Priceless!

A sermon offered at
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana
October 3, 2004

By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Readings

From the Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder:

“Money, money, money, money, money!  It’s like the sun we walk under.  It can kill and it can cure.  Horace Vandergelder never tires of saying that 99% of the people in this world are fools and, in a way, I suppose he’s right.  We’re all fools – and we’re all in grave danger of destroying the world in our folly.  Yet the surest way to keep us safe from harm is to give us those few things in life which will make us happy – and that takes a little bit of money!

“Now, the difference between a little bit of money and no money at all is enormous – and it can shatter the world.  And the difference between a little bit of money and an enormous amount of money is very slight.  But that, too, can shatter the world.  It’s all a question of how it’s used.  As my late husband, Ephraim Levi, always used to say: Money -- you should pardon the expression -- is like manure.  It doesn’t do anyone a bit of good unless it’s spread all around, encouraging young things to grow.”

And this is from the vast storehouse of stories:

Once upon a time there was a woman known for her wisdom and kindness.  She and her beloved husband lived in a modest home.  One day her husband was out and a poor man knocked at her door.  Destitute and distressed he begged for her help, but she had no money in the house.  She thought for a moment and then remembered a new pair of cufflinks that her husband had been given by her brother recently.  She ran and got the cufflinks and pressed them into the open hands of the poor man, along with a bag of food.  The man thanked and blessed her and went on his way toward town.  Moments later the woman’s husband came home.  When he heard about the poor man and the cufflinks he fell into an uneasy worried silence.  When the woman asked him what was wrong he replied, “Those cufflinks!  Did you know they were worth at least 100.00?”  An alarmed look came over the woman’s face and she bolted out of the house and ran down the street until she caught up with the poor man.  “Sir!” she said, “I have just learned that those cufflinks are worth at least 100.00 – don’t take a penny less for them!”  Again the man thanked her and she returned home at peace.

Sermon

The story of the wise woman and the cufflinks holds surprises as it shifts between the layers of meaning. Wealth, bounty, scarcity, money, are complex – layered with meaning.  We use money all the time, frequently worry over it, try to manage it – but to really think about it is pretty daunting.  Money is a tool in a world based upon exchange – it’s a symbol of an agreement – because that exchange enters us into relationship with the world.  It can’t be avoided.  At one time people exchanged goods, services, labor, poultry – but today we use money in our transactions.  As in any event in the world we can look at our transactions on the surface or we can see beyond the surface to the deeper layers – where meaning lives.

In a small town long ago there was a street sweeper who lived a simple life.  He worked just enough to pay for his room, his plain clothes, and his bread, butter, coffee, and soup.  Although he was very quiet and kept no friends, he had a genial smile for everyone he encountered.  When people dropped things on the street he would find the people and return their things.  He lived in this way until he died.  At his death, so the story goes, the angels celebrated that they would at last be able to meet this kind, honest, and modest soul.  Even God was thrilled to have this wise man join the ranks of heaven.  When he arrived God met the man himself and offered him a gift in thanks for his walking so conscientiously upon the earth.  God said to the man that he could have any one gift that he asked for.  The street sweeper thought for a moment and then said: “thank you, I would like some bread, butter, coffee, and soup.”  And God was embarrassed.  For instead of a wise and generous man – this street sweeper simply had lived on one level in the world – and didn’t know any better.  What’s mine is mine and what’s your is yours.  Now to be simple is thought of differently than when this story was written.  To be simple still means to bless the earth by walking gently on it – but to be complicated and choose to live simply – that is a complex gift indeed.

It matters that we will to look below the surface – to our own desires and motivations.  That is the key to transforming the world – because it is key to transforming ourselves – in connection.  We rely upon the world for nourishment, learning, love, growth – you name it –we’re embedded in life.  Our transactions with one another or in the marketplace – either enhance that life – which is shared by all or detract from it.  Seldom do we – especially in this powerful nation – have transactions which begin and end between two people.  Even between two people there are layers of meaning.

Nilton Bonder, in his book The Kaballah of Money describes four layers of meaning – I’m taking liberties because theologically Bonder and I are on different pages – but overall his book echoed my own reflections about the nature of wealth.

The four layers are connected – like the orbits of planets in a solar system – connected by the invisible pull of gravity – held in an orbiting tension by gravity.

