“GROWING SPIRITUALLY, PART 4:‘How Can I Give of
Myself?’”
I Peter 4:7-11
November 9, 2008 – Rev. Jerry Duggins
I want to explore with you the connections between “generosity” and “spiritual growth.” In doing so I will have a few things to say about the relationship between “who I am” and “what I have” and of the difference between talents and gifts.
It seems appropriate to engage this topic at the time of our annual stewardship dedication when we offer once again our time, talent and treasure to the church in service to God. It is a well-known axiom in the literature on stewardship campaigns that the emphasis should not be placed on the church’s need for your dollars, but on your need to give. Generosity is not something that can be coerced in people. No amount of coaxing or guilting will ignite the giving spirit.
Henri Nouwen believes that this spirit is fundamental to who we are as human beings. He writes:
What a wonderful mystery! Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others. Although it often seems that people give only to receive, I believe that, beyond all our desires to be appreciated, rewarded and acknowledged, there lies a simple and pure desire to give (p. 85).
Nouwen goes on to lament that “in our highly competitive and greedy world, we have lost touch with the joy of giving,” living “as if our happiness depended on having.” (p.87). We are trained from a very early age in the importance of “having.” Robert Corin Morris tells the story of watching his two year old open presents at the rather large family gathering. He noticed his son’s anxiety rising in opening present after present after present. It became somewhat acute when he opened one present and wanted to begin playing with it, but others were already pushing another package at him. He managed to restore his son’s calm only after the barrage of presents was complete. He pulled his son aside and set him to playing with the one that he had noticed caught his son’s fancy.
This frenzy of acquisition is repeated in various ways throughout life. Sometimes we scarcely even know what we have in the midst of the pile of things before us. There is little doubt that the abundance of things can be a distraction that impoverishes our spirits. No quantity of things can make us happy. For Nouwen, the needs and wants we have cannot be met by material wealth, but instead are invitations to reach out to others. It’s in connecting to others, giving to others that we discover happiness. He writes:
“I think that our deepest human desire is to give ourselves to each other as a source of physical, emotional and spiritual growth” (p.89).
Nouwen seems to be saying that in finding our happiness in giving ourselves to others, we need to first reject materialism, but Morris in writing about spirituality invites us to see it in a much more nuanced way. He cautions us against forgetting the goodness of creation in our eagerness to reject material things as a way of becoming more “spiritual.” He agrees with Nouwen that we can become “overwhelmed with stuff.” But it’s not the “things” themselves that stifle spiritual growth, it’s our obsession over them, our intent to hoard them and keep them for ourselves. It’s our intent to “have” them for ourselves alone that causes spiritual stagnation. This attitude, according to Morris, actually “snuffs out the capacity to explore and enjoy the simple goodness of creation.” (p.140). He goes on to say:
…the truth is that our consumer-driven culture doesn’t appreciate matter very much at all. “Much and Quick” are ways we use matter – extravagantly, wastefully, and destructively. No society that genuinely loved matter would treat it as disrespectfully as we do. (p.141)
What’s wrong with our modern glut of consumer goods is that it bars the way to the true use and enjoyment of the fruitful abundance celebrated in Scripture. (p.142)
For Morris and others who share his perspective, the world in which we live is a model of God’s generosity. Autumn leaves, majestic mountains, scenic views, ocean waves are things for anyone to see and enjoy. They are gifts of God that enrich our lives, open wide our spirits and engender in us an appreciation and joy in the goodness of creation. The attempt to own such things and limit their enjoyment to a few shows an utter disregard for God’s generosity.
As a culture we are fixated on
ownership. Nearly everything is patented or copyrighted. Not that it’s a bad
thing to protect the discoveries, inventions and creative ideas of individuals.
But did you know that 20% of human DNA has now been patented and is owned most
likely by a pharmaceutical company or institution. The Regents of the
Sometimes we have our problem defined thusly: we “love things and use people” when we should “love people and use things.” We shall come closer to God’s own eye of delighted love for the world if we let ourselves love both people and things in their places and “use” each with respect, consideration and justice. (pp. 146-7)
Generosity turns a mere object into a shared experience. It turns a thing which we thought to possess into an opportunity to connect to another person. Generosity turns “having” on its head. When we focus too much on owning things, we run the very real danger of being ourselves possessed by those same things and our spirit shrinks within us. Generosity reminds us to value people over things not by rejecting them but by placing them into proper perspective. What I “have” serves who I “am” instead of the other way around. We are fundamentally “givers.” As we place the things we “have” into this service, then our spirits grow. This is true, I believe, for all spiritual types. Giving pulls us to the center, helping us avoid the dangerous extremes.
Ultimately, the best gift we can make to others has little to do with what we have or even with the things we do. The best gift we can give is our “self.” Again Nouwen writes:
When we think about being given to each other, what comes immediately to mind are our unique talents: those abilities to do special things especially well…. However, when focusing on talents, we tend to forget that our real gift is not so much what we can do, but who we are. The real question is not “What can we offer each other?” but “Who can we be for each other?”
More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, love, hope, trust and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer each other. (pp. 90-1)
In this Stewardship season, we dedicate to the church’s use for the sake of God’s kingdom our time, talent and treasure, but we must remember that the most important gift we offer is the gift of ourselves. I love this expression that Janet and I frequently use in the prayer of dedication: “we offer a portion of our substance, and the whole of ourselves.”
This takes us back to the beginning question of this series on growing spiritually: “Who am I?” This is not about the things you have or even the things you do. We are surrounded by many good things and wonderful people. Many of us are engaged in meaningful work. But there is a generosity that lies at the core of our spirits, unique to who we are. We want to give not just things that bless others. We want to not just do for others. We want to give of ourselves. And sometimes that is hidden beneath the things we have and do.
Nouwen lived for some time in a house that included many mentally handicapped people. The longer he lived there, he said, the more he recognized “the true gifts that in us, seemingly non-handicapped people, often remain buried beneath our talents.” (pp.91-92).
There is a danger here, of course, that in concentrating on giving ourselves, we end up in fact giving nothing. It may be that we only learn to genuinely give ourselves as we give our possessions and talents. I want us to hold Morris’ caution in our minds that there is a fundamental goodness in creation that we are intended to enjoy and appreciate. The giving of self is not some inner maneuver in the mind, but is exercised in real time in concrete ways. Such giving can of course happen while holding back the self; but one cannot give of oneself in the abstract.
“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God,” we read in I Peter, “serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” God’s grace instills in each of us a fundamental generosity. So many things in life attempt to cover over this generosity. Sometimes we afraid that we won’t have enough. Sometimes we become fascinated and want to hold on to everything we’ve worked hard to get. There are a thousand messages being thrust at us undermining God’s generous spirit.
But what we have been given by God is so much more powerful. We are graced by God, loved by God, forgiven by God, included in the community of God’s creation. In these things and many other ways we have come to know the joy of receiving. But in sharing what we have received, we model God’s behavior and our spirits find their joy made complete. In Christ, we are essentially givers of the grace which we have received. The kind of giving we do, does not impoverish us, for it makes connections with others. It draws us into the circle of love. It builds community. Generosity and spiritual growth, they go together.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Resources
Life
of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Crossroad Publishing Company,
Wrestling
with Grace: A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Life, Morris, Robert Corin. Upper Room Books,
Uncertain
Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds, Cummings, Claire Hope. Beacon Press,