Sermon 11/08/09
Stewardship Sunday
Mark 12:41-44
Luke 21:1-4
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Compassionate generosity is the foundation of true spiritual life because it is the practice of letting go. An act of generosity opens our body, heart, and spirit and brings us closer to freedom. Each act of generosity is a recognition of our interdependence, and expression of our Buddha nature. . . . Whether it is generosity with our time, our possessions, our money, or our love, the principles are the same. True generosity grows in us as our heart opens, grows along with the integrity and health of our inner life. - Jack Kornfield This morning is a celebration of who we are as a church together. It is a celebration of our faithfulness and generosity in supporting the spiritual community we call Carmel Valley Community Chapel. This is not a celebration that we live in easy times, nor a celebration that we've reached our goal. But we do have a lot to celebrate today. This morning is also a celebration of those who came before us and their faithfulness and generosity that left us with, among other things, this community. They went through difficult times, too, and they made their share of mistakes, but look what they passed on to us! This morning is a celebration of the Divine, whose nature is love, compassion, generosity and kindness. This divine image is woven into the fabric of our being, indeed it is the essence of who we are. So this morning is a celebration of us and of who we are as a church together. The lectionary reading from Mark's gospel is the familiar story of the poor widow who gave so little compared to everyone else who paid their temple tax, yet in reality she put them all to shame by contributing her small pittance because she gave all that she had. It seems ironic that from a purely economic perspective, the larger payments of the wealthier Israelites must have had a much bigger effect on the temple budget than the two coins the widow tossed in. Yet for the last two thousand years, her contribution has become the inspirational model for self-less giving. The appropriation of this story is not without its shadow side, however, and the actual historical context, if indeed it was a historical event, gives a much more complex and nuanced interpretation that may not make it such a nice fit for Stewardship Sunday! We don't have time to get into all that, so I'll save it for a later day (or not). Yet I have a sense that the reason this story has resonated with us so deeply through the centuries is that we do indeed intuit that all that we are and all that we have is a gift that is meant to be shared, and we don't really know true happiness and fulfillment until we share the fullness of our love with the world. Our stewardship of this church flows out of our growing awareness that all that we are and all that we have is a gift for the world. My life experiences have led me to believe that our actions are connected to our sense of self and our awareness of the sacred. Sometimes our actions lead us to a new self-understanding, other times it is a new understanding of who we are that leads to a different action than we would have done before. Yet there are many times when we seem to sell ourselves short and think and act is if we were only the sum of our hurts and hopes, our fears and desires, and all the feelings we have about this. But that is not who we are and we can grow in our understanding or our true identity and worth. We have this marvelous ability to listen, and we can learn to listen to the love and wholeness that sounds beneath the surface of our lives. As we support ourselves and each other in this listening we begin to hear the deep truth of the love that is our inherent and eternal nature. I have seen this happen in this church and it is a beautiful thing. A few weeks ago in our Thursday night discussion group we read the following story from Jack Kornfield's book, A PATH WITH HEART. One of the best examples of this listening heart came after Gandhi's death, when the whole Gandhian movement of his followers was in disarray. Within a year or two of the establishment of India, a number of his followers decided to have a nationwide meeting to see how best to continue his work. They hoped to convince one elder, Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi's closest disciple and heir apparent, to lead this conference, but he declined. "We cannot revive the past," he stated. After much pleading, they finally convinced Vinoba to lead their gathering, but only on the condition, as he requested, that it be postponed for six months, giving him enough time to walk on foot from where he lived to the meeting site, halfway across India. He began to walk from village to village. As he stayed in each village, he would call a meeting as Gandhi had done. He would listen to their problems and at times advise the villagers. Naturally, he walked through a series of very poor villages, there being many of them in India. In one, many people spoke of the hardship, of their hunger and how little food they had to eat. He asked them, "Why don't you grow your own food?" But most of them were untouchables, and they said, "We would grow our own food, sir, but we have no land." Upon reflection, Vinoba promised them that when he returned to Delhi he would speak to Prime Minister Nehru and see if a law could be passed giving land to the poorest villagers in India. The village went to sleep, but Vinoba, struggling with the problem, did not rest that night. In the morning he called the villagers together and apologized. "I know government too well." He said, "Even if after several years I'm able to convince them to pass a law granting land, you may never see it. It will go through the states and provinces, the district head man and the village head man, and by the time the land grant reaches you, with everyone in the government taking their piece, there probably will be nothing left for you." This was his honest but sad predicament. Then one rich villager stood up and said, "I have land. How much do these people need?" There were sixteen families, each needing five acres apiece, so Vinoba said, "Eighty acres," and the man, deeply inspired by the spirit of Gandhi and Vinoba, offered eighty acres. Vinoba replied, "No, we cannot accept it. You must first go home and speak with your wife and children who will inherit your land." The man went home, got permission, and returned saying, "Yes, we will give eighty acres of our land." That morning eighty acres of land was given to the poorest families. The next day Vinoba walked to another poor village and heard the plight of hunger and landlessness from its lowest caste members. In the meeting he recited the tale of the previous village, and from his story another rich landowner was inspired. He offered one hundred and ten acres for the desperate twenty-two poorest families and again was directed to get permission from his family. Within a day the land was granted to the poor. Village by village, Vinoba held meetings and continued this process until he reached the council several months later. In the course of his walk, he had collected over 2,200 acres of land for the poorest families along the way. He told this story to the council, and out of it, many joined him to start the great Indian Land Reform Movement. For fourteen years that followed, Vinoba Bhave and thousands of those inspired by him walked through every state, province, and district of India, and without any government complications or red tape, collected over ten million acres of land for the hungriest and most impoverished villagers. All this began from the spirit of listening, a caring for truth, and a compassionate beginner's mind brought to an old and difficult situation. Kornfield, A PATH WITH HEART, p. 300f When I read this story the first thing that struck me was how closely this fit my understanding of the historical Jesus and what he did walking around the rural countryside of Galilee. He shared his teachings and offered healing to the villagers, and he encouraged them to feed and care for each other during tough economic times. And, I believe, he listened, deeply and lovingly. We are all involved in a listening process called life. In this process we are invited to go a little deeper, and listen for the love, the goodness, the beauty within ourselves and each other. Let's put our ears to the ground, as they say, and listen to the foundation of our lives. Out of this listening come new possibilities for right action. Out of this listening comes the healing that we and the world so desperately need. Out of this listening comes the compassion and generosity that is the basis for a vital and vibrant spiritual life in community. So here's one more thing to celebrate today: this is a place where we are invited into a deep listening to one another, to ourselves and to God; and we are a people who are ever growing in our ability to listen with both our hears and our hearts, and always with deep compassion. Thanks be to God! Mark 12:41-44 And Jesus would sit across from the treasury and observe the crowd dropping money into the collection box. And many wealthy people would come and drop large amounts in. Then one poor widow came and put in two small coins, which is a pittance. And he motioned his disciples over and said to them: "I swear to you, this poor widow has contributed more than all those who dropped something into the collection box! After all, they were all donating out of their surplus, whereas she, out of her poverty, was contributing all she had, her entire livelihood!" |
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