On the material level our transactions are this for that – four dollars and a molto vente caffe latte.  On the emotional level the molto vente caffe latte may bring us a moments warmth, energy, and some pleasure.  If I buy from a small businessman it will contribute directly to his financial well-being.  Here the layers get wider – his well-being is involved in my choice to buy my coffee there and not at a mega chain – and that will touches the world on a spiritual level.  That means that I choose to make my four dollars mean more than it will mean at a huge chain that where my four dollars will be four of millions.  The good will that I offer along with my money may go unspoken – but it is experienced by the businessman who knows exactly what he is up against.  I have included a moral perspective in my choice of where to spend my four dollars.  Let’s say that I ask the owner about fairly traded coffee and ask if he might be willing to sell some.  I offer that I would be willing to pay more to benefit more people and to buy my bulk coffee from him.  We commiserate over the risks of small businesses.  No matter what he does I am expanding the circle of moral and spiritual awareness by asking him about it.  The final layer of the transaction may take place out of my sight – he may choose to offer fair trade coffee – he may choose not to do that for years or ever.  The eventual ripples of the transaction happen out of my sight – and perhaps, even, after my lifetime.  But they exist whether I see them or not.

The world is, by nature, rich and abundant – and we are a part of that abundance and have a responsibility to keep it strong and increasing.  Increasing abundance may be hard to measure – I can’t directly see the consequences of my transactions – but they are there nevertheless.  The wise woman in the first story felt her own abundance.  The story never told us if the husband was upset that she gave away the cufflinks – but it is possible that he felt just as she – that their well-being was connected to the well-being of others.

There’s a commercial on television that begins with a woman choosing a dress from a long line of dresses in a rainbow of colors.  Then she’s choosing her shoes from a long line of shoes in the same rainbow of colors and then her handbag a long line of handbags in the same rainbow of colors.  Then she goes outside and chooses a smart little sports car from a long line of smart little sports cars in the same rainbow of colors.  I feel sick by the end of the commercial.  Then I discover that it’s for the Lottery.  Like – that’s what we’re supposed to do with our new found abundance – horde it and benefit ourselves in a private world of orgiastic choice.  Sure the government is going to take a share in taxes – I can only hope that that will provide some abundance for someone who needs it.  But there should be some other tax – something that we should give to increase the abundance of the world – when we have an unlooked for gain, an unearned gain, any gain.  What the woman in the commercial has does not look like wealth – it looks like greed.  She won the lottery and her reward is to as greedy as she wants.  James Buchan, a journalist, has called money Frozen Desire.  That rings true for me.  Our use of money represents the impulse we have in one direction or another – our desire.  Money is where we freeze our desires between transactions in the world.  For the woman in the lottery ad, her desires have become frozen into herself.  But, of course, she’s only a character, not a real person. 

Nilton Bonder says – “the world is, for conscientious human beings, a world of ever more intricate systems of livelihood – our family feeling is larger, wider, and our perception of hospitality is sharper.”  Hospitality – as though we all share one home and make our stay in that home sweeter, more wonderful, if we live in hospitality toward one another.  I feel a strong sense of hospitality when our share of the organic farm co-op comes in each week.  I feel pleasure that the land is being loved and that small farmers are making a living.  The circles of hospitality are very wide – as food comes to me and I’m nourished both by the food and the interactions with the other co-op members.  It’s food I’m easy with.  I know where it came from, who it benefits.  Ultimately, I am investing in the well-being of my family, the farmer, the other people in the co-op, and the future of the earth and that is priceless in the long run – the layer of transaction which is out of my sight.  We’re making our home more hospitable.

Many nations have traditions of giving gifts to hosts – when our Korean guest was here she brought gifts and we gave her gifts in return.  It was part of a material exchange that had nothing to do with the things themselves but everything to do with saying you’re welcome and thank you – parents and children both.  We were embodying our interdependence – her parents sent their priceless daughter to us and let us know their gratitude – and we let them know by a return of gifts that we’re fortunate to have her with us and that we appreciate their trust. All unspoken – but all present.  And everything that was really important in that transaction is priceless.

The material world is precious and means something and we are of it.  We set the conditions for those priceless things through the materials of our interactions.

There’s the Biblical story about the rich man, in which Jesus says:  "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor; then come, follow me."  When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.  Jesus said to his disciples, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Leaving aside the theological questions – the interesting thing about this story is that for all the man’s virtue, he still clung to his possessions.  He hungered for something priceless, peace and wholeness, yet he could not release his possessions to possess what he truly desired.

