.

Sermon Index

WHOM DO WE SERVE?

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 6th of February 2000

St. Paul once lamented that I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Rom.7:15). How often I feel that way. Sometimes, Im tempted to pray, Help me to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.

All of us live in this struggle. We are caught up in an array of tensionsbetween body and mind, between short-term and long, between self and others, between is and ought.

Happily, our dogs are more forgiving of us than we sometimes are of ourselves. We have trouble forgiving ourselves. Of course, dogs dont have to worry about the kind of selves they want to be. For us, it is the human condition. Part of being human is to set our sights higher, and to strive to change. It is human to fall short, but it is also human to aspire and to grow toward the heavens.

The church is the place in our lives where we share this struggle. Its the place where we come together to lift our sights, to envision a better world, to understand the demands of compassion and justice. Then we go home to the private struggle, inspired, we hope, and strengthened to change ourselves and find a role for ourselves in changing the world. Its in the church that we ask ourselves, Whom do we serve? and What does this require of us?

We may answer, Godthe God who requires of us simply that we do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. But it isnt simple. Always, we must ask, what does it mean in my life?

Or we may answer, the highest good. Still, we must ask, What is required of me?

Someone once said, let me look at your checkbook, and Ill tell you your theology. That is, the theology you live by. Curious, then, that in church, where we focus on theology, we so seldom focus on our checkbooks. On how we use our money.

Money is so many things. It begins as a medium of exchange. We dont have to find someone who will barter for what we can do. It is also security. One day this week I left my wallet at home. When I reached for it and it was not there, I felt queasy and afraid. Suddenly powerless. I imagined for a moment what it must feel like to have no money, and to be at the mercy of the world.

Money is also power. It commands respect and brings control. It makes me somebody.

And money is possibility. Offer me a raise, and I begin to think about a new car, a new computer, a trip to one of those faraway places pictured in the tour brochures that come constantly through my mail slot.

Exchage and security, power and possibility. But not only to meet my private needs. Money also can serve my religious dreams, as well. Through a United Way, Our Daily Bread, or Oxfam that reach more people. Through a host of other groups that seek to educate people or to protect our planet. And, yes, right here at Charles and Franklin, to renew these wonderful old buildings, where we can become the kind of people and congregation we want to be and shape the kind of world we want for our children.

Begin to talk about this, and you begin to understand what God and money have in common. Scripture does not say that money is the root of all evil, but that the love of money is the root of all evil. The question is whether we love money for its own sake or for the sake of the good we can do with it. Or more truly, whether we love money for the sake of what it can do for us or what it can do for others, for the common good.

The church, too, constantly struggles with the tension between serving ourselves and serving others. In practice, our challenge is to shape our institution as a vehicle for serving ourselves while serving others. That is our dream for renovating this buildingnot to refurbish a private club, but to renew a place of beauty that will serve the spiritual needs of all who come through the doors, and empower us, both collectively and individually, to go out and serve the world. We need space that will inspire in every sense of the word. I would not begrudge either ourselves or those we serve an experience of beauty, for beauty is one dimension of the divine. It touches the souls of all who experience it. Nevertheless, we must always be sensitive to this tension.

C.S. Lewis has said that hell is where we are when we realize that we have spent our lives doing neither what we ought to have done nor what we really wanted to do.

I want this church to be a place where we struggle, together, to get in touch not just with what we ought to doalmost everyone is ready to tell us that. I want this to be a place where we get in touch with what we really want to be and do with our lives. I spoke last Fall of what this means for me. I come here to be stretched, as I come to know each of you, and the cultures in which you live. It is a struggle, it can be painfulbut I know I need it, and it is deeply satisfying.

What do we long for? Ill bet that most of us would say that we want to make a difference in our own lives and in the world. To make a difference, by being better people, touching the lives of others; and by contributing to something larger than ourselves.

We want our church to be a place where we help each other figure out what we really want to do with our lives, in the context of what the world needs and what each of us could do, if given the inspiration and the confidence. Part of our job is to give each other that confidence, in a world that is all too ready to inform us of our shortcomings.

