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Since this is
Survey Sunday, I have four additional questions for you to
consider:
- Which
is a bigger issue for you?
a) False modesty, or b) False pride?
- Which
is easier for you? a) Receiving a gift, or b) Giving a
gift?
- Which
is more important to you? a) Giving in order to receive,
or b) Receiving in order to give?
- How
were you taught to give? How were you taught to receive?
What is
your response when someone pays you a compliment? “Oh no, I
don’t deserve any credit,” or “The Holy Spirit is the
one to thank,” or “It wasn’t me, others deserve the
credit,” or “Thank so and so, not me.” Or have you tried
to give someone an unexpected gift of service and received the
response, “I don’t need your help. I can take care of that
myself.” “Thanks anyway, but I don’t need any help. Give
that to someone else more deserving.” I resemble these
responses!
Years ago I
had a spiritual director who called me up short for the sin of
false modesty. I was prone to using phrases such as you just
heard. My director said when you push off a compliment or a
genuine offer of help, you are denying someone the act of
giving. You are denying their worth! On the other hand, I know
people who give and give and give of themselves to the point
that it becomes an addiction. Helping others takes over their
lives at the expense of family, work, recreation or the
possibility of being a well-balanced human being.
A
member recently told me a story of her frustration with
parents who all their lives have been generous givers of time
and talent to their children, but now the inevitable toll of
age is putting them in need of assistance. When the adult
child offered to help, she was rebuffed with the response,
“I don’t need your help. I’ll be fine. Everything will
be okay.” That may be true. The parents may be fine.
Everything may be okay. But an opportunity for the daughter to
return love and time so generously given to her as a child
could be missed. It seemed to me that lightening the load was
a gift the daughter was willing to offer her parents, just as
they had given to her earlier in life.
How
do we receive help when all our lives we have been taught to
be independent and that receiving/accepting help is a sign of
weakness? Perhaps in our culture of rugged individualism, we
have failed to learn how to receive. Or worse yet, we have
swung to the other pole of entitlement, when we expect certain
things as a right, not as “gifts.”
One
of my favorite children’s stories is The Giving Tree
by Shel Silverstein, which the dust jacket cover calls “a
modern parable on the art of giving and receiving.” If you
remember the story, it begins “Once there was a tree…and
she loved a little boy.” Every day the boy would come to the
tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, slide down
her trunk, and sleep in her shade. Then as he grew up, in his
effort to find happiness, he came to sell her apples for
money, cut down her limbs to build a house, and cut down her
trunk to build a boat, until the only thing left for the tree
to give was a stump for the now-old man to sit on. The punch
line after each episode is “and the tree was very happy.”
The tree gave and gave and gave, unconditionally, without any
thanks or reciprocity, and yet it was happy. Did the boy/man
know how to receive? Did the tree know how to give? It is a
joyous tale on the example of unselfish giving with an
undercurrent of sadness in selfish taking. Some of us are the
tree. Some of us are the boy/man.
Ordination
vows in the Episcopal Church ask: “Will you do your best to
pattern your life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus
Christ so that you may be a wholesome example to your
people?” (BCP p.532) These are not dissimilar from the vows
of baptism/confirmation which say: “As members of this
congregation, will you faithfully participate in its
ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts and
your service?” (Methodist Hymnal p.38.) In order to live
out our baptismal, confirmation and ordination vows, we must
first embrace the graces and gifts we have received from God.
It is in receiving that we are empowered to give. Giving is a
response from an invitation to receive God’s grace. What
have you received from God? Psalm 24:1 says: “The earth is
the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all who
dwell therein.” This is the ultimate faith statement. Is it
your faith statement? Or is your faith statement: “It’s
mine and I earned it”?
What gifts
have you received from God? The Rev. Lisa McIlvenna offers a
wonderful class from time to time on discerning your spiritual
gifts. What do you consider to be special gifts unique to you?
The gift of a good family? Economic security? Education?
Talent to be a carpenter? An art historian? People skills?
Negotiating skills? Ability to teach? Garden? Play a sport?
Collect stamps? Fix cars? Knit? Nurse? Drive? The list is
endless. You are being asked through this survey to tell of
your gifts. (This is the only time you will get a free pass to
not pay attention to the sermon while you fill out the survey
card, if you haven’t already done so during the
announcements. Then either drop it in the baskets in the
narthex as you leave or return it to the church office.)
What are
your passions on and off the job? In today’s passage from
Acts, which is a leadership speech to the Ephesians, Paul uses
an interesting selection of words—grace, inheritance,
example, purpose—to frame his message of service. Paul is
the one who gives what he has and what he is. You are being
asked today to share what talents you have. Jesus tells us in
Matthew’s gospel: “Do not hide your light under a
bushel.” You are being asked today to take the light of your
gifts and shine it in and through this community.
