First Parish Unitarian UniversalistWould You Like the Last Bite?
A Sermon Preached by Ministerial Intern Megan Lynes
First Parish Unitarian Universalist-Canton, MA
January 8, 2006
Picture this. You’re out to dinner with a friend, and you’ve ordered your favorite dessert to share. You are both enjoying it immensely until the tantalizing morsel becomes just small enough on the plate that there is only a single forkful left behind. You wonder for a brief moment why you didn’t get two of those cake slices, but it’s too late now. You both try to pretend you don’t want it that much, and it sits there a while. Then finally, you offer. “Would you like the last bite?” And if you’ve said it in the right way, your friend will say “oh no, you have it, I’m full.” And you get to gobble it up. But somehow, most of us know how to play the game, and that isn’t exactly the way it’s done. You offered, they refused, now it’s your turn to insist. “No really, you go ahead.” You say. And often enough, they do. You watch that last little spoonful of chocolate slip off the plate and enter your friend’s mouth. You swallow as if the sugar taste were on your tongue. And then it comes to you. As you watch your friend enjoying the last bite, the absence of sweet in your mouth becomes far more satisfying than the real bite might have been. You wanted that last bite, yet you gave it away. Generosity comes in large and small packages. As small as a forkful of cake. As large as friendship with intention. True generosity, flows easily when we can see that what we hold most dear in our hearts is always worth giving away.
When I was a teenager I met a man who changed how I view generosity to this day. He wasn’t a zen master or a theologian, but someone I met in a shelter. I noticed him first because he was wearing a turquoise t-shirt: my favorite color. And white sweat pants which were extremely clean. He had darting eyes that would soften when he smiled. Right away I liked his laugh. He was also a man with a long criminal record, no job, no family and no possessions, except for the clothes on his back and a bible, which he kept under his mattress so no one would steal it. Ordinarily William and I would never have met except that my guilty conscience about poverty in the world had driven me to spend a Saturday helping to serve food with my youth group.
William had been at the shelter a long time, trying to get clean and get his life together. We sat down to chat after dinner, and he told me how his children hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a decade. “I messed up really bad with them and now they don’t want anything to do with me. I don’t have any more chances with my kids,” he said. Then he added, “You’re about my daughter’s age.” I asked him about what his life was like and he told me how every day is hard, but that he’d learned to start over every morning. That particular day had been a good day. He’d been to a support group for people struggling with addiction, and for the first time he felt really good when he left the room. I’ve been clean for exactly three months!” He exclaimed. “I never thought I could do it!” He told me the group leader had given him something for being good and his face broke into a smile. “Hold on,” he said, “I’ll be right back!” and off he went, scurrying down the hall.
When he returned his face was masking a secret smile. He was shaking something in his hands. Up down, up down. “Put out your hands,” he ordered. I did. Then carefully he opened his fingers and into my cupped hands fell a clear glass stone. “Today is a good day. I went to that group, and I felt something like hope. And now I’m meeting you.” He stood there for a moment looking first at the stone I was holding, and then long and hard at me. “Are you giving this to me?” I asked. “Don’t you want to keep it?” “Well,” he said, “That’s a special stone. It means a lot to me. But some things mean more to you if you give them away.” And he winked. I wonder if knew I’d spend years thinking about the meaning of those words.
William gave me something precious, his only precious object, because giving it to me meant more to him than keeping it for himself. I’ve used that mantra when it comes time to write to a friend and all I have left is a favorite postcard I’ve saved for years. Letting go of it is hard, but I can do it. On occasion I’ve given away a book or piece of furniture I love but don’t need. Knowing that someone else is enjoying my gift helps me move away from selfishness in my life. I’ve even tried to give away William’s stone once, but I couldn’t do it. Yet. It’s still too precious.
But I believe William’s gift actually touches upon something deeper than simply a message about living simply and sharing possessions. In telling me his story, William gave me his trust. What he shared touched me on a personal level and the stone symbolized that for the two of us. He had talked. I had listened. Later on I talked too. In retrospect, above all else, William’s primary intention was to acknowledge me as a fellow human being. What mattered to him was that we notice our relationship to one another, and the stone solidified the permanence of that.