We want to be a place, also where we make a difference in the world together, as a congregation, through service, through reform, and through public witness and proclamation.

This is what we want to be. If we arent, the answer is not to hold back and starve the church. That makes change impossible. And its certainly not to withhold our support altogether and sulk until somebody else changes things. The church is us. The answer is to jump in and work for change.

So when the church comes asking, both we who ask and we who get askedmany of us will be bothmust think of this ask as not just another demand on our pocketbooks. Not as depending upon whether we have anything left after meeting our own needs and weighing all the other demands. Ours is not just another demand. Its an opportunity. An opportunity to avoid the hell of realizing we have spent our lives doing neither what we ought to have done nor what we really wanted to do. An opportunity, in fact, to do what we really want to do and to become who we really want to be.

Giving to the church is giving to ourselves. Even if as a church, we gave away all our money to meet others needs, it would be giving to ourselves, for the more we meet others needs, the more we are giving to ourselves. It is, after all, in giving that we receive. It is in giving that we become the kind of giving people we truly want to be.

We dare not ask how little we can give. We dare not ask whats needed just to cover inflation. Its not a question of the churchs need at all. Its a question of our own need, to give and to serve.

We are experiencing one of the longest periods of prosperity in our nations history. If we own stocks or mutual funds, they have grown dramatically, most of them. Homes, too, have increased in value (though not always, sad to say, in Baltimore City). Bonuses are setting records. And as happens in good times and bad, people die, and leave inheritances. And quite apart from all this, as we grow in maturity, we may gain a new appreciation of our blessings and of whats important in life.

I invite us, then, to give to this church not out of resentment at what it may take away from our ability to spend on ourselves, but out of gratitudefor the abundance that surrounds us, for what the church means in our lives, and for the opportunity to make a difference.

Three weeks from today, we shall gather for a special congregational meeting. Our architects will tell us what it will take to make this structure beautiful againbeautiful, workable, and suited to what we do. Fortunately, well be sitting down. It is a very large amount. I ask you, do not panic. We have, between us, enormous resources, not only of vision and energy, but also of income and of property that in life or at death, by will, we can dedicate to this work.

We enjoy, as a congregation, enormous respect in Baltimore. We have inspired, over many years, the affection of people across this land. We deserve, in our work of compassion and justice, of diversity and of community building, the support of granting institutions. We will raise the funds we need and more, if it takes us fifteen years. In fact thats a good time. Its just a tad short of 2018, when we celebrate our 200th anniversary. Just a tad short of 2019, when we want to invite our UUA General Assembly to Baltimore to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Channings great sermon from our pulpit. What a coincidence! What a challenge!

In two months, we shall be hearing from our canvass leaders, Charles Blackburn and Chip Geiger, what we must expect to spend to make ourselves self-supporting from what we give and to free our endowment and investment funds to renew our building and to benefit the world around us. Yes, well have to double our giving. Is the money there? Of course it is. We have the lowest giving of any denomination and almost the highest average personal income. Can we do it? Of course we can. But it will take a different way of thinking.

I say, think opportunity. Think of both these challenges as opportunities to be the kind of giving people we want to be and to shape the kind of giving church we want ours to be.

Very many of us could live, quite comfortably, on less income and with fewer possessions than we haveand thereby free ourselves from lots of cares. For possessions are cares. They make us anxious. They breed the desire for still more. But they dont bring lasting happiness. Indeed, many of us, earlier in our lives, have lived on much less, quite happily.

There have been times in our history as a congregation when we survived by making do. Those times are past. We have a vision. We are pursuing it. Were on our way to becoming the people and the church we want to be. Now is the time to share the best we have with each other and with the world around us. And to enjoy the fullness of life that will come to us as we do.

A New Yorker cartoon once showed two dogs relaxing. One laments, I got the bowl, the bone, the big yard. I know I should be happy Most of us have more than these basics and still arent truly happy. In the months and years ahead, lets make ourselves happy. Lets trade our need for possessions and security for our even deeper need to be the giving and serving people we long to be, people who make a difference in the world. Lets become the people our dogs think we are. Lets say yes! to life.