Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

October 12, 1997

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21
The Sermon on the Mount

Money has a bad rap, spiritually speaking. In fact it has such a bad rap, that some people think we should not speak about it in church at all, as if it might soil us spiritually. But I think we cannot separate our financial lives from our spiritual lives.

I know it’s tricky and subtle, this question of money and how it relates to spiritual well-being. Every religious tradition has its own stories and teachings in regard to the subject. Here is an old Kurdish tale: “A man was sitting on a rock, overlooking the ocean. Next to him was a case filled with gold coins. The man picked up a coin, studied it, and then threw it into the ocean. He picked out another coin, turned it over in his hand, and flung it into the sea. A holy man was passing by, and stopped to look. After seeing a good amount of gold disappear into the sea, he approached the man and said, “What is this?”
“A case of gold,” the man answered.
“But what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m throwing it into the ocean.”
“What do you want to do that for?”
“I’m practicing non-attachment,” he replied calmly.
“Then why don’t you just dump them all in at once?” asked the holy man.
“Oh, no,” he said. “This attachment I have, it needs to be struggled with a hundred thousand times.”¹

You know, I have to confess that I too often feel that attachment myself, and I’ve been trying to figure out where it comes from. With me the attachment feels like fear. There is this voice that whispers, “There’s not enough,” and that idea brings anxiety. I’m trying to understand what’s going on, and I’m trying to get a right relationship with money, but that hasn’t been easy. I haven’t been able to dump all the coins in at once, but I have made some progress, and I want this morning to share that process with you.

First I knew that I needed to examine my childhood experiences around money and the attitude of my family of origin. I grew up with my father, who worked as a roughneck in the oil fields of Louisiana, and with my paternal grandparents, who were retired on social security and a modest pension. This early home environment is where the whisper comes from. As a child, I always felt money was in short supply. I usually ended up getting what I asked for, but I always felt guilty for the asking. I tried not to ask, because I hated that guilty feeling. This atmosphere of scarcity came not so much from real want as from the fact that my father and my grandparents had been through the depression and had weathered it with some difficulty. I’ve heard stories about my grandfather eating for breakfast the only egg in the house, leaving the seven children with milk and biscuits. And my grandmother, who had fed not only her children, but in order to make ends meet took in boarders as well, would conserve every scrap of food. I can remember several times peeling the top off an onion and taking perhaps too much of the flesh, and then noticing my grandmother fish it out of the garbage in order to salvage what I had wasted.

My father, on the other hand, was a profligate. He earned good money in the oil field, but he gambled and he drank. And so there was that sense that although we had money one day, we might not have it the next. I never really wanted for anything, whether it was a new dress for the prom or good food to eat. And when I went to college, my father always had saved the tuition money—not trusting banks, he would have it wrapped in an old sock in the bottom of the bureau drawer. So I had what I needed. It’s just that I was fearful all the time, because the adults in the family were so fearful. I worried about the prom dress. I worried about the tuition money.

Then I grew up and, as they say, married well. I married a surgeon from a well-to-do family, and from the time of our engagement, I was treated like one of the family. Before marriage I was a school teacher in Louisiana, barely been able to get by. But as a doctor’s wife, I wanted for nothing. In fact, I was amazed at how easy it was to buy anything on credit, no questions asked. My husband and I had a joint checking account, and I simply bought anything I wanted. My needs were modest, and so money was never a problem. I never, though, took responsibility for the finances—that was his job. When I decided to leave the marriage, I had no idea of our financial worth. My husband and his lawyer determined the amount of the settlement, which I felt was generous, and so I simply accepted it.

It was a few weeks after he moved out that I realized that the maid would have to go. I was plunged—indeed, I had jumped headfirst—into emotional, social, and financial loss that I could never have foreseen. That financial struggle persisted through my work in social services and then through the years that I was in school studying to become a minister. I had to learn about money and deal with money, in order to survive.

