There Your Heart Will Be
This week’s sermon is about the spiritual path of generosity.
I climbed out of A and J’s Soviet-era compact car and stretched my legs. People were streaming from their cars parked along the road to the festival. Looking around, I couldn’t tell right away who were the Transylvanian Unitarians and who were the American Unitarian Universalists. We followed the stream of people until it emptied into a river of people and noise and merchant booths.
A ran ahead to meet up with colleagues. J and I lingered by the row of merchants. The booths along the path leading into the fair sold everything. There were booths that sold food, booths that sold balloons, booths that sold food, booths that sold jewelry, and booths that sold food. One booth sold carvings with Unitarian themes.
The seal of the Transylvanian Unitarian church is a snake and a dove, along with the church’s motto, drawn from Matthew 10:16, “Be ye as wise as serpents and as guileless as doves.” Carved, wooden relief sculptures of the seal are popular gifts from Transylvanian congregations to their American partner churches.
The Unitarian church in Transylvania goes back over four hundred years, to 1568. Throughout their history, they have been a minority faith. Soon after establishing limited religious freedom, they were under suspicion for their innovations in doctrine. After World War II, the Hungarian-speaking Unitarians found that the borders of their country had been re-drawn. Many of them became a linguistic and ethnic minority in Romania as well as a religious minority. (Click here for their web page in Hungarian.) Surviving while growing in faith over the last half-century has required the Unitarians to be “as wise as serpents and as guileless as doves.” The motto advises us to be cautious, yet open-hearted.
I had received open-hearted generosity in my travels. J and A were the latest in a long stretch of kind people who had helped me travel from Budapest, across the border, and through parts of the Transylvanian region of Romania. A was the minister of two congregations, one of which was the partner church of the American congregation where I was a member. I left Budapest with no clear itinerary or reservations except that I knew I needed to get to my partner church. I had stayed in four different Transylvanian Unitarian homes, gratefully accepted long car rides, gotten help buying train tickets, and been offered at least three different kinds of palenka brandy. The generosity was overwhelming. All kinds of friends and strangers had taken care of me.
One of the things I didn’t need was a watch. This was good, because I had forgotten mine. However, without a watch, I was starting to worry about making my bus and airplane connections on the way home. We stopped at a booth that sold electronics of dubious origin. While I knew a little Hungarian, I wasn’t familiar with the Romanian language or the exchange rate of the Romanian currency that the merchant used. J helped me not embarrass myself too badly as I purchased a watch.
Even in that moment of receiving gentleness and generosity, as I thought about returning to the United States in another two days, something inside me clenched. I wanted to take care of myself. J and I met up with A. He wanted to introduce me to various people, mostly Unitarian ministers from the cities I hadn’t had a chance to visit. A was concerned that I find a way back to Kolozsvar that night, then to Budapest the next day, and he knew all the right people to talk to about it.
Meanwhile, there was the business of the festival. We walked together in the procession through the wooden arches carved in the Szekely style. We listened to long speeches in Hungarian, watched young people perform traditional dances, listened to long speeches in English, and watched different young people perform traditional dances. Eventually I was able to slip away, back to the row of merchants.
The food merchants spoke Hungarian, so I was able to negotiate for myself a loaf of sweet almond bread and two large bottles of asvan viz, sparkling water. I had no idea what the next two days would have in store, and I didn’t want to get dehydrated. Nevermind that I hadn’t known how the previous three weeks were going to go and everything was fine. The merchant row had worked its magic on my anxieties. I ate half the bread and saved the rest. I had just a sip of one of the bottles of sparkling water.
Returning to our picnic site, A asked, “Why do you need two?” I answered that they were for my trip. “But the bubbles will be all gone!” “Ah, but the water will still be wet.” He shrugged his shoulders, then caught someone’s eye that he had been meaning to talk to and wandered off.
A few more speeches later, A introduced me to a teacher from the Unitarian school in Kolozsvar. His church had rented a bus to the festival, and there was room for me to return with them. I would stay at the Unitarian school and Pilgrim Center. The next day, my friend B had arranged a shared ride van for me to Budapest. Of course, my new friend from Kolozsvar and the Pilgrim Center and my friend B all took care of me, and I still had some flat sparkling water left when I got to my hotel in Budapest. I hadn’t needed to hoard flat asvan viz when the hospitality of strangers was so abundant.
I’d like to talk with you today about the spiritual side of generosity. An attitude of abundance, where we give and receive with open hearts, can help us make room for spiritual growth. An attitude of scarcity, like the one that took hold of me in my worrying and hoarding, makes it more difficult to be present to spiritual growth. We need not abandon good decision-making when it comes to generosity; we still apply the wisdom of serpents. At the same time, I think there is something to be said for challenging ourselves in the practice of generosity. Personal experience and sacred text suggest to me that an attitude of abundance inspires a feeling of being at home in the world.
