that it is the urgency of the NEED that evokes the response: the obligation to provide hospitality to someone who arrives at YOUR door hungry and in the middle of the night is what justifies your persistence, and in turn elicits the generous response from your neighbor.
There’s another story about debt, this time from the Gospel of Matthew, that made an even stronger impression upon me when I was young. In it Jesus tells his disciple Peter that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him in prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt....”
It didn’t really take a Harvard education to figure out what THAt parable meant (although it was nice to be able to look at the footnotes in my study Bible, and learn that a denarus was equal to about a day’s wage for a common laborer, while a single talent was worth about 5,000 denarii, or roughly fifteen YEARS wages). And while I am still a little curious about how a common slave could run up a debt of ten thousand talents in the first place, it is the relationship between debt and bondage, freedom and forgiveness that is most intriguing to me now. The complex connections between debt and reciprocal obligation, servitude, forgiveness, and liberation, are well-explored themes throughout the Bible. They are central not only to the teachings of the Gospels, but also to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and were important as well to the self-understanding of the Pilgrims who came to the New World, whose gratitude for their survival in the face of terrible hardship we commemorate on Thanksgiving Day.
There is a profound irony at the heart of the human condition, that often the liberty of a privileged few is purchased and maintained only at the expense of the servitude of others, who typically share in relatively few of the benefits produced by their service. For example, academic historians have quietly acknowledged for years that the freedom and prosperity which allowed Mr. Jefferson to declare that “all men are created equal” was generated by the labor of his African slaves, and that this same economic arrangement was in a larger sense true of American prosperity in general, even for people like the mill operators of Lowell, whose mechanical looms spun raw cotton into cloth, even though they themselves did not directly own slaves.
Somewhat more recently and closer to home, author Caitlin Flanagan has argued in an essay that first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly that the modern feminist movement was both made possible and necessary by Globalization and a related influx of cheap immigrant labor here to the United States, which not only produced a ready supply of low-paid nannies and housekeepers, but also created the need for two-income households in order to replace the loss of “family wage” manufacturing jobs which have now moved “off-shore.”
It’s a complex equation, and I don’t honestly know what the answer is. How does one fairly distinguish between the honest, well-deserved rewards earned through the hard highly-skilled work of a talented few, and the outright exploitation of the relatively powerless, unfortunate and desperately-needy souls who work themselves to death without ever seeing even a fraction of the wealth generated by the products produced by their own hands? Where is the justice, and the equity, in this equation? How do we balance these accounts?
You don’t have to be from an underdeveloped, third world country in order to know the servitude of debt peonage. I’m confident there are people right here in this community who are wearing “golden handcuffs” -- people whose mortgages, car payments, credit cards, educational loans for themselves or their children trap them in jobs and lifestyles they might not otherwise have chosen for themselves. Even the very wealthy are not nearly so free as we like to imagine they are, while the lure of the things which money can buy can easily tempt us in to obligations we might not otherwise have assumed. How much money does someone really need before they can consider themselves “independently wealthy?” And are any of us ever truly financially “secure?”
I’m not suggesting that it isn’t possible; I’m just saying that, as a minister, I don’t really have that much first-hand experience of the subject. I tend to lean a lot more in the Thoreauvian direction of the equation, of measuring my wealth by the things I can afford to leave alone. The principle of Voluntary Simplicity -- of “downsizing” our lifestyles in order to free ourselves from the burdens of debt and the financial obligations of the marketplace, is an increasingly popular alternative to the never-ending pursuit of more and more. But there are limitations to this approach as well. Is it every entirely possible to become truly independent of the marketplace? Is complete self-reliance, and self-sufficiency, even desirable, much less plausible?
But just suppose that we should instead decide, either as individuals or as a society, to pursue a third way. That rather than seeking a financial independence that, more often than not, is more promise and illusion than tangible good, we decided instead to invest in Community, to create a network of mutual interdependence and reciprocal obligation that is both valuable and worthwhile in its own right, in that it truly embodies more worthy values than the mere acquisition of personal wealth. This is the path that many of the world’s wealthiest individuals, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have already chosen to follow. How would our own lives look different if we too chose to honor this debt of gratitude, and embrace this labor of love?
We’ll continue to explore these questions next week. But for now I would like to leave you with the words of Peter Raible, with which I opened the service.
"We build on foundations, we did not lay.
We warm ourselves at fires, we did not light.
We sit in the shade of trees, we did not plant.
We drink from wells, we did not dig.
We profit from persons, we did not know.
We are ever bound [together] in community."
READING: “A Bounty of People” by Max Coots
Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.
