UU Society of Cleveland

March 16, 2008

From You I Receive, To You I Give

by Rev. Colin Bossen

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and by this we live.

The words from our opening hymn today form the message of this service. The hymn was written by two twelfth generation singing Rabbis, brothers Nathan and Joseph Segal, in the late sixties. Its' simple words capture the essence of a religious community. When we sing it we are reminded that the community we create amid, among and with each other is a community of giving, receiving and sharing.

The story of the loaves and fishes, which is found in all four the canonical gospels, shows how the sharing of gifts in a community can create an overabundance. The story is usually interpreted to highlight Jesus's miracle making abilities. Read this way it is his special relationship with God that allows Jesus to turn the five loaves of bread and the two fish into enough food for everyone. When Jesus prayed God worked magic through him. A miracle occurred and a meal that was meant for a dozen was turned into so much food that even five thousand people could not eat it all.

Like all stories in the Christian New Testament there is more than one way to interpret the loaves and the fishes. Another way to read this story is to suggest that in it Jesus performs a far greater miracle than the transformation of five loaves and two fish into a repast sufficient for five thousand. Instead of working miraculous magic he taught everyone present to share. When Jesus brought out the loaves and fishes that he and his companions had with them, blessed the food and offered to share, even though it was not enough, he convinced everyone else present to share with the group what they each had. Some people had small pieces of fruit in their pockets and Jesus's generosity moved them to share their fruit. Others had a loaf of bread tucked away in their bag and when everyone else started to share they too pitched in. In this way the whole community created a great miracle and, because they shared, everyone had not only enough but more than they needed. There was even food left over.

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and by this we live.

This morning I am going to examine our hymn line-by-line in an effort to better uncover the message contained within it. The first line of the hymn, "From you I receive," is a simple statement. In the context of our community this line raises two primary questions: What does one receive? And from whom does one receive? The answer to the first question is almost immediately obvious. We receive the gift of community. I will expand upon what that gift is a little later in my sermon. Right now, I want to turn to the second question: From whom does one receive?

We receive the gift of community both from each other and from the generations of people who came before us. Our religious ancestors worked hard to ensure that their community would survive into the next generation. As members of this community we are all their direct beneficiaries. It is because of them that we have a place to call our spiritual home. We have a large endowment because of the generosity of earlier members and friends. We own our building outright because of them. Through the gifts of their time, skill and money they created the community that we have inherited from them. Even though they have passed on we continue to benefit from their generosity. To cite one example, I would not be here without their generosity. The congregation pays for a portion of my salary with interest from the endowment.

Some of the most important gifts we have received from our predecessors are less tangible. It is from our religious ancestors that we have received our free religious tradition. Their insistence that, to quote the 16th century transylvanian Unitarian bishop Francis David, "we need not think alike to love alike" has maintained our tradition for many years. As Unitarian Universalists we are beneficiaries of the millions of Unitarians, Universalists and Unitarian Universalists who came before us. They struggled so that we might have a community where freedom of thought, reason and tolerance are encouraged. They worked hard to build a community where all are welcomed, encouraged to love each other and the wider world, find truth as each understands it and seek justice.

Our religious ancestors include people like:

King John Sigismund of Hungary, history's only Unitarian monarch who in 1568 issued the Edict of Torda, the first law on religious tolerance in Christian Europe;

Joseph Priestley, an English scientist and Unitarian minister who discovered oxygen;

Abigail Smith Adams, a Unitarian and wife of President John Adams, who opposed slavery and advocated for women's rights long before either position was popular;

Olympia Brown, who, as a Universalist, in 1863 became the first ordained woman minister;

Susan B. Anthony, a Unitarian and Quaker, who strived throughout her life for the right for women to vote and, never despairing, said "Failure is impossible!";

Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister and abolitionist whose words inspired Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King and whose actions inspired resistance to slavery across the United States;

Abner Kneeland, a Universalist minister and freethinker, who, in 1838, was the last man jailed for blasphemy in this country;

Henry David Thoreau, a dissident Unitarian who, with his works "Civil Disobedience" and "Walden," laid out much of the philosophical framework for non-violent resistance and the environmental movement;

Linus Pauling, a Unitarian Universalist scientist and peace activist who won the 1954 Nobel prize for chemistry and the 1962 Nobel peace prize, making him the only person to ever win two Nobel prizes.

