April 6, 2025: "Generosity of Spirit"

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Generosity is not just about charity. It is not just about giving money. Generosity is a quality of spirit that allows us to give and share ourselves more fully with others. How can we cultivate generosity and gratitude in how we live our lives?

Graphic created by Abby Henkel Roman

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Sermon Transcript

Generosity of Spirit

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

UU Church of Bloomington

April 6, 2025

READING

Our reading this morning is by the writer, speaker and activist, Parker Palmer. It is a reflection on abundance and scarcity from his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.

“Daily I am astonished at how readily I believe that something I need is in short supply. If I hoard possessions, it is because I believe that there are not enough to go around. If I struggle with others over power, it is because I believe that power is limited. If I become jealous in relationships, it is because I believe that when you get too much love, I will be short-changed.

The irony, often tragic, is that by embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear. If I hoard material goods, bothers will have too little and I will never have enough. If I fight my way up the ladder of power, others will be defeated and I will never feel secure. If I get jealous of someone I love, I am likely to drive that person away. If I cling to the words I have written as if they were the last of their kind, the pool of new possibilities will surely go dry. We create scarcity by fearfully accepting it as law, and by competing with others for resources as if we were stranded on the Sahara at the last oasis.

In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically. It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common store.

Whether the “scarce resource” is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around. Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection, but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need.

…Abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community not only creates abundance – community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.”

SERMON Generosity of Spirit

This month of April, we are diving into the theme of generosity. Last June, delegates from our 1,000 Unitarian Universalist congregations adopted new language to articulate the shared religious values of our tradition. I have talked about them before, and shown the flower image graphic that features Love at the center with the other six values –
Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence and Generosity –
emanating from Love.

Most of these values and the language describing them draw from the previous iteration of shared values known as the Seven Principles. But, generosity is a newer articulation of who we are and our tradition.

Here is what our new language says about our shared value of Generosity: “We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant (which means promise) to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.”

While the use of the word Generosity might be a new articulation – the generosity at the heart of our theology is nothing new.

The emergence of Universalism as a distinct theological tradition in the U.S. was in reaction to a strict Calvinism that believed that at the beginning of creation all the souls of humanity were created and only a few were good enough – the select few – the “elect” destined for heaven. The rest were lost, depraved, unable to be saved. But to this
theology that dominated early American society, our Universalist forebears brought the message of God’s unconditional love and expansive grace that left no one behind. A theology that said God’s wish for humanity was for us to to know the abundance and universalism of God’s love, and share it with others through kindness and community. In contrast to a theology that teaches that God’s love or salvation are hard to earn or only for the few, Universalism is a theology of generosity and abundance. This is Good News!

You know, sometimes we mistakenly think of generosity as only about money and charity, but it is so much more than this. Generosity is a way of living with our hearts and spirits open – willing to give and share of what we have – including our love, attention, care, resources, support — and trust that others will give and share with us when we are in need.

As Parker Palmer writes in Let Your Life Speak, "the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around. Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection, but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need.”

Parker’s words contrast with two myths that operate, even dominate, in our society which undermine our capacity and practice of generosity. The first is the myth of scarcity. The second is the myth of self-sufficiency.

First the myth of scarcity. Palmer speaks of this as the assumption of scarcity – how many times in daily life we assume something we want is in short supply. Are there ways this assumption of scarcity shows up for you? Maybe it is a fear about money, or power, or jealousy.

In my own life, where I find a scarcity assumption showing up is with Time. How many times I find myself saying – “I don’t have enough time,” “I wish I had more hours in the day”; “how will I ever get all these things done – there is not enough time!”

I share this, just to open up the fact that we can have a scarcity assumption about so many things. For some, a scarcity mindset shows up around money, or power, or belongings or food – or love. And sadly – or perhaps predictably, given what Palmer says, the more we feel trapped in that feeling of “there isn’t enough,” the more it reinforces the very scarcity we fear.

For me, this happens when I feel I don’t have enough time, and I end up worrying about that – or I end up focused on the wrong things. I’ll try to get a bunch of little, easy things done, rather than working on the big things first. And then I find there is not enough time for those big things.

Many years ago, I shared how I get caught in this assumption of time being scarce and a congregant gave me a gift. It was a Brian Andreas poem. If you are not familiar with Andreas’ poetry, his short poems are accompanied by colorful drawings to help illustrate or bring a playfulness to the spirit of his words.

This is a picture of the gift and the words read “Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”

Every time I read this poem it makes me relax and let go of my scarcity assumption. It reminds me not to focus on time and all the things that need doing, but instead to focus on and center myself in what is important. I am still a work in progress, so this is a learning I return to again and again.

A wonderful friend of mine, Sam Kirkland (he visited from Phoenix several months ago), shared with me a learning that he came to in his own life.  He said, “I realized I could live my life like this (with my hands in fists, pulled in tight, defensive to the world), or I could live like this (with my palms open and my arms outstretched).  It made a huge difference when I started living like this (open to the world).”  When I feel like I don’t have enough time, I feel like my fists are balled up and protective – and when I read Andreas’ words and remember there is enough time for what is important, I let go into a posture of openness, remembering what is important.

This is why generosity matters. It is actually a spiritual quality we bring to our lives and our relationships that keeps us open and receptive, as well as ready to give and share. And in living with this openness, with a spirit of generosity, we create connection and community – and through that abundance.

This brings me to the second myth that undermines generosity in our lives and our society. And that is the myth of self sufficiency. This myth is deep rooted in the United States – it’s an old myth – often told as the spirit of rugged individualism – and like a lot of myths, it has never been the full story.

The myth of rugged individualism that created U.S. prosperity and innovation erases the reality of the dependence on slavery and exploited immigrant labor and the collective brutality, land theft and attempted genocide of native peoples.

These myths combine to erase and distort reality today. One that gets me always is this idea that poverty is a moral failure rather than a direct result of policy that reinforces abundance for the few and scarcity for the many. Or that only those who need government assistance – like food stamps or medicaid are dependent on the government. This ignores that ways that government subsidies support so many industries and business and jobs in our country. And this isn’t bad. Shared investment; depending on each other, investing together in our values and the common good isn’t bad – it’s valuable – it is worthy – it is part of creating a life sustaining culture and ecology. As Parker Palmer reminds us, “Abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole.”

The myth of self-sufficiency ends up reinforcing scarcity. For if I have only myself to rely on then I will never have enough – and the dangers of loss will be catastrophic.
This thinking feeds practices and cultures of greed, hoarding and inequity – and a
dismissiveness to the needs of others.

Scarcity thrives where excessive individualism thrives. And generosity thrives where community and a recognition of our fundamental interdependence thrives.

I love this line from Palmer, that “Community not only creates abundance – community is abundance.”

Community is abundance. I feel this every Sunday when I come into this community –the abundance of love, of care, of music, of beauty, of giving, of sharing.

For in giving and sharing we create community, we create meaning, we find freedom and joy and beauty, we deepen our lives and our relationships and we connect to the sources of abundance and life of which we are all apart.

And as Parker Palmer writes, “Community not only creates abundance – community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.”

May we keep learning this great lesson, and be transformed by it.

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