For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
Let us give thanks;
For generous friends...with hearts...and smiles as bright as their blossoms;
For feisty friends, as tart as apples;
For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;
For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you;
For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;
And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;
And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter.
For all these we give thanks.
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday November 19th, 2006
In the summer of 1980, just before the start of my final year of Divinity School, I learned what has turned out to be perhaps the most important lesson about ministry that I have ever learned at any time in my life. But after two very comfortable years in the bosom of Harvard Student Housing, I finally had to give up my cozy little room in Divinity Hall to make room for an incoming student, and move out into the “real” world of the Cambridge rental housing market.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really afford even a small studio apartment of my own, didn’t own a stick of furniture to put in one either, for that matter; and was really at something of a loss for what I was going to do, until finally, through the help of some friends, I was able to find a vacant room on the campus of the nearby Episcopal Divinity School, which not only I could afford, but which also came with a meal plan.
The only problem was, the Episcopalians wanted the entire amount for a year’s room and board IN ADVANCE, and I didn’t have it. So I went to my field education supervisor, Rhys Williams, to ask whether the church might be willing to consider advancing me the entire amount of my meager student minister stipend for the year, so that I could have a place to live. I figured it was kind of a long shot, but I didn’t really have any other options...so I went to Rhys, and I explained my situation, and what he did next kinda surprised me.
He didn’t talk to the church treasurer, or take my request to the Standing Committee for a vote. Instead, he took out a checkbook from his desk drawer and wrote out a check to me personally for the entire amount. And then he told me not to worry, that the church would continue to pay me my regular stipend every month just as they had for the past two years. And when I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t sure I would be able to pay him back, he explained to me that no doubt in the course of my own ministry there would come times when someone else would be sitting in my office expressing a similar sort of need, and that if I had the resources at my disposal I should help that person just as he had helped me.
Now as far as I’m concerned, this story could easily be my entire message for this morning; but I want you all to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, so let me elaborate a little. Today’s sermon on “Debts of Gratitude” and next week’s message on “Labors of Love” are linked together, at least in my own mind, around a common and culturally pervasive economic metaphor which seems to understand the world as some sort of “marketplace,” in which our lives are simply (or basically) a long string of “transactions” through which we attempt to exchange things of value for other things of value in an on-going effort to acquire things of increasingly greater worth.
But setting aside for a moment the unasked (and therefor unanswered) question of What IS “Truly Worthy” of being “Valued,” it’s intuitive to assume within the context of this metaphor that being in someone’s debt is something to be avoided. Indebtedness has a negative connotation in the marketplace: it is, after all, a commitment to repay past considerations with future favors, an obligation which binds us to return value with interest. No one is really supposed to LIKE being in debt; or at the very least, it would seem much more preferable to have others indebted to us, rather than the other way around.
Yet these social networks of mutual obligation are in many ways what bind human beings together as a society. And understanding this principle, one also realizes that it is often far easier to initiate a new relationship by allowing the other person to do you a small favor, which then places you in their debt, thus allowing you an opportunity to return the favor at a later time, reinforcing the reciprocal connection between you.
The indigenous, aboriginal peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast near where I grew up practiced this principle of reciprocal obligation to a remarkable degree, through a custom known as “Potlatch,” -- a practice which so upset the Christian missionaries among them that they eventually convinced the Canadian government to pass a law against it. A potlatch was a celebration, a party hosted by a prosperous family, during which they literally gave away everything they possessed to the other members of their village, thus acquiring immeasurable amounts of prestige and social influence in exchange.
The missionaries saw this custom as wasteful and improvident, because it seemed so contrary to traditional European commercial values like thrift, industry and frugality. Yet the New Testament itself also contains some very provocative teachings about debt and the nature of indebtedness, not the least of which can be found at the heart of the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us.” The Greek word ofeilhmata means literally “that which is owed” or “that which is due,” and in Luke’s gospel at least it is explicitly equated with the forgiveness of sin or armartia which in this context is probably best understood as a “missed” obligation or unfulfilled duty owed to God.
But then in the very next section of that chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus shares this parable: “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be open for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be open. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?...”
When I first read this passage many years ago, I basically thought it was saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Even if somebody is your friend, they aren’t too likely to get up in the middle of the night to give you something just so that you can entertain someone who is (to them, at least) a stranger. But if you just keep pounding on their door long enough and hard enough they will eventually get up and give you what you want, just to make you go away, even though they aren’t too likely to stay friends with you for very much longer.
But now (thanks to my expensive seminary education) I’ve come to see that it is the urgency of the NEED that evokes the response: the obligation to provide hospitality to someone who arrives at YOUR door hungry and in the middle of the night is what justifies your persistence, and in turn elicits the generous response from your neighbor.