I could spend the rest of my sermon simply offering a list of our religious ancestors and their achievements. Unitarian Universalists include some of the most inspiring people in human history. As a religious movement we have received a lot from our religious ancestors and talking and teaching about them can make one to want to follow their examples. In a very real sense we are here because of them. One generation passes its gifts along to the next.

We do not only receive gifts from those who came before us. We also receive gifts from each other. Our presence together in community is a gift we receive. From each other we receive the gifts of welcome, of caring, of nurturing and of spirit. As we say every Sunday morning that we gather, we welcome everyone into our midst regardless of color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental abilities or economic status.

We care for each other. Since I arrived here in September, I have been impressed by the circle of caring in this community. When someone who is sick, injured or in need of assistance we rise to the task of supporting and helping them.

We nurture each other. The reason why you come here on a Sunday morning is because of what you have received from this community. You may have received encouragement for growth, emotional support, a spark that pushes you to work for justice, a place to raise your children or some other gift that I cannot articulate. Whatever it is there is something that each of you receives from this community. That something brings you here week after week, month after month and year after year. That something nurtures you, makes your life a little better and your heart a little stronger.

We help each other to grow in spirit. The gifts we receive from each other and from our religious ancestors offer us the opportunity to become a more generous, more thoughtful, more community minded people united in a quest for truth and justice and ever growing in a sense of awe, wonder and gratitude.

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and by this we live.

The second line of our hymn echoes the first. "To you I give" suggests that while receiving may come first the proper response to receiving a gift is to give one back. Each of us is here because of the gifts we have received. As soon as we become part of this community, the moment we enter into it, we begin to give gifts to others. We may not even be aware of the gifts we give. Our presence with each other is its own gift. Such a gift is one that we are not always conscious of giving. But to participate in the life of our community is to begin to give back to those who created it before we entered into it.

The scholar Lewis Hyde has written a fascinating book called "The Gift" in which he explores the social significance of gift giving. In his book Hyde argues that alongside the market economy human beings have also created a gift economy. In fact, it is probable that the gift economy predated the market economy. While the market economy is based upon the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services of, at least in theory, similar value the gift economy is based upon the giving of gifts. In a gift economy people give each other gifts with no expectation that an item of similar value will be returned to them. In a pure gift economy each member of the community gives either to the community or to other community members according to their abilities. In exchange they receive from the community what they need. Such economies are based on a general sense of mutual aid and support. They are products of the social bonds shared between the members of the community.

Gift economies are not fairy tales or myths. They may sound strange to our early twenty first century ears but, as Hyde demonstrates in his book, examples of gift economies can be found throughout human history and even embedded within sub-cultures and sub-groups in our contemporary culture. Rarely do societies that Hyde describes practice a pure gift economy. In most cases they still engage in some acts of bartering and trading, often with groups outside of the immediate community.

One example of a partial gift economy that Hyde highlights is the practice of potlatch that was found among the indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest before the European conquest of North America. The term potlatch can be loosely translated as "big feed." A potlatch was a feast that lasted for several days. It was given by a member of a tribe who wanted his rank publicly recognized after he had accumulated a certain amount of wealth. The way that he had his rank recognized was to invite all of the members of his tribe to a giant party. During the course of the party the host would give away food and various durable items. In this way some of the wealth that he had accumulated would be distributed back into the community and everyone would benefit from his successes. The attendees of the potlatch were not expected to give anything to their host. The only communal expectation was that if they were to become lucky enough accumulate excess goods they would throw a potlatch in turn. For the communities in question potlatch was often a major way to provide for communal celebrations.

In our community we hold a regular monthly potluck that provides another small scale example of a gift economy. For our potlucks most members of the community bring a dish to share. From all of our various households appear salads, appetizers, main courses, desserts and drinks. The generosity exhibited at the potluck, which is open to all comers, manifests itself in an overabundance of food.

