| The Spirituality of Sufficiency |
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SUFFICIENCY SERMON Delivered by the Reverend Jann Halloran Our first reading this morning is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Matthew Chapter 6, vs. 19-34: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet, I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of them. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. Now from the sacred text of Taoism, The Tao Te Ching, vs. 44, 46 and 48: One’s own reputation -- why the fuss? One’s own wealth -- why the concern? I say, what you gain is more trouble than what you lose. Love is the fruit of sacrifice. Wealth is the fruit of generosity. Be content -- rest in your own fullness -- (then) you will not suffer from loss (and) you will avoid the snare of this world. You’ll have long life and endless blessings. For when Tao is present in the empire, men follow their own nature, and riding horses work the fields. When Tao is absent from the empire, men go astray and war horses breed on sacred ground. There is no greater loss than losing Tao -- the Way. No greater curse than desire. No greater tragedy than discontentment. No greater fault than selfishness. Contentment, sufficiency, alone is enough. Indeed the bliss of eternity can be found in knowing the sufficiency of contentment. To obtain Tao, reduce daily -- reduce and reduce again. One who gives freely and without attachment gets a full life in return. So end the readings. SERMON The Spirituality of Sufficiency There’s a stand-up routine that comedian George Carlin does on “stuff.” It goes something like this: I got here today, and I was looking for a place to put my stuff; I needed just a little place to put my stuff, a little table. Everybody’s got to have a place for their stuff; there’s a place for your stuff and a place for my stuff. The whole meaning of life is to find a place for your stuff. You know, all you want is a place for your stuff. That’s all your house is, a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. And if you have to go some place, you have to lock your house, or someone will come and get your stuff. And they always want the shiny stuff, not the other stuff you’ve been saving, like the 4th grade math paper with an A on it. And if you get too much stuff, you have to get a bigger house for all your stuff. And you might even have to put some of your stuff in storage; imagine there’s a whole industry devoted to watching your stuff! And have you ever noticed that when you visit someone else’s house, you never feel quite at home? That’s because there’s no place for your stuff, and, instead, it’s all filled with their stuff! And if you have to spend the night, unexpectedly, they give you a little room that hasn’t been used in 11 years. Someone died in that room 11 years ago! And there’s a little dresser by the bed, but it’s covered in their stuff. They didn’t even move the dead person’s stuff out of the room, and there’s NO ROOM for your stuff in it! Collecting, consuming and even hoarding are fairly hard-wired into our systems, and when we talk about the spiritual practice of sufficiency, of letting go and letting be, it sometimes may sound so impossible that some of us simply glaze over. Only saints can do that, we think, so why bother? We simply cannot give up our stuff! In his landmark book, The Way of Zen, Alan Watts points out that many of us have an idealized notion of what it means to be Zen like, to be able to let go of stuff, for example. We are actually missing the point when we focus on stuff and possessions. For Zen masters are no different from other people, In the Christian tradition, this is the first day of Advent. For those who want to add religious meaning and depth to the prevailing materialism of Christmas and the holiday season, the gathering of more stuff, Advent is meant to call us back to deep reflection upon ourselves and our world -- the reason the birth of Jesus was needed and the cause of such great joy, which is the real story of Christmas, not trees and gifts and feasts. So, this is a very good time to ask ourselves the questions of sufficiency: Am I enough? Do I have enough stuff? Do I have too much stuff? How can I reduce and reduce and reduce, as the Tao Te Ching recommends, so that only the essential remains, especially in my heart? How can I have faith that what I have to offer will be enough, will be sufficient? How could a realization of sufficiency bring enough contentment to the empire that the war horses could return to work the fields? For, as the words of Lao Tse in the Tao Te Ching indicate, when a country has lost its way in this fight for stuff, it finds itself at war, fighting for more, rather than building up at home the wealth of its own nation and its own human potential. The costs of not understanding sufficiency, to be content with what you have, in other words, are high. The costs of desire, selfishness, greed and discontent, lead to empires of discontent. As our reading said, when Tao, the Way, is present in the empire, men follow their own nature and riding horses work the fields. When Tao is absent from the empire, men go astray and war horses breed on sacred ground. And in our times, many believe the sacred ground, the earth itself, is at risk because of our collective inability to say, enough! In Taoism, translations of sufficiency and contentment are often nearly synonymous. And it may be easier to imagine contentment. Contentment does not imply giving up something, or settling for less, it means having a deep sense of joy and appreciation for what is -- whether it’s contentment with your love, contentment with your family, contentment with your work or vocation. It can be a rare and fleeting feeling, but once felt, it’s worth conjuring back into memory, time and time again, reminding yourself that you are content or can be content with what is. From a place of contentment, things may change, and it’s almost a guarantee that they will change. You may lose or gain more of what the world counts as stuff, but what the great spiritual leaders are trying to teach us is that the feeling of contentment, of sufficiency, in the end is not about stuff, what we wear, what we eat, what we hoard, what we make, what we build, it is about the feeling itself, having an attitude of contentment. And, as Jesus said, it’s opposite, worry, doesn’t get us anywhere anyway. