Sermon on the Amount

Readings: Matthew 5:1-16
Hymn: Rank by Rank Again We Stand, #358

Sermon

Sermon on the Amount

Last year I spoke about money by tracing some of its famous history in Judeo-Christian tradition. I quoted from Exodus and the Gospels, showing how in Exodus there is a portion that mandates contribution to the support of the temple, even when the temple was only a tent sheltering the tabernacle, and the support was mostly in the form of animal and grain sacrifices. And in the Gospels, I reviewed Jesus' outrage at the money changers presence at the temple. The money changers were there to facilitate the purchase of sacrifical portions for offering at the temple, but still Jesus was outraged: not at using animals for sacrifice or even that money was taken to support the temple, but that it happened there; in his eyes the temple was being profaned by being used as a marketplace.

I find many aspects of Jesus' work and values inspiring. On the intersection of money and church, we part ways. I was raised Unitarian-Universalist and my liberal religious understanding of what a church is, together with my professional sense of what a church requires, makes me very comfortable addressing most aspects of church finances. Yet each year I find the annual canvass sermon a challenge. Isn't it always a little, well uncomfortable, a little strange, a little shocking maybe even, to talk about money in church, in worship? I'll admit it, for me it is, but I don't believe it should be, and I'll never give into it. Our Unitarian Universalist heritage teaches us, again and again, that we have always been a people concerned with worldly realities and the work to be done by us in this life, that we carry forward from others who have made our lives better by virtue, and I do mean virtue, of the changes they wrought with the work of their lives. Now the torch is ours, yours, mine, and this congregation's, so here we go, the Ôsermon on the amount.'

It didn't start with Jesus. Religion has historically had an uncomfortable relationship with money. Before money came along, when people still dealt in goods, the relationship was easier. Goods were offered and received in creative ways that had clear, apparent religious implications. The goddess Athena in ancient Athens received a new dress on a regular schedule, woven by the women in the city who would process up to the Acropolis and give it to the goddess. The enormous statue of the goddess Athena Parthenos would wear her new dress until the next one came. Animals were sacrificed for most gods and goddesses, including the god of the Hebrew Bible, and the deity would feast on the smoke rising from the cooking meat, which was usually then given out to the worshippers and officiants, so that everyone benefitted from the sacrifice itself, as well as the implications of the act in pleasing the deity.

When money came along, it began to supplement and finally to replace the traditional categories of sacrifice, food and art, which are religion's most primal forms of offering. And isn't that a surprising combination: food and art. Think about it, people gave animals, grains, and food made from those ingredients, or art: sometimes representations of those animals and grains, sometimes representations of deities or their dwelling places from a painting or small clay figurine to an item of clothing or a statue or an enormous temple.

Food for the body on the one hand, with animals and grains; food for the soul on the other with the art. We think, in modern society, of art as a luxury item. It is expensive, few people make it, fewer people accumulate it, the only people who think about it seriously are those involved in it. And the access most people generally think of to art is in museums. Now food, sure, we absolutely understand food as an essential element for human existence, perhaps the most important, followed by shelter, warmth, health, maybe love, maybe peace. But art - we don't really even see a connection to those other essentials, except maybe in really expensive restaurants that give us an enormous sense of life's riches and our own importances.

But in the ancient world, body and soul were more inseparable, and both food and art were essential. As a form of sacrifice, art was part of our relationship with the divine, an exchange for blessings obtained and wished for in the vulnerable experience of human living. As a form of expression art was part of our sense of the divine - and this lasted even into the last millenia with the creation of temples and then mosques and cathedrals with their rich experience of sacred space.
When money came along and became part of the system of sacrifice, eventually replacing most other forms of sacrifice entirely, things got more complicated. Direct gifts of food and art were clearer in supporting our relationship with the divine than money, with its worldly, inessential nature. Unlike food or art, money has no intrinsic value. It nourished neither our bodies nor our souls when we possess it, its has value only for what else it might obtain.

And in accordance with money's complicated nature, a whole new bunch of rules were created in the world's religions about how to handle money - how members can and should give money, about how faith communities can or should receive money, what they should do with the money - how to keep it, spend it, use it, give it away. No one needs rules about how to enjoy the taste of food or the feeling of well-being that comes with not being hungry or sick, or the feeling of sacred awe that art or nature can create in us. We do not need to learn how to laugh or cry or breathe - unless the breathing is part of a meditative practice. But like religious breathing, religious finances are different to different people in different circumstances and so there are many stories and rules, like those in the Bible, describing the different perceptions of different people who cared about the relationship of money and faith.

Even today, religions are strange about money. What seems perfectly appropriate or even spiritual to some seems shocking to others. Every Jew I know is appalled by the way Christians and Unitarian Universalists pass the plate in the middle of worship for people to give an offering. A Jewish friend came to my installations service at my last church in Mt. Kisco, NY and took photographs which he gave me afterwards. Among the pictures of various ministers and lay leaders at the pulpit were a couple of photos of the offering plate with bills lying in it coming towards him. He actually took pictures of it, that's how striking it was to him.