While the act of gift giving does not come with an expectation that someone will receive an item of equal worth for their gift there is an expectation of reciprocity. In the communities where potlatch was practiced it was expected that if someone received great bounty he would share it with the rest of the community. With our potlucks there is an unspoken expectation that community members will pitch in to make the monthly event a success. People might bring a dish, help set up or clean up or make a small financial contribution.

The gift giving that takes place in a potlatch or a potluck creates social bonds between the givers and the receivers. This social bond in turn forms the basis of community. By offering a little something from ourselves we are acknowledging that we care about each other and our community. Or as Hyde writes, "when part of the self is given away...community appears."

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and by this we live.

When we give and receive together we are sharing. The third line of the hymn bespeaks this. Sharing is the basis of community and sharing is just another word for exchanging gifts. By sharing with each other we create a community in which we can give and receive gifts of welcome, care, nurturing and spirit.

Once we have created such a community we have an obligation to share it with others. John Wolf's words from earlier this morning suggest some of the reasons why we might want to share our community. We are a welcoming community, we open our community to all seekers. We have a free pulpit and encourage the free exchange of ideas. We challenge each other to seek what is best in ourselves and in the world while acknowledging the worst.

A community like this is worth sharing. We can only do this together, by reaching out and inviting people to join with us. When we invite new people into our community to share with us our community grows stronger. In doing so we strengthen our own connections and practices of giving and receiving. We become a more generous and welcoming congregation. All of us, in turn, benefit from that shared generosity. Sharing our community we enter into relationships with more people, people who are not already here. Each new person brings their own unique gifts. As a community we benefit from them.

From you I receive,
to you I give,
together we share,
and by this we live.

The final words of our hymn are "and by this we live." The fact of the matter is we need community to survive. Human beings are inherently social creatures and without love and affection, without community, we will surely wither. Our religious community then offers us a necessary form of sustenance.

For many of us the sustenance we receive within our congregation is not available elsewhere in our lives. We are here because we have found no better place to acknowledge the awe, wonder and gratitude that life fills us with. We are here because this community, this Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, nurtures our spirits. It brings us into closer communion with the universe and with each other. It asks Emerson's important question: "Why should we not also enjoy an original relationship with the universe?" And reminds us of Theodore Parker's dictum "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." We are here because we receive all of these gifts from our community and, in turn, we give them to each other.

This Sunday marks the start of the Society's annual canvass. I have been talking about the gifts we give and receive in our community, in part, because I want to encourage you all to give. In many religious communities there is a practice of tithing, or giving 10% of one's income to the community. Unitarian Universalists do not practice tithing. We do, however, encourage people to give a percentage of their income. Some people give 1% and some give 10%. Some give a portion of their charitable gifts to the congregation and a portion to other charitable organizations that they are involved with. Some choose to give all of their charitable giving to the Society because they feel that is the best way to make an impact. I am not going to tell you how much I think you should give or whether I think you should give everything to the Society or only a portion of your monetary gifts to this community. That is for you to decide. You best understand what you receive from this community and what type of gifts you would like to give it. And even as you are thinking about giving financial gifts you should remember the many other types of gifts—gifts of time, presence and skill—that you can and do give to the community.

I will tell you that this coming year Sara and I will give 3% of our gross income, about $1700. We give elsewhere too. Sara belongs to another Unitarian Universalist congregation, All Souls in Washington, DC and we also contribute to a number social justice and labor organizations that we support. In total our annual charitable giving is around 5%. We give to the religious communities and social justice organizations we do because of both what we have received from them and how perceive them giving to the world.

I believe that if we are generous with our religious community we will become like the loaves and the fishes. The gifts we share with and among each other will become so strong and so pronounced that they will spill over into the rest of our lives and into the wider community. By sharing with each other we will create an overabundance. We will exhibit a generosity of spirit that is inspiring to witness and transformative. That it may be so, I say Blessed Be and Amen.