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Sermon Index

I GOT PLENTY O NUTTIN

by the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 20th of August 2000

Every summer for the last four years, John and I have spent several weeks by Lake Androscoggin in Maine. We dont have a television or a VCR. But we do have indoor plumbing. We dont have a microwave, but we do have a screened in porch (replete with mosquitoes and horse flies, thats important). We rent our home in Baltimore so that we can afford to stay several weeks.

We dont do much in Maine. Oh, occasionally, we go on a day trip to the ocean or shop in Freeport, take in a play, or go to a concert. But mostly, we sit out on the screened porch and read, looking up every now and then at the trees and the lake. Or we go closer to our small beach and sit and read, looking up every now and then at the lake or the sky. Down by the lake, the sky seems immense. I watch the clouds move across it as if I were looking through a giant kaleidoscope. I follow loons bobbing in and out of the water; I listen to their haunting calls. I close my eyes and feel the breeze caress my skin. I breathe. We eat strawberries and blueberries, and raspberries and lots of fresh corn dripping with butter and salt. I cannot get enough of the sights and sounds and smells and tastes. I want to stay there forever¾ or at least until the first frost.

It is a simpler life than I am used to. The pace slows down. I am surrounded by beauty. The air is clean. The stillness is a joy. Few motorboats are on the lake. Jetskis are forbidden. We hear a train whistle a couple of times a day, but no ambulances, and few cars or planes.

I know in my heart that when summer ends I do not want to stay in Maine. My family is back here. You are back here. The work I love is back here. Fall and spring are long here; winter is short and mild. I can watch birds taking a bath in the water puddled on the roof outside my window. Say hello to my neighbors as I eat breakfast on my front porch. Baltimore has its own beauty, too, and lots of love and opportunities to make a difference. It, too, has fresh corn, raspberries, and peaches.

But summer in Maine is life pared down. It reminds me of what really matters. I feel so blessed.

I got plenty o nuttin,

An nuttins plenty fo me.

I got the sun; got the moon,

Got the deep blue sea.

George Gershwin wrote the opera Porgy and Bess in 1935. It tells the story of Porgy, an African American beggar who lives in a fishing community in South Carolina. Porgys legs are paralyzed. He can get around only on a wheeled cart. Porgy is poor. He lives at the whim of white men. Porgys life is pretty miserable. He lives next to the sea but does not see it. He lives beneath the sun, but it does not warm him. He sees his friends around him falling in love, while women never see him as a man. "When God made me a cripple," says Porgy early on, "God meant me to be lonely." Bess, the woman he dreams of, would never look at him. She is beautiful. He is a cripple.

Then God, or fate, or luck steps in. Bess may be beautiful, but she lives on the edge of disaster. She lives the hard life. Decent folks shun her. Bess drinks in public, sleeps around, parties day and night, and is addicted to "Happy Dust." Her latest man, Crown, is obsessed with Bess. He is also violent. Crown murders a man over gambling debts while Bess watches. Porgy rescues Bess from the police, who want to arrest her as a witness to the crime.

Porgy is gentle and kind. He doesnt care what Bess has done. He doesnt care that she may someday leave him. He only wants her to be happy. He loves her. He hopes she will care about him a little. Unbelievably, miraculously, Bess finds she is happy with Porgy. She finds that she loves Porgy. No longer must she run every second of the day and night to pretend she is happy.

I got plenty o nuttin

An nuttins plenty fo me,

I got my gal, got my song,

Got Hebben the whole day long.

Porgy must still watch what he says in front of white men. He is still a beggar. Still paralyzed. But now, Gershwin writes, the sun delights Porgy, and the moon gives him rest. The sea renews him, and love surrounds him. He buys presents for his friends. He nurses Bess when she is sick. He will not let her stay home with him when all their friends leave for a picnic that his immobility wont allow him attend. Bess, he says, "you must laugh and sing and dance for two instead of one." Love has made Porgy a saint.

His song¾I Got Plenty o Nuttin¾is the song of a saint. But it is a song that has caused pain to many African Americans who have objected to this opera. Porgy and Bess, some say, is a white mans racist portrayal of black men. If I understand their concern correctly, they believe that the play and the song leave us with the impression of poor, ignorant, drunk, or excessively religious African Americans, who need nothing to bring them happiness other than drink, dope, sex, or God.