His gift was special to me because it was a pure gift. I hadn’t needed it. He hadn’t needed to give it. Was the giving about him? Or about me? I believe it was both. Generosity is about creating an awareness of the other and seeing beyond oneself. In trusting one another we had each looked cleanly at the real human being within. Generosity is concern and caring without pity.
Acknowledging another person, especially when he or she appears vulnerable or threatening or different in any way at all, calls us into relationship with another person. And if we have opened our eyes to become aware of another suffering being we have acknowledged their nearness. When we’ve looked that close, how can we keep from looking at all the others? How can we possibly then ignore the rest of humanity’s suffering? Are we willing to have that kind of relationship with other people? We shirk from being in relationships with others because we are afraid of feeling overwhelmed and powerless. It takes determination to decide to fight fear and reach for the human being. William’s stone reminds me every time I look at it that regardless of our fear, other people are out there reaching for one another as I agree to reach as well.
This week I was touched to hear over the radio Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, sending his blessings and well wishes to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who lay in the hospital after suffering a major stroke. Political agenda aside, I could hear in his voice the sound of genuine caring and I found my eyes welling with tears. Somehow I began to imagine Mahmoud Abbas sitting at Sharon’s bedside. I know this is silly, but that’s where my mind went. “Deep peace,” he was whispering, “to you.” How hungry we are to hear these words.
There are lots of stories about generosity in the bible. You have most likely heard the story about the woman in the New Testament who went to the temple to pray and when it came time to give money to the collection, she emptied her pockets and pulled out two small copper coins called denarius, the currency of her time. People at the temple laughed at the paltry amount. She’d donated less than a nickel by our standards. Yet she’d given all that she had. Her gift was a pure gift. Her gift carried more spiritual weight than the large sums given by the rich men by her side. They were giving out of guilt or out of their plentitude. She was giving out of the emptiness of her pocket and the fullness of her heart. That’s what William chose to do as well. He had next to nothing to give, and yet he gave away something of great value to him. But it’s not always so simple. If giving were easy we would all do it more often, because goodness knows it can feel absolutely wonderful to make someone’s day.
Sometimes in these situations we can slip into giving not out of generosity, but out of ego. It feels good to give. I’m a good person! I donate to poor people on the street! And then in turn we feel bad for having felt proud of our giving. It’s a slippery slope. We’re hard on ourselves. We know it’s good to give and yet we get in our own way, wondering if we’re giving out of guilt or to make ourselves feel better. Sometimes when we feel bad about our true motives for giving, we don’t give at all. The Jewish tradition of Tsedakah helps address this issue. Jews believe it’s a fundamental part of their religion to give to those in need and there is a commandment which requires them to do so, called Tzedakah.
This Hebrew word means righteousness, though many people assume it means charity. In the Torah it is written that Jews are obligated to help people who can’t meet their own needs. Give to the poor. Clothe the naked. The idea is very simple. Help other people. Do what’s right. Doing Tzedakah is a mitvah, a commandment, and one does it whether it feels good to do it, or whether it doesn’t. In this way giving becomes a spiritual practice. Like the woman who gave her two coins to the temple, one gives because one should. One gives because it is the right thing to do to. I believe the heart of a young person is naturally eager to do Tzedakah, but that as we age our hearts may get hardened as we get hurt. And when our hearts get hardened, it is even more important to have in place a practice of compassionate giving.
I have a 12 year old Jewish friend who is given three dollars a week by her parents and with it she can do anything she likes as long as it is a form of Tzedaka. One week she and I were in a convenience store and she paid the extra dollar and a half of a young man's grocery bill when it came up short. Another week she ordered a Livestrong yellow bracelet, the sale of which raises money and awareness about cancer. She wanted to keep the bracelet herself, but like William with the stone, she chose to give it to a friend. Some things mean more to you if you give them away. I was proud of her. I think if it were me at her age, having already donated the three dollars to the cause, I might have kept the bracelet. Clearly, generosity takes practice. Sometimes it will feel great, sometimes it will feel like a hardship. Cultivating a spiritual discipline gives us opportunities to examine and expand the boundaries of our hearts.