At the basic level, I think that a spiritual practice of generosity is a concrete manifestation of love. With generosity, we show where we place our love for this world. We practice boldness by multiplying our gifts in the spirit of love. We stretch ourselves to show love for those we have not seen as well as for the beloved among us who we have seen.
When I refer to generosity, I’m not talking exclusively about money. An attitude of abundance affects the time we invest, the talent we develop and share, and anything we give from the heart. In keeping with April’s theme of the month, I’ll be exploring some Christian wisdom that helps illustrate these points. Generosity helps us locate our love for this world. Multiplying our gifts in the spirit of love is a form of generosity. Generosity challenges us to love the unseen guest.
There Your Heart Will Be Also
Near the end of my journey among the Transylvanian Unitarians, I was overcome with an attitude of scarcity. In those moments, I was preoccupied with what was in my backpack. Would I have enough water? Did I have a watch? Did I have enough money in a safe place? The treasures I worried about were the ones I carried on my back. In those moments, I was less able to appreciate the treasures that didn’t fit in my bag. I was less aware of my gratitude for the community of hosts. I couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the countryside or the taste of another language in my mouth. It was difficult to move my heart out of the hidden pocket of my backpack to focus on the richness of my experience.
There’s a verse in Matthew (6:19-21) and a similar one in Luke (12:33-34) that speaks to the question of location. From Matthew:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Some people might be inclined to hear this as advice to focus on the afterlife, but I don’t interpret it that way. The phrase about treasures in heaven reminds me that, “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). I think heaven means the reign of love that is among us here and now, and that could be here if we implement a world of justice and compassion. Seeing the kingdom of God involves a shift in perception, as if we have been wearing the wrong pair of glasses. When we remove the obstacles blocking our senses, we become aware of the relationships we value, the beauty of this earth, and our calling to be our best selves. Love and justice are the treasures that adorn the realm of the divine.
Where are our treasures? Where are the things that occupy our thoughts and command our attention? Where do we invest our time, talent, and material resources? Those are the places where our hearts reside. It can be challenging and humbling to take stock, to really notice the location of our treasures and our hearts. Making a spiritual practice of intentional generosity is like looking at all the labels on the food in the pantry. Do I really want this ingredient in my life? Is this expired?
In my family, we review our commitments more or less annually, paying particular attention to the time and financial gifts we hope to share with our religious communities. We set a goal several years ago of gradually increasing the percentage of our combined income that we give to our family’s mix of Jewish and Unitarian Universalist institutions. Some years we maintain the same percentage or have to step back, some years we can increase the percentage.
This year’s discussion was scary. It was hard to feel loving and abundant when our income is going down and our expenses are going up. We are approaching the new fiscal year with an intention to commit 4% of our income to religious giving, apart from donations we might make to non-religious charities like the Maryland Food Bank. That’s also not counting donations of time, although we often find that our volunteer hours and our financial donations are proportional to each other.
If it came down to a question of our basic needs, we would probably reduce that amount. I don’t want anybody to practice generosity to the point of compromising well-being. Be ye as wise as serpents by giving within reason. Be as guileless as doves by honestly assessing where your heart is located.
The Parable of the Talents
Once we have figured out where we’ve placed the treasures of our time, attention, abilities and resources, we face choices about how to use our gifts. I am reminded of the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-27).
A rich man was preparing to go on a journey. He summoned three servants and entrusted money to them for safekeeping while he was gone. The version of the story in Matthew says that the rich man gave each servant a different amount, while the version in Luke says that each servant was entrusted with the same amount. In Matthew, the money is measured in units of silver called talents. The word didn’t originally mean an ability or aptitude, but I enjoy the double meaning that “talent” has taken on.
The first servant invests the money and earns twice as much as he invested. The second servant invests the money and gets either twice or half again as much, depending on the version. The third servant hides the money for safekeeping. When the rich man returns, he is delighted with the actions of the first two servants and rewards them proportionally. The third servant explains that he knows the rich man to be harsh, and was afraid of losing the money. The rich man gets angry with the third servant, takes back the money that was entrusted to him, and gives it to the first servant.
This story can be interpreted in a couple of ways. It illustrates that taking a risk is a lot easier the more resources you have. The rich man could be a reference to a corrupt person with political power, making the parable a warning that criticizing unjust systems like money lending would probably result in backlash. (For more on this theory, see Parables as Subversive Speech, 1994, by William R. Herzog II.) Turning over the tables of the money changers in the temple was a defining moment of witness for Jesus, but it was also one of the things that may have led to his arrest.
