The Joy of Giving

Murmuration

Starlings murmurate. They murmurate, which is the distinct relational pattern that enables them to keep warm at night, to exchange information, to find good feeding places, to stay safe and whole. A flock of individual birds can act in concert by orienting their own movements to that of six other individuals. Single birds connecting to others become one strong body, ensuring that the whole will endure from the center to the edges. Maybe they do it just for beauty. Humans do this too. Let’s watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekibVX3gK5Q&t=3s m

Homily

In her award-winning sermon, “The Land of Enough,” the Rev. Cecelia Kingman says, “Communities of faith perform a singular function. They have what sociologists call an alternative imagination, an ability to posit a future different from, and better than, the present we know” (5). A singular function—a function not performed in any other area of society. Here at UCM, we offer an alternative imagination, a mission we re-state each Sunday morning—Deepen the Spirit, Nurture Community, Act for an Equitable, Sustainable World. Reminding ourselves that that is our reason for existing, that might be the best reason to attend Sunday morning worship. Like a flock of starlings, each bird individual yet oriented toward several others, we find our way into relationship, we invite and include, we move together in joy, we make beauty and wonder in the world. How can we sustain, widen, and deepen this glorious dance of commitment?

And in order to perform this singular function, in order to create “alternative imagination” for a world made better through more love and more justice, there is a question to answer, a question for all for each of you.

A question for those present here and those far away in terms of their connections to the Congregation, those who find themselves and whom we find at the edges of our murmurating flock. A question, for we hope to be a beacon of light in this community, a spiritual home including for those feeling themselves outcast in some way: what are you called “to give of your resources to [this] ministry of love and justice? What percentage of your resources does Love ask you to share?” (7). What percentage are you called to give? Ah yes, it is Canvass Time, and we are not yet at the goal. We must talk about that dirty word, money.

Rev. Kingman says, on any Sunday morning, “we grapple with life’s most profound matters: justice, death, the nature of humanity, even the existence or non-existence of God. Still, the subject of money rarely comes up. In many churches, it is easier to talk about sex than finances” (2). We honor our at-risk siblings on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we plan to offer the Our Whole Lives sexuality training for our children and youth, we celebrate Pride Sunday with singing and dancing, and a celebration of diverse sexuality and gender. And . . . , we struggle to set a target number for the annual pledge drive. Yet here are some financial truths.

Last summer, this congregation lost its biggest financial supporter when Larry Rawlinson died. Last year, after lots of congregational conflict and important actions by your leadership to draw boundaries around behavior and communication, this congregation lost pledge income. UCM has been running a deficit budget, small but impactful. This congregation runs without an endowment, and no significant cash reserves except what will float us in a bad month until pledges or more rental income comes in. Every Sunday, we struggle with the sound system, with feedback and failing equipment. We don’t have the monetary or human resources to mount online worship so that our saving message might reach more people who need to know we are here. This congregation relies on rental income, but the buildings need more cleaning, more repair, some basic painting of dirty walls, more trained building supervisors. In other words, these are not optimal conditions for attracting more rentals and perhaps charging better prices.

But I have another question for you, beyond what may seem a bleak financial forecast, beyond what percentage you will give, given these real realities: Will you continue to murmurate, as do the starlings? Will each of you individuals continue to look to the outer edges of current reality, as well as to your individual companions, and continue to shape a joyful and exuberant alternative imagination—for this religious community and for the larger world?

An alternative imagination was what I was looking for when I discovered Unitarian Universalism.

Ours is a faith tradition where I both felt comfortable as I was, as well as able to grow and transform beyond my then-limitations. I was attracted to Unitarian Universalism because I could experience meaning and value even when I felt most depleted and most vulnerable, even when the world was cruel and insane in its glorification of profit and wealth and the oppressions that produce scarcity and destruction, violence and hatred. I would not be the self that I am today, with a promise of more transformation in my future, without Unitarian Universalism.

Within this faith, generative and loving processes foster the diversely adaptable and resilient, even while the world seeks so often to rip itself to shreds. Creating a world of liberation and fairness was not something for the afterlife. I could be part of the processes, large and small, that would honor the multiplicity of life rather than trying to suppress it. I could be part of the processes that fostered compassion and companionship and opposed the processes of competition and lack and resignation. I could buy or knit a set of mittens or a scarf, donate it for those who need them more. I am a true believer in the saving and healing power of this faith. I believe you all are as well.

I know some of you here have stories that intersect with mine, not the same as but sharing some aspects while bringing different ones in as well. Yet all of us, we are seeking, in some way, an alternative imagination. This community, UCM, has for 70 years endured and transformed, has provided some of that imagination. UCM has kept the faith of building a community in tune with the rhythms of the earth, by including and welcoming new people and the prodigals and the seekers who are not sure yet that we can be a community for them. For 70 years, UCM has re-imagined what community can be and kept our doors open to those seeking.

And we have done this by blessing, not cursing, the world with our time and talents and treasures, yes, our money, by our faithfulness within and to this community.

The Rev. Kingman tells us that the “old proverb about the Lord loving a cheerful giver is often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean that we should give an amount that is easy for us. It doesn’t mean you should grin and bear it! It means that we should give a gift that gladdens our hearts, that gives us joy. It means that when we give generously, with authenticity and integrity, as the Divine moves in us. The Divine moves in us” (7). And so, what is moving and motivating you?

Soon, we will convert this sanctuary into a banquet hall and a conservation salon, sharing together a potluck and a discussion about the immense relevance of covenant to our congregational and individual lives. You will sit face to face with friends of long years, as well as those newer to the congregation. And you might also reflect on your gift to keep this Congregation whole and vital, the gift you have already made—and thank you for that—or on the gift you are contemplating. Our Treasurer Becky Bridel and members of Finance or the Canvass Committee can talk to you about how to make your pledge, or even increase your pledge. But before you give, and before you consider your gift all finished, I ask you to consider the meaning of giving one more tim —“What gift can you give that will be meaningful to you, that will give you strength and clarity in the months ahead? What gift would be exciting and nourishing to your spirit?” (7). What gift will remind you, fully and beautifully, of the plenty that the Congregation provides? What gift will remind you of the plenitude that you provide to keep UCM and Unitarian Universalism the beacon, the open door, the refuge that it can be and must be?

Gratitude Ritual

We are all gifts to each other, offering our presence as beacons of love and hope. And we orient, we murmurate with specific individuals. This is not a popularity contest, but a chance to define our deeply rotted connection to particular people. I invite you to write down the names of those with whom you orient as our Congregation seeks to move together for the benefit of all of us and for the greater good in our alternative imagination. Write the names, and bring them forward as Abigail plays, your list a symbolic good defining this community. Later, we will begin to see the patterns that help us stay together, the patterns that help us dance in joy together, in celebration of life and of a greater, deeper alternative imagination for our future and for our community.
[. . . .] Together, a team of us will craft from these lists a visual representation of how we murmurate, how we stay together for the good of and safety manifested in this community. This is how we fly and dance together as a people, grateful for companionship, grateful for compassion, grateful for purpose to make the larger world better, grateful for the Unitarian Universalist faith that tests and guides and inspires us. May we sing to the power of the love, the joy, the hope, the faith within but also among and beyond yet spilling out into this very room, all of us together. May it ever be so.

https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/21/6/1349/333856?login=false
https://bigthink.com/life/murmurations/
https://healthyspirituality.org/mystical-murmuration/
“The Land of Enough,” Cecelia Kingman Miller. In The Abundance of Our Faith: Award-Winning
Sermons
on Giving. Ed. Terry Sweetser and Susan Milnor. Boston: Skinner, 2006. Pp. 1-8.