            The Rabbis call this yishuv olam – settling the world.  It’s acting and living justly so that the household account of the world is settled.  So that abundance is truly possible.  It’s what Dolly Levi means when she says that money should be spread around like manure encouraging things to grow.  It means being lavish – like the wise woman in the story.  Willing to see beyond the superficial level of money to the deeper layers where the world is balanced or out of balance.  It means knowing ourselves well enough to know what it is we really want – or what’s needed to make the world a better place.  One of Islam’s Five Pillars is giving to charity, spreading wealth.  It recognizes that we belong to each other – as people in a household do – we’re here in relationship.

            To settle the world, to make of the world a hospitable place with enough for everyone – this requires a sense of our relationship with one another and the rearrangement of our desires into something that connects each person back to the common wealth.  So that each person sees themselves as in partnership with the world.

So much of what we desire – what we really hunger for – is priceless.  Still we set the conditions for those things by settling the world – by making the world more fair – more just.  Not simply in our own corner but for all creatures.

            We are partners together – everyone here in this church – in making real this covenant, in furthering Unitarian Universalist principles.  UU churches are engaged in literacy programs, voter registration drives, school partnerships, prison reform, adult education, food pantries, relief programs, green sanctuary programs, peace missions, service to native peoples, service camps, religious education, support of the arts, honoring the interfaith community.  In those ways our churches live out our principles.  This church contains possibility but only to the extent that we settle it fairly – that we look deeply at what we desire and invest our vision and the means to that vision generously – like the wise woman or the innkeeper.

There’s a story about a traveler who came to an inn for a night.  When he went to pay his account the inn-keeper pointed to two boxes on the wall and told him to put half the money in one box and half in the other for his partner.  “Oh,” said the traveler” who’s your partner?”  The innkeeper answered – “When I set up in business I was told to find a good partner to help me balance my books.  I thought for a long time about who to take on and finally decided that justice would be my partner.  So half of my earnings go toward doing justice and alleviating suffering and the other half I keep for my family.”

            If we see through the layers of our transactions we can see that in this world we’re all partners.  And even more so in this church. 

Each year we make pledges to this congregation.  Those pledges serve on one level to set the material conditions for the programs of the church to happen.  They settle the house so that those things which are priceless can unfold in this place and beyond these walls.  The pledge that each person makes empowers our vision and without vision, the prophets say, the people perish.  I knew a church where they had a minimum pledge – that just covered the basics and newsletter costs.  On one hand they were able to welcome poor people – on the other hand they had no programs to serve or empower them – no one saw beyond the layer of basic cost and minimum vision.  The church remained small, the ministry part-time, the RE Program tiny, the support staff meager.  At no time were the members invited to see beyond material transactions to the priceless things they made possible.  So they seldom attained those things.  They managed to pay utilities and keep a skeleton crew – but never fulfilled their deepest vision – because it wasn’t connected for them to the pledge they made.  There was never enough to create a solid base, settle their home, and make their home hospitable.  Here, we are blessed in the generosity of many people so that we’ve outgrown that plateau. 

The pledge is not for light bulbs or re supplies or staff pay or water bills alone -- that is the superficial layer – our stewardship provides the structure without which none of the priceless things come to pass.  The vision.

Therefore, each year at this church we make the invitation again – to firmer vision, a sense of deeper hospitality, and broader generosity.  Each year we invite one another to see our deepest values made possible in this place.  Made possible because we recognize that we are really partners – trying to settle the world -- to make the world more fair with our work, our sense of widening family, and our free faith.  Setting the conditions for our deepest desires to come alive. 

            This modest Covenant, written by Unitarian minister, the Rev. James Vila Blake, in the 19^th century, is rich if we take each word to heart and remember that, to Blake and the other Unity men of the Western Conference – one another meant the living world.  For Blake already the church was a free church – unencumbered by a higher ecclesiastical authority who provided the money and therefore set the course.  Even more so in the wild hinterlands of places like Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.

            From worship and music to learning and exploring to serving and transforming our community and the world – our church has the glory that we invest in it – whether it is the widow’s mite or the rich man’s burden – if we invest the best of ourselves.  In this congregation so much is possible if we each work to unfreeze our finest desires and allow them to flow like waters of justice and goodness.  The wise woman in the story would tell you to run after your noblest visions for this congregation and not to give a penny less for them – but to gather and give to them their greatest value – because they are priceless.  You are priceless.