And most non-Jews I know are shocked by the way many Jewish congregations charge a fixed membership fee, and even worse, charge a lot of money, often hundreds of dollars for tickets, TICKETS, to the annual high holidays services in the fall. Imagine, they say, charging hundreds of dollars for people to come to Christmas Eve services. We could never do that. Imagine, the Jews say, passing the plate for money in the middle of woship. We could never do that.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus makes many extraordinary promises, more than promises, prophecies to his listeners about what will come to them and to the world in the fullness of time. The poor in spirit will find fulfillment in the kingdom of heaven. The meek shall inherit the earth. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness shall have their fill. The merciful shall receive mercy. The pure in heart will perceive the divine. The peacemakers will be recognized as partaking in God, in sacredness. Those who persecute for the right reasons will experience heaven.

Jesus' words concern a coming time, a new world order in which all would be made right. Unitarian Universalism calls us to find our fulfillment and our righteousness in this world. We believe that if the poor in spirit will find fulfillment it will be in their spiritual strivings and goals of their lives in this world. If people are to have righteousness in their lives it will be because we work to establish this world as a truly righteous place. If mercy is available, it must come from all of us. If the divine is available to the pure in heart, it is revealed in the bounty and miracles of this world. If the peacemakers are to be called children of God, it is we who must call them that. If we persecut for the right reasons, and I would add, in the right way, afflicting those we oppose with letters and love and democracy and compassion for all, if we win by doing that, well then we would have heaven on earth.

Jesus said, the meek shall inherit the earth. As a lifelong UU, I look at our religious faith and all the good works it has done, all the changes UU's have made in this world, to end slavery, to establish true public education and improve the treatment of the mentally ill, to march and even die for civil rights, to commit ourselves to gay and lesbian rights and a woman's right to choose and a woman's right to be a religious leader and the freedom for men and women and children to come together for who they are and to search together for life's highest truths and values, I say: we inherit the work.

Yes, it's not a stirring when you first hear it. "The meek shall inherit the earth." And we inherit the work. But it's true, and it's better than it sounds, for two reasons. The first is that we UU's we are not meek. The meek need us, participants in this liberal faith that has always been on the leading edge of established religion, creating reforms in our wake that serve everyone, including the meek. If the meek ever do inherit the earth, it will be because we helped, making the world a safe place for everyone, including those who because of their own character, or society's character, must be meek.

The second reason that's better than it sounds is because we don't just inherit work to do, we inherit all the work done on our behalf by those who came before. I read from our hymn Rank by Rank the line: ours the years memorial store, honored days and names we reckon, days of comrades gone before, lives that speak and deeds that beckon. This church around us that keeps us sheltered and warm and holds the laughter and grief of close on 50 years now, this is our memorial store. Look past me to the quilts, the honored days and names we reckon. Look around you in the sanctuary to people who have been coming here for decades, who helped found this church, who have dedicated years of their lives to this place and our work together to the new faces who each day they join us affirm the power of our faith's vision and the dedication of all those who came before.

Last week I was standing in the breezeway by the administration building with a long-time member who now lives in Columbia. He had been inactive for a while and so I am just getting to know him now. We were looking out admiringly at the gardens which I always think of as Daisy's, though I know many of us work in them a lot. He said "You know, this all used to be bare ground, when I first came here, there was nothing here, just clay dirt." I said, "I know." ( which I did.) And he said, reaching out to the graceful rhododendron which was at least seven feet tall: "I planted this bush. And the azalea next to it. Look at it now, taller than me."

We don't have to build this building - others, some no longer with us, did it not only for themselves, but for us. Our job is to keep growing this church by investing our dreams and our support in it, to safeguard it so that it will endure, to hand it on when our turn is over. The classes we teach here to children and adults, the grounds we nurture, the buildings we maintain and expand, the roof we repair, the professional leadership we retain to help us make this church a place where we can realize all our dreams for the world, from which we take our dreams out into the world, showing the world how it can be done...all the work we do to fulfill our dreams: others did this work before us, did all that work - we know how much work that is, so that this community would be here for each of us to fulfill our dreams for personal transformation, for social justice, for liberal religious leadership in the world.

You know what this church is about, the dreams realized, the potential still abundant. And you know what I think this church is worth because I am here as your minister, gratefully, gladly here, both for what this church already is, and for the unlimited promise of what we can be. Our canvass season is your time to reflect on what this community deserves. Our values, our work, the time adults spend teaching children, the time we spend teaching each other, the programs that nurture our youth into adulthood, the fun and aspiration and exultation and grief and trust that we share. We need this place and the world needs us. Please join me in pledging what you can. May we reap bounteously from what we sow.

Amen.

CW; Matthew 5:14-16.