There’s another story about debt, this time from the Gospel of Matthew, that made an even stronger impression upon me when I was young. In it Jesus tells his disciple Peter that “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him in prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt....”
It didn’t really take a Harvard education to figure out what THAt parable meant (although it was nice to be able to look at the footnotes in my study Bible, and learn that a denarus was equal to about a day’s wage for a common laborer, while a single talent was worth about 5,000 denarii, or roughly fifteen YEARS wages). And while I am still a little curious about how a common slave could run up a debt of ten thousand talents in the first place, it is the relationship between debt and bondage, freedom and forgiveness that is most intriguing to me now. The complex connections between debt and reciprocal obligation, servitude, forgiveness, and liberation, are well-explored themes throughout the Bible. They are central not only to the teachings of the Gospels, but also to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and were important as well to the self-understanding of the Pilgrims who came to the New World, whose gratitude for their survival in the face of terrible hardship we commemorate on Thanksgiving Day.
There is a profound irony at the heart of the human condition, that often the liberty of a privileged few is purchased and maintained only at the expense of the servitude of others, who typically share in relatively few of the benefits produced by their service. For example, academic historians have quietly acknowledged for years that the freedom and prosperity which allowed Mr. Jefferson to declare that “all men are created equal” was generated by the labor of his African slaves, and that this same economic arrangement was in a larger sense true of American prosperity in general, even for people like the mill operators of Lowell, whose mechanical looms spun raw cotton into cloth, even though they themselves did not directly own slaves.
Somewhat more recently and closer to home, author Caitlin Flanagan has argued in an essay that first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly that the modern feminist movement was both made possible and necessary by Globalization and a related influx of cheap immigrant labor here to the United States, which not only produced a ready supply of low-paid nannies and housekeepers, but also created the need for two-income households in order to replace the loss of “family wage” manufacturing jobs which have now moved “off-shore.”
It’s a complex equation, and I don’t honestly know what the answer is. How does one fairly distinguish between the honest, well-deserved rewards earned through the hard highly-skilled work of a talented few, and the outright exploitation of the relatively powerless, unfortunate and desperately-needy souls who work themselves to death without ever seeing even a fraction of the wealth generated by the products produced by their own hands? Where is the justice, and the equity, in this equation? How do we balance these accounts?
You don’t have to be from an underdeveloped, third world country in order to know the servitude of debt peonage. I’m confident there are people right here in this community who are wearing “golden handcuffs” -- people whose mortgages, car payments, credit cards, educational loans for themselves or their children trap them in jobs and lifestyles they might not otherwise have chosen for themselves. Even the very wealthy are not nearly so free as we like to imagine they are, while the lure of the things which money can buy can easily tempt us in to obligations we might not otherwise have assumed. How much money does someone really need before they can consider themselves “independently wealthy?” And are any of us ever truly financially “secure?”
I’m not suggesting that it isn’t possible; I’m just saying that, as a minister, I don’t really have that much first-hand experience of the subject. I tend to lean a lot more in the Thoreauvian direction of the equation, of measuring my wealth by the things I can afford to leave alone. The principle of Voluntary Simplicity -- of “downsizing” our lifestyles in order to free ourselves from the burdens of debt and the financial obligations of the marketplace, is an increasingly popular alternative to the never-ending pursuit of more and more. But there are limitations to this approach as well. Is it every entirely possible to become truly independent of the marketplace? Is complete self-reliance, and self-sufficiency, even desirable, much less plausible?
But just suppose that we should instead decide, either as individuals or as a society, to pursue a third way. That rather than seeking a financial independence that, more often than not, is more promise and illusion than tangible good, we decided instead to invest in Community, to create a network of mutual interdependence and reciprocal obligation that is both valuable and worthwhile in its own right, in that it truly embodies more worthy values than the mere acquisition of personal wealth. This is the path that many of the world’s wealthiest individuals, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, have already chosen to follow. How would our own lives look different if we too chose to honor this debt of gratitude, and embrace this labor of love?
We’ll continue to explore these questions next week. But for now I would like to leave you with the words of Peter Raible, with which I opened the service.
"We build on foundations, we did not lay.
We warm ourselves at fires, we did not light.
We sit in the shade of trees, we did not plant.
We drink from wells, we did not dig.
We profit from persons, we did not know.
We are ever bound [together] in community."
READING: “A Bounty of People” by Max Coots
Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.
For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
Let us give thanks;
For generous friends...with hearts...and smiles as bright as their blossoms;
For feisty friends, as tart as apples;
For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;
For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you;
For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;
And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;
And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter.
For all these we give thanks.
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