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And once you have felt inner contentment, you can hold onto it, or find it again, even when there are dramatic changes in your life. This is what leads to wisdom in older age, when many things are slowly lost: health, beauty, vitality, perhaps position, and possessions, the deaths of friends and family members. As you suffer loss, you learn most certainly that it’s not about the stuff, it’s about the love and the living, the value of each moment. To walk through the shadows with a sense of inner sufficiency, and here sufficiency makes more sense than contentment, is to know you can experience what comes, offer what you can, receive what’s given, and be present to life. This spiritual understanding of sufficiency is not easy to come by and can be nearly impossible for those who suffer, who are poor, abused, neglected, victims of war, hurricanes, natural and human disasters. How lucky most of us are to truly have enough in our lives to be able to contemplate a deeper spiritual path. And we contemplate this path, I believe, not just for our own wellbeing, but so that we are able to give the best we can to others. As the Tao Te Ching said: One who gives freely and without attachment gets a full life in return. Or, as Jesus said, arguing against hording your wealth, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This understanding of where your heart is, to know contentment with what is, of course, is not just for the lucky few, but for everyone. In fact, as Jesus also said, the wealthy may, ironically, have the most difficult time understanding it. In Buddhism, achieving spiritual sufficiency comes from the ability to understand detachment, that all things fade away, and that we need to understand the wonder of ourselves being simply alive and aware in this moment, also called the practice of mindfulness. In Christian teaching, spiritual contentment comes from understanding what has real worth -- heavenly worth, verses only material worth. Love, compassion, kindness, generosity, humility, deep peace, true freedom and justice, are the values of Christianity. These deep values see the inner light, beauty and worth in all human beings and in all life. It is present in the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, in abundance, as Jesus said, and it exists without one moment of strife or worry and cannot be taken away by rust, or moths or thieves. My goal thus far today has been to help each of us understand what sufficiency is, whether we view it through an eastern or western lens -- to imagine our lives free of worry and needless toil. Imagine appreciating each and every thing in our lives, our families, our friends, this community, and to imagine that we have enough, that we don’t really need more stuff. My second goal today is that each of us will be able to take a deep breath, and then breathe out, at least for a moment, all our striving and worry, and then breathe in a moment of contentment, the knowledge that we are sufficient. I’ve been thinking about this idea of sufficiency since listening to Unitarian Universalist minister Tom Owen Towle at the Pastoral Care conference last month which several of us attended. Most of us here today know we are on a spiritual journey and we know, at least in our best moments, that stuff doesn’t matter. But we don’t all know that we truly are sufficient, enough, just as we are. Some of us, instead, strive and worry about our spirituality! Are we kind enough? Do we pray or meditate correctly? Do we offer our best selves? Did we do enough? Did we say the right thing? Tom suggested that those of us who already approach life from the standpoint of caring for others, which I wager is most of us today, must learn that WE are sufficient, that what we do is, generally speaking, enough. That we care enough, give enough, serve enough. As an example, do any of us today think our choir could be any better? Aren’t they giving enough - their very best? How could we ask for more? What we must learn is, that after our meditations and prayers each day in which we ask that our best selves be called forward, to trust that this will actually happen: that whatever happens on any given day, that we will be sufficient. The words and comfort we offer will be enough. And if we can but let go of the perfectionist desire to do things right, then we won’t only be sufficient, we may feel our hearts receiving that same care from others. It won’t be all about what we have to offer, but what others have to offer, as well. We will be able to acknowledge and see the love, compassion, care and kindness of the others around us, and they will know, by the smiles in our eyes, that they are sufficient too. This is the heart of true contentment, especially as shared in relationship with others. You see in one another the same love, the same care, the same beauty, the same light. And your heart is content as you feel the contentment of your partner or lover or friend, as well. That is a true gift, a gift of self and a recognition of the other and their gifts. This kind of contentment, knowledge of our sufficiency, requires us to put away all worry and doubt, to walk faithfully into the world, sure that what we offer will be enough, sure that what we receive will be enough, sure that others are waiting to be seen and heard and acknowledged, too, for their gifts, their perfectly sufficient gifts. This, of course, can be difficult, to experience in the craziness of our everyday lives. But imagine that if you were able to carry just a little seed of this with you into most situations, how it could slowly -- and sometimes immediately -- calm others as well, who are, after all, often simply trying too hard. I promise you: a spirit of contentment is contagious. It may not change everything in the wacky dynamics of your family during the holidays, but it can at least change your own heart. My goal again for each of us today, is in this moment to breathe in a breath that washes fresh our hearts and minds, allowing us to breathe out our worry and toil and strife, and finding in this time together a moment of contentment, a moment of knowing that who we are, what we have to offer, is enough, is sufficient. And as we move forward this day and into the week ahead, may we take this moment with us, spreading its peace wherever we go. AMEN |