On the other hand, we could use the parable as a jumping-off point to think about the other kind of treasure. In this interpretation, the rich man is flawed in the way he expresses anger, but he does make a good point about doing something with that with which we have been entrusted. We each have talents. We are each the stewards of some amount of ability, insight, and time on this earth. I believe that all of us have treasures that we did not earn and never could earn.
These are gifts from the source of love. We are responsible for multiplying these talents. A spiritual practice of generosity involves noticing that we have been entrusted with gifts and being inspired to multiply them in order to give back. Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker has a poem about this. It is the benediction in her book, Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now (2006). She writes:
Your gifts
whatever you discover them to be
can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind’s power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting.
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
bind up wounds,
welcome the stranger,
praise what is sacred,
do the work of justice,
or offer love.
(Later in the poem, Parker asks a question.)
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.
(She concludes.)
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility,
waiting.
Rebecca Parker is a wise person. She is the President and Professor of Theology at Starr King School for the Ministry, where I went to seminary. I trust her when she suggests the possibility of blessing the world together. Embracing the path of generosity together, in a coordinated effort as a community, helps us to multiply our gifts in a lasting way.
Coordinated generosity of time is what allows us to work together at the Sharing Table. Coordinated generosity of talent is how we worship together at Soulful Sundown. Coordinated financial generosity helps us to grow this spiritual home, where we welcome the stranger.
Multiplying our gifts may require some boldness. When we decide to take on a challenge together like committing to an outreach project or an evening service, we are taking a risk. We are making promises. It would be easier to stick to a routine, to bury our talents under the ground where they will be safe and dormant. I think that it’s part of our job as a congregation to challenge each other to boldness, to invite each other to develop our gifts to bless the world. The spiritual side of generosity is a path that leads onward.
Loving the Unseen Guest
So far, I have mentioned two aspects of the spiritual practice of generosity. First, we locate where our treasures of time, attention, ability, and material resources are going, and decide whether that’s where we want our hearts to reside. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. When we locate our treasures and our hearts, we can see one manifestation of our love for this world. Second, we notice the gifts that we have received in our lives, our talents in the broad sense. We make bold choices to multiply our gifts in the spirit of love, to bless the world. A third aspect of generosity is that it is a manifestation of love for the unseen guest as well as for those we know and care for around us.
There is a quote that I find interesting in the First Letter of John. This letter is not the same as the gospel of John; it may or may not have been written by the same person. The First Letter of John features advice about unity for a particular Christian community in the second century of the Common Era.
One piece of advice (1 John 4:20) is about love between members of the community. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”
This quote resonates with a number of wisdom sayings in world religions. In the Hadith (words and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad, important for understanding the Qur’an), it is written, “Do you love your Creator? Love your fellow-beings first.” One of the sayings attributed to the Buddha is, “Love unrestrained, without hate or enmity. Then as you stand or walk, sit or lie, until overcome by drowsiness, devote your mind entirely to this: It is known as living the life divine.” Buddhist or Muslim or Christian, sages agree that, no matter how privately we feel a connection to wisdom or the spirit, love for other people is part of the path.
As the First Letter of John indicates, loving the unseen is even more difficult than loving those in our midst (which is not always easy). The seen and the unseen go together. Isn’t that how true love works? In our partnerships and friendships, we love the person in front of us, and we also love the person they are becoming, the person we don’t yet know. We love our communities for what they are and for what we know they can be.
Here in Fallston, I think we do a good job of loving the fellow beings we have seen. People here respect each other enough to speak the truth with compassion. Acts of service expand the circle of love made visible. There is a practice of listening here. I can see it in the way people make space for each other in Joys & Sorrows and Discussion & Sharing. During the social hour after the service, I can see conversations happening all over the room and I can tell that people are listening deeply as their neighbors share tender updates from their lives.
I also want to lift up the concrete evidence here of love for the unseen guest. When people devote their time, talent, and other treasures to grow and build this congregation and this meeting house, we are expressing love for those we have not yet seen. We are setting a place for those who will come through the doors in the future, weary spirits seeking rest. We are showing love for the young people who have yet to arrive by building a Children’s Religious Education program and an intergenerational community that is ready to welcome them.
That’s what it means to practice generosity as a spiritual path. It’s not just about serving and sharing with those we have seen, although it’s that, too. Generosity is not only about us or the people we have met. Our gifts, multiplied when we come together, create a beacon of hope for the unseen guest.
Conclusion
We each have treasures, whether they are gifts of time or ability or material resources or some combination. May we embrace their abundance, locating our treasures where we wish our hearts to abide. May we multiply our talents in a shared mission. May our love for the unseen guest be sustained far into the future.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