Miamonedies, a great Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages who wrote commentary on the Torah, talked extensively about there being different levels of Tzedakah. Spiritual discipline combined with compassion can be done on a small or grand scale. One of the highest forms of doing Tzedakah is helping someone learn an occupation. Clearly, if you have taught someone to fish, he or she will no longer need your gifts of food. Your student is now self sufficient, and you are free to give your food to another in need. Perhaps, your fisher friend will pass on their knowledge to others and the cycle will continue. Generosity has a delicious tendency to perpetuate itself. Humans can be selfish, but given a choice, most of us would rather not be.
In November I spent a few days as a chaplain in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. One day walking across the dusty orange earth of an otherwise desolate trailer park, I met a young girl named Latisha, who was maybe seven or eight. As she came around the corner of one of the trailers I could see that she was clutching a small bag of something green. When I asked her what she had, she opened the bag and pulled out a long bumpy piece of okra. Apparantly in her new school she'd been given an assignment to write about her favorite food, which turned out to be okra gumbo made by her grandmother. A classmate, upon learning about Latisha's favorite food, had come back the next day with the vegetable for her to take home, and special instructions to spend time with her grandmother learning the secret recipe. I couldn't tell which was making Latisha happier, the idea that she'd made a friend, the prospect of having quality time with her grandmother, or the fact that she owned nothing at all in the world yet she now had a gift to share with the relative she loved.
Another of the highest levels of Tzedakah is giving anonymously. I taught at an overnight camp for two years and there was a girl there named Eliza whose parents were shot when she was three. Completely anonymously, someone from Eliza’s church put aside enough money for her to attend summer camp every year as soon as she was old enough. The camp became the one place in the world that Eliza knew she’d always return to and where she knew she’d be loved. She’s been a camper there for over ten years now, and has never learned the name of the person in her congregation who pays for her to go.
The highest form of Tzedakah, Miamonedies wrote, is giving anonymously to an anonymous person. So unlike Eliza’s donor who could see the amazing effects that camp had on her when she returned to church every fall, some people are able to give to a person they’ll never meet, and who will never know from where the gift came. I once heard a story about a woman who, unsolicited, donated one of her kidneys to an organ bank so that someone else might receive it and be given a chance at life. The transplant was a success and the recipient was understandably overjoyed at his new lease on life. He contacted the organ bank asking if they might ask his donor whether he or she would be willing to meet so he could say thank you in person. His donor thought about it, but eventually said no. She said it meant too much to her to walk down the street thinking, “Perhaps you’re my person!…Or maybe you’re my person!” Her anonymous gift to an anonymous person has allowed her to feel connected to all of humanity. Although she didn’t want to speak to the recipient of her kidney she asked that the organ bank pass on this message: “You are loved by life itself.” This highest form of Tzedakah allowed for the spreading of a divine message: You are precious. You are loved. Your existence matters. Yes, some things mean more to you if you give them away. What you hold most dear is worth sharing with others.
Of all the values you hold in life, which is the most dear to you? For the woman in the temple I imagine what she valued most may have been integrity. Doing what was right meant more to her than the shame she might face in living by her morals. Eliza’s camp sponsor must have valued the reliability of a safe and loving home. For the organ donor what she treasured was life itself. Latisha might have felt that what she craved was her grandmother's love and with okra in hand she got to give back to her what she knew would foster time together for both of them. For William what mattered was seeing and being seen. In choosing to give with a generosity of spirit, these people opened their hearts to living out their faith. What is the faith that you live by? Giving away what you treasure most will change you for the better. It will change others for the better. What you do may feel like the smallest of actions, but true generosity does change the world. What in your life do you hold most sacred? What is it that feels hardest to share? How might you offer your truest self from the depth of your being? It’s a good thing we get lots of chances to practice…Would you like the last bite?
Amen