Midweek Faith Lift
August 22, 2018
“The Joy of Giving”
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
We are tied together in a single garment of destiny,
caught in an inescapable web of mutuality.
And whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
For some strange reason
I can never be what I ought to be, until you are what you ought to be.
And you can never be what you ought to be, until I am what I ought to be.
This is the way God’s (Source, Truth, Spirit’s) universe is made,
this is the way it is structured.
~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
When I was contemplating the topic for our lesson today, this quotation from Dr. King was in my email inbox from the Iowa Interfaith Power & Light organization. It summed up this whole chapter so very well that I had to start with it! As we explored the energy and metaphysics of money last week, this week we are engaging the power of the flow and what the dynamic of giving really means for our spiritual growth and unfolding.
The first thing to engage in trying to understand this dynamic is the simple but profound truth that life is lived from the inside out. We can easily get distracted from this reality by all the external measures of “success” that popular culture keeps hurling at us. Jesus taught this by simple illustration. It is a familiar passage:
Matthew 6:28-30 (NRSV)
28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
The subtle teaching is about the lily, which is a bulb. It is planted in the ground in the darkness. When given water, warmth and sunlight, it naturally unfolds all the beauty that is inherent in that bulb. Everything the bulb needs to express its beauty is provided and the bulb responds; it unfolds from the inside out. All the beauty of the bulb is within the bulb. The gifts of light, warmth and water allow the bulb to give forth the beauty within it. It is an inside out job!
The very next line brings us back to that place of faith and trust that we talked about last week. When we are given all that we need, then our beauty shines forth as an expression of God love, God Light, God Energy. The message to us is : “Your life is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.” (Butterworth, p. 166.) Our challenge is how do we live in this “giving consciousness” so that we are truly participating in this “gift economy” of Spirit.
Well, we can all identify examples where giving is not truly giving, especially if it comes with strings attached, or we want to attach strings to the gift. Way back in 1974, I moved from St. Louis to Lincoln, Nebraska to attend graduate school. Nebraska was a much colder climate and I really needed some warm socks and good boots to deal with much more snow and cold than I was used to. My future mother-in-law took me shopping and told me to pick out 3 pair of socks, which she purchased and promptly took home with her. You can imagine my slack-jawed surprise at this turn of events. I really needed the socks right away, so I was very confused. What in the world was going on here? I was young, wanted to make a good impression, so I did not say anything.
Well, as always, more was to be revealed! The socks became a bargaining chip so that her son and I would come and visit her for Sunday dinner. Each time we went, I got a pair of socks. At that point, I didn’t even want the socks. I had given up and actually bought some for myself. Oh my…..how we go off track with giving. When fear that we won’t “get” what we want drives our giving, we often don’t get what we really want. I really didn’t want to go to Sunday dinner as a barter event. It took a whole year to actually get 3 pair of socks!
Eventually, over a number of years, I had the opportunity to tell her that what I truly wanted was a positive relationship with her for her son’s sake and that she didn’t have to “give” me things or withhold things to get that. It took awhile, but eventually she began to trust me and her generosity became more truly generous. This was a powerful lesson for me to see that when we give, our giving is without attachment. In that way it is truly the spiritual practice of giving which builds the web of love that holds us all together.
When we stress over whether we are giving more than we are getting, we get sucked down the rabbit hole of grasping. Giving becomes transactional rather than relational and we lose the thread of Spirit that Rev. King is talking about in the opening paragraph and the thread that Jesus is talking about with the lilies. When we give from a consciousness of connection and in the faith that whatever we are, whatever we have and whatever we need will be given to us, then we are open to experience true joy in giving and stepping into the abundant flow of the Universe. We are open to being surprised and delighted!
There was a popular saying “What goes around comes around” and as I researched it, I learned that Justin Timberlake wrote it into a song. It is an old English proverb, apparently and is also associated with the laws of karma. This law says that whatever you put into the Universe, into the Divine Flow will come back to you, and the implication is to only put good things in so only good things will come back. That is ok, as far as it goes, but it keeps the flow at the level of transaction rather than opening to something more. What if stepping into that flow is meant to open us to something more, even greater than we can imagine?
Jesus describes it like this in Luke 6: 37-38
Luke 6:37-38 (NRSV)
Judging Others
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Now that last line can make is sound like Karma, but he is really saying that what you give in terms of your time, talents, and treasure will come back to you, in good measure, pressed down and running over. The consciousness of giving says give wholeheartedly without fear of loss or lack or limitation of supply. Give from whatever you have and from wherever you are in consciousness.
The running over part tells us that as we do not judge, as we forgive and we are forgiven, all of the abundance of God’s universe will come rushing into us, pouring into our hearts. The spiritual Truth is that we give so that we can truly realize our full spiritual potential and so that we can open a path for all others to also realize their full potential. In the generosity of giving, we create the fabric of a true “gift economy” where we do not feel ripped off but completely supported and at peace. That is the consciousness of giving that we are cultivating with our spiritual giving practices. When there is apparent lack, it is stoppage in the flow within our hearts and our challenge is to find that blockage and open it so the energy of love can flow freely again.
My life, your life and the life of our spiritual community has meaning when we can and do release our inner splendor, our inner beauty, our full potential, like the lily. I am going to close with a quote from Browning which may be familiar to you. Butterworth and Charles Fillmore both liked this one:
“There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;....and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.”
~ Robert Browning
We are all seeking a way to release that hidden splendor in one another. Today we will end with hearing a message from an old friend about what this truly means.
Blessings on the path,
Rev. Deb