In the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks you to let your light shine
before others because you, as the household of faith, are the
light to the world. Often we read this passage and read the
word “you” as singular about me, when in reality Jesus is
addressing the disciples and it is plural, meaning us the
disciples, collectively as community. It is the community that
is meant to be a beacon to the world. It is for building up of
this community of faith that you are being asked to share your
gifts and passions.
What is
your understanding of giving and receiving? Do you give to
receive or receive to give? How often have we taught our
children to give a gift for a birthday because they will get a
gift in return? Gifting then becomes an economic exchange.
Having lived over five years in Japan, a gift-giving culture
with rituals and expectations surrounding it, it seemed to be
a conditional giving society. Gift exchange was an
expectation. Have we taken that one step further into the
entitlement society?
Once, in a
previous church, I had a parishioner indignantly say he would
not teach a Sunday school class even though he was an
accomplished elementary school teacher. He refused to teach on
the grounds that “this is what I do during the week” and
not what he wanted to do on the weekend. “I would rather do
something else,” he said. The Peter Principle at work in
church! Do we use our strongest gifts in God’s service? I
could, however, sympathize with this teacher because I was
once asked to lead a stewardship campaign because I was a
banker. I resisted it, but ultimately gave in to the request.
It was a life-changing experience. What would have happened
had I hid that gift under a bushel? I might not be here today.
We all have multiple gifts and passions, and I invite you to
share yours in and through this community of faith.
Christmas
is traditionally called the gift-giving season. Shouldn’t we
call it the gift-receiving season? Receiving the gift of Jesus
Christ. It doesn’t get better than that! Our Latin friends
may be on to something when they separate Christmas giving and
make Epiphany the day gifts are given, following in the
tradition of the shepherds and magi who responded
spontaneously and expected nothing in return (the first
example of unconditional giving). I know I always feel better
when I give unexpectedly, not anticipating a return.
Another
of my all-time favorite children’s stories is Tomie
dePaola’s The Legend of the Bluebonnet, an old tale
of Texas derived from a Comanche legend. The story connects
with me because I can recall the fields of bluebonnets which
carpet Texas in the spring. It is the story of a Native
American girl named “She-Who-Is-Alone.” The story of
“She-Who-Is-Alone’s act of thrusting her beloved doll into
the fire to save her people represents the decisive sort of
action that many young people are capable of, the kind of
selfless action that creates miracles.”(Tomie dePaola,
Author’s Note).
The story
is set in a time of great draught and concerns a little girl
and her response to the situation after all the adults and
shamans have gone forth to pray and petition the gods in a
spiritual retreat to discern the gods’ will. The gods
respond: “The people have become selfish. For years, they
have taken from the earth without giving anything back. The
Great Spirits say we must sacrifice. We must make a burnt
offering of the most valued possession among us.” The people
were called to a spiritual decision. The leaders all came with
plausible excuses: “Not my bow, not my blanket.” Except
for this young girl.
Jesus
always reminds us to be like children, trusting and open.
She-Who-is-Alone then gives back her most prized possession,
her buckskin doll. In the process she remembers what she has
received from her parents and grandparents. In ceremonial
fashion she tosses her doll on the fire and the ashes rise to
later fall on the hillside. The next morning there is a
miraculous sight. “She looked out over the hill, and
stretching out from all sides, where the ashes had fallen, the
ground was covered with flowers – beautiful flowers…the
flowers were a sign of forgiveness.” From that day on, the
little girl was known by another name: “One-Who-Dearly-Loved
Her-People.” The story continues: “And every Spring, the
Great Spirits remember the sacrifice of a little girl and fill
the hills and valleys of the land, now called Texas, with the
beautiful blue flowers.”
What is
your prized talent to offer in service? Because Paul and the
early disciples dedicated the best of themselves in service,
the world was transformed. You are invited this day to offer
up your best skill, gift, passion, whatever you call it, for
God’s work through First Church. Don’t hide your gifts
under a bushel. Share them.
R.
Sargent Shriver, in his commencement address to the graduating
class at Yale in 1994, made
this prophetic statement. He invited the students to break all
their mirrors. “Yes, indeed, shatter the glass. In our
society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at
yourself and more at each other. Learn more about the face of
your neighbor, and less about your own.” The idea is to use
your gifts, professional skills and education to serve others,
not just yourself. Are you like the boy/man in The Giving
Tree or like the girl in The Legend of the Bluebonnet?
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