Their pain makes me pause. It is easy for me to find that watching a lake on a summers day is enough¾ is more than enough¾ to wash away the pain and pressure that sometimes accumulates in my existence It is easy for me to go one step further and assume that the sea will do the same for everyone. Like all of us, I have lost loved ones, failed lifes tests, been called names that ripped my heart. It seems fairly clear to me that it is not what I purchase at Best Buy that brings me happiness. But I own three televisions that I hardly use. We have a cell phone and two computers. We are close to paying off our mortgage. We own two cars that are both pretty reliable. We get to spend our summers in Maine. We have food on our table¾ good food¾ three meals a day. We have all the clothes we want. We have heat in winter and central air conditioning in the summer. I am white, heterosexual, middle class, and well educated. The police are my friends.

So who am I to speak of what really matters to the millions of people on this planet who do not know whether they will have any dinner? Who are bullied and brutalized by the police? Who live at the mercy of governments that fight wars they do not want and cannot escape? What do I know of those of you who are hit with the deaths of those you love, one after another? Who have just been told that a lump is malignant? With all my little worries and tensions, even with a few major ones, my life has been good. I am one of the lucky ones.

Our faith teaches us that each of us, no matter how rich or how poor, how educated or not, has some direct experience of the eternal, in our prayers and in experiences of the world in which we live. We can find glimpses of the holy in the teachings of the prophetic men and women as well as in the wisdom of the world religions handed down to us through the generations.

Surely, all of these sources teach us a paradox. We are called to do unto others as we would have done to ourselves. We are called to share our abundance with Porgy and his neighbors, to give them food and shelter and health insurance, to provide them with opportunities for education and job training, and, more basically, to respect them and treat them as children of God.

On the one hand, we live under a moral obligation to act with justice and compassion towards Porgy and all the other poor and oppressed people of this earth, providing them with the material possessions of a decent, secure life. But on the other hand, we are called to renounce the hold that material possessions have on us. Buddhism and Christianity teach us that it is important to let go of attachments to the things of this life in order to achieve enlightenment or salvation. Jesus does not teach us that wealth is evil but that it is exceedingly difficult for the wealthy to enter Heaven because they get confused about their values. Similarly, Hinduism teaches that there is a time in life for seeking success, for enjoying the good things of life, but that eventually we will become dissatisfied with things, seeking something more. We get caught up in things. It is perhaps not impossible to possess great wealth and achieve enlightenment, but the temptations are almost overwhelming.

Money can buy medicine and pay for doctors, food, and shelter. Money can even buy the opportunity to experience beauty and delight. But the deep peace we seek, the joy we covet, does not lie in getting plenty of plenty. Something in existence that I call God calls to us in the mountains and in the sea, in love and in song. Gods eyes are on the sparrow. God lives in saving lives. God calls us to feel a bond with all of creation¾ to live as though we were one body.

The mystery is that joy exists where we do not expect it. The universe invites us to abundance. This summer we helped out a friend. She said to me, "I could not accept this from you except that I can see how happy it makes you. You just look so happy." She was right. I was tickled to be able to find a way to do something for my friend in a difficult time. I could not keep the smile off my face.

David Halberstams book The Children is about the college student leaders of the civil rights era; it follows their lives up to the present. Many of them had trouble adjusting after they left the struggle. Because of the fear. Because of the beatings many of them took. Because of the time in prison. Despite the need of many of them to postpone their careers, they found themselves depressed when they left the movement. They felt as though they had been cast adrift even though they were now treated as heroes and no longer had any reason to be afraid. They could return to college and get jobs, cars, houses. But they missed the singing, the bond of close friends dedicated to a righteous cause. They missed the sense of purpose that gave meaning to their lives.

They had felt this mighty swelling of goodness inside their souls and now it was gone.

I got plenty of nuttin

An nuttins plenty fo me.

I got my gal,

got my son,

Got Hebben the whole day long

Got my gal, got my Lawd, Got my song.

At the end of Porgy and Bess, Bess has run off to New York City with a lowlife drug dealer and gambler, afraid that Porgy will go to prison for killing the man who abused her. In her despair, she gives in once again to the temptation of drugs and the high life with a man she despises. Porgy is released after just a week in jail, only to find Bess gone. Though he doesnt even know where New York is, Porgy asks for directions, summons up all his strength, and sets off into the unknown to save Bess.

What does plenty mean? The grace is that even Porgy who had so little was able to find plenty. The sea, the sun, a song, friends, love, a heart full of justice and mercy¾ these are what fill our hearts with the ultimate. These are the heart, and the soul, and the hands of God. This is the plenty of plenty we seek. Amazingly, it doesnt cost anything. It is there for the asking. There for the remembering. Waiting for our full attention. There when we are feeling good. But more importantly, there when we are not.

The summer is drawing to a close. The before-school sales have begun. People are going for one last trip to the beach. I wish for all of us that in the months ahead we will enjoy sun and sea, music and mercy, and lives full of love. May we all have plenty of nothing. The plenty we seek surrounds us. May we open our hearts and let it in.