Through a combination of work, scholarships, and student loans, I was able to do eight years of school, and I felt greatly blessed and privileged to have that time. It was during that time of study that I began to think about my own personal giving. Perhaps it was because I was so happy that I began to want to give some money away. And so I did, regularly, each month. I did not do it grudgingly, I did it out of the bounty that my life had become.

And now to the present. After school and a brief interim assignment, I came here as your minister. I was 50 years old, and for the first time I was earning what one might call a good salary. How much should I give to the church? I knew that the standard of 5 per cent had been set several years back in this church, and so I started there. That was an easy decision. And then as time went on, and I realized how much our church needed money, I upped that to 6 per cent. Then last year, I took a big step, at least for me. I decided that I would tithe—that is, give away 10 per cent of my income, before taxes: 6 per cent to the church and 4 per cent to other causes. That’s what we call a “liberal tithe”—half to the church and half elsewhere. The idea frightened me, to tell you the truth, but I just closed my eyes and did it.

It’s the part about closing my eyes that was the problem. In truth I had still not taken responsibility for my attitude toward money. I had assumed a kind of spiritual pride in not concerning myself about money. But failing to take my financial life seriously was not “spiritual”--it was just stupid. You see, I had done no retirement planning of any kind, and since I had accumulated very little in my few years as a minister, I had no sense of how I would care for myself when I got older, which I began to notice I was doing at an alarming rate. So just this past Friday I met with a financial planner, to begin setting a course of action. She has a computer that has all kinds of graphs and charts in beautiful reds and blues and yellows. The deal is this: you punch in your assets and your liabilities, you tell this computer how much you want to bring in per year when you retire, and you estimate how long you will live. Then the computer tells you what is necessary to achieve your goals. Simple as that. Well, we plugged in the data, the colors flashed on the screen, and I thought it all looked great. She paused to see if I was understanding, and then she said, “Well, as you can see, if you go this route, you’ll need to die at 75.” I said, “Let’s go to plan B.” Turns out that I’ll have to save a lot more than I have been saving. Turns out that I’ll need to sell my house when I retire. Turns out that I’ll need to work for a few more years than I thought. Actually, you folks are stuck with me until I’m 83! (Just kidding!)

As we began looking for alternatives in my financial life, she said, “I notice that you’re giving away a lot of money. I hope you’re paying yourself first.” I like this woman and I think she’s smart, but that advice, I just couldn’t understand. I told her, “No, I’m not paying myself first, because I could always find ways to spend all the money. No, I have to take God’s money off the top. And then I work with what is left.” It’s easier that way.

Though I had entered with some ignorance into this tithing plan, I do not for one minute regret that decision. Let me explain why. Now I’m not going to give you a prosperity lecture—you know, the New Age belief that giving brings you increased prosperity, because God rewards you or because the universe showers financial blessings upon you. No, as a matter of fact, shortly after I gave away my 10 per cent, I discovered that my tax accountant had made an error on my last four years’ tax returns, and I owed the IRS $8,700. Thank you, God! Cutting my pledge was not an option, so I borrowed most of the money, and I’m paying it back.

So what did I get out of my decision to tithe? And why, in heaven’s name, am I recommending it to Unitarian Universalists? Isn’t that why you left the Baptist church? I’m recommending it because when I sat down and wrote those checks to this or that organization that I value, and of course to our church, I felt strong and powerful and loving and unafraid. Unafraid. That’s the big one for me. That childhood whisper is leaving me. Oh, I still have qualms about buying bananas when they go up over 69 cents a pound, I still can get into that model of scarcity and holding back. I can’t dump all the gold coins in the sea at once. But as I give, in faith, I can give more, and I find that my anxiety about money begins to disappear. My needs have always been provided for. They will in the future, as well.

