Luke 6:32-38
My son-in-law, Dave, teaches high school economics, and the first principle his students learn is that economics is about decision making in the face of scarcity. Anything and everything in a market is implicitly defined as scarce… In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, pages 30-33 (excerpts)
Yesterday I listened to Krista Tippet, the long-time creator of On Being for public radio, interview Ocean Vuong, a young Vietnamese American author. They were talking about how to find hope in difficult times, and I was particularly struck by Vuong’s assertion that we must be careful to speak hopeful words because we are “speaking our future into existence.” That reminded me that in the beginning of our scripture, we read that “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” Our ancestors understood that all creation came from the Word of God. The words that we use to describe life, create the life we experience. I think that captures the essence of our summer project, to describe a way of living that matches our faith values and our vision for how we want to live in this community and this country. We are “speaking our future” into existence in a way that’s consistent with who we are as followers of Jesus.
Today our words from Jesus give us many practical ways to live as a community
Do to others what you want them to do to you.
Love the unlovable; love your enemies; help without expecting thanks or return.
Be kind; don’t criticize; be generous with your possessions and your self.
It’s generosity that I want to focus on for our few minutes.
When I was in elementary school, my family was one of those every-Sunday-in-the-same-pew families. And every Sunday when it was time for the offering, the minister quoted today’s scripture (in a more traditional translation): Give, and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back. Talk about words that matter – those words formed me in a deep and lasting way. I can still hear his voice in my head. Of course my 9-year-old self heard them much more transactionally than I want us to hear them today, and I noticed that although I dutifully put my envelope in the plate every week, no one returned my nickel to me. ( Although truth be told, I did get a nickel bottle of soda every Sunday during coffee hour.) “Generosity begets generosity,” Jesus tells us.
Robin Wall Kimmerer tells us the same thing when she advocates for a gift economy rather than one based on scarcity. When everything economic is based on grabbing mine before you take it from me, it’s hard to trust each other and even harder to share. My brother posted on Facebook this week an article about how his county wouldn’t be delivering commodity food to those in need in the county anymore, because although they still had food, DOGE had eliminated funds for transportation. One of his friends responded that this might be a good way to “cull the herd” of the undeserving who won’t work. You can imagine that got lots of responses.
Consider this story Kimmerer tells instead: A linguist was studying a Brazilian tribe. He noticed that it was relatively difficult for hunters to find and kill animals in their forrest, but when a hunter was successful, he cooked the entire beast and invited the whole village to feast until everyone was stuffed and the meat was gone. Because he was trying to learn the language, he asked a hunter what the words were for curing or preserving the meat for future days when the hunt was unsuccessful. How was the meat stored? The hunter couldn’t understand the question. He had no words for keeping the meat for himself. Instead he said, “I store my meat in the belly of my brother.” And when my brother kills a boar, he feeds me, too.
The educator Parker Palmer has written for years about “the myth of scarcity” in our country. This myth teaches us that if we are to have what we need, we must take it from someone else and guard it. We are convinced that only 10% of a class can do work deserving an A. Only the cream of the crop can get good jobs. If everyone gets food from the pantry shelves, will we go hungry? What if we assumed that there was enough for everyone to succeed, for everyone to eat, for everyone to be housed and receive health care and be taught by the best teachers. Would seeing the world that way create that reality?
I was trying to remember the other day how we got to be the church with the community fund, the ones who say “yes” to as many requests as we can. Do you remember? I think it started with the noisy offering. It seemed like a fun thing for children to do when we had children. Then we had to do something with the coins, so we bought something someone needed. I don’t remember what. Now when there’s lots of money in the account, we pay rent and fix cars and do expensive things. When there’s a little, we pay $50 utility deposits and buy $9 specialized nail clippers. Somebody else pays the big bills in those times. If I had suggested that we budget $40,000 a year to give away, you would have thought I was crazy. But that’s what we did last year, with a lot of help from our friends. Generosity creates generosity. Believing that there is enough to share, makes it true.
Last week we talked about seeing the world as a gift, and all the resources Earth provides as generous gifts we receive. The logical extension of that vision is a gift economy – when those who have share. I’m not suggesting that we give away so much that we can’t care for ourselves. We don’t have to become poor to serve those who live in poverty. But we are living proof that when you assume you can help, you can. When you see the world through the eyes of love and connection, you become instruments of love and connection. It’s an experiment in creating community. What if we watch the words we speak, and speak less about scarcity and more about abundance? What if we speak less about what we can’t afford and more about what’s possible? What if we speak less about who doesn’t deserve help and more about how we can be helpers? I wonder what future we will speak into existence.