We cannot separate the spiritual from the financial in our private lives, or in the life of the church because “where your treasure is, there will your heart be, also.” What is the condition of your heart? That is the question. The essence of spiritual practice, I believe, is to live with a thankful heart. Not living thankfully just when things go your way. But living in a kind of primal thankfulness. Then when something hard comes along, you’ll be prepared to see the gift in it. And there’s always the gift.

David Spangler, an early leader of the Findhorn community, reminds us that true abundance is more than material. He writes in his book The Laws of Manifestation, “To have a consciousness of abundance on a soul level does not mean having a sense of access to many things. . . but rather being at one with the Essence behind and within all things. True abundance is a consciousness of wholeness, oneness and quality. . . .”

If I believe, as I do, that how one deals with money reflects one’s deepest spiritual values, then I have reason to be concerned about Unitarian Universalists. A survey done in the late ‘80’s shows that UU’s finished dead last in giving to their churches. The Mormons donated more than 7 per cent of their income to their church, whereas UU’s gave less than 1 per cent. Our average pledge at this church is about $700, compared to $1100 for the three other churches that are about our size in the downtown area. That would be Trinity Episcopal, First Presbyterian right down the street from us, and the Methodists across the expressway. Do we give less because we are poorer than these other church goers? Well, maybe the Episcopalians—but not the Methodists! The fact is that only 1 in 4 Americans earns $46,000 a year or more—but 60 per cent of Unitarian Universalists top that mark.

Cecilia alluded to fundamentalist groups and the influence that they are having in this country today. Ballot Measure 9 and Ballot Measure 13, the anti-gay measures, came very close to passing, and the effort was largely funded by fundamentalist churches. Look at this full-page ad that came out last week in the Oregonian, trying to convince people that gays and lesbians are somehow unnatural and that God doesn’t approve of them. Why is it that our church squeaks along each year with a bare bones budget, why is it that we can’t afford even a part-time social justice co-ordinator-- when these folks are placing full-page ads in the Oregonian? What’s wrong with this picture, as they say? Why is it that a million men were marching in Washington last weekend, proclaiming the Biblical admonition for men to dominate and control their women? They say this is not a political effort—but why then did they march in Washington and not, say, Phoenix, Arizona? If you believe, as I do, that our values of equality and tolerance and a radical respect for the individual are values that must be upheld, then we must do better in supporting this church, for the institution is the container for the values. It must be a strong container.

I hope each and every one of you will be here for Celebration Sunday next week. There will be great preaching from Dan Aldridge, an African American preacher with style and vision. There will be great music, Mark Slegers promises that. And a fabulous free brunch after each service. As you consider your financial pledge, let me remind you that there will not—I repeat, there will not—be a capital fund drive later this year. This is our annual canvass for operating expenses, and we need the strongest canvass ever to prepare us to get this institution in the best shape possible as we move forward to implement our vision work next year.

I want each family here to go home this week and think prayerfully about your financial life—in particular about your giving and how that relates to your spiritual life. You don’t have to throw all the coins in the sea at once, but take a step that will make you feel good, that will help release your fear and give you that sense of abundance I’ve been talking about. I don’t want anybody in this church, ever, to give out of fear and guilt. I mean ever. Give out of your sense that this is the right thing to do. I’m not promising that you’ll win the lottery if you double your pledge, but I can promise you this: act in faith, do the right thing, and you will be richly blessed. That I can promise, and I do, this day.
So be it. Amen.


PRAYER

Creator God, who has blessed us with earth and sky and sea and cloud, who is the Source of all that is, we come before you thankful this day for the blessings of life. For family, for friends, for this fair city in which we live, and for our church. We are thankful that our needs have been provided for in the past, and we pray that our hearts in faith will grow ever more generous.

BENEDICTION
May you rest thankfully in the gifts that you did not earn, and may you give freely from your bounty. Go in love and go in peace. Amen.

^{1 From “Walking Into the Sun: Stories My Grandfather Told,” collected by Jon Schreiber. California Health Publications: Oakland, CA, 1991.}

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.