On the day we honor those Americans who have given the ultimate sacrifice, I want us to also consider all the ways that people contribute to good causes, according to their interests, resources and abilities. Judging some for not doing enough turns away allies. There are many ways to be involved.
We’ve been talking for the last several weeks about how we make change happen in our lives, or in the world around us.
The third spiritual question, after the questions of identity and meaning, which we talked about earlier this year, is, “What should I do?” The question of purpose.
“What should I do?”
What’s my purpose in life? What am I here to do? I know who I am, that’s the question of identity. And I know what’s important to me, that where I find meaning in life. So what should a person like me, who values the things I value, do with my life?
That question has a lot of predicates that I can’t know for you, so I can’t give a single answer. What should I do, has as many answers as there are people. We’re all different. We’re here for different things. Our diversity is our strength. We can accomplish much together because we come with different gifts, and skills. Our Unitarianism recognizes that every person is equal in worth and dignity. Our Universalism says that we are connected through webs of relationships. So even when you’re doing your own thing, you’re also participating in the great work of all.
So not being able to give a single answer to the question, “What should I do?” Instead, I thought I’d introduce the spiritual issue, let you work out for yourself your individual answer, but offer some suggestions about how your doing, whatever you decide to do, could be effective and successful in achieving your purpose, whatever it is.
These are strategies I’ve learned through my work for social change, and what I’ve observed works, or doesn’t work, in watching others work for social change, but I think these are general strategies that apply to nearly any work we want to do.
All work is about change in some way, personal work we do on ourselves, or work we do in the world, or work we do on the world, where we start with a deliberate intention to make a difference in our culture or in our laws. All life is change: growing, building, moving, learning, teaching, responding to the change that happens around us, creating the change we want to see. So how do you do it? How do you make change?
Change work starts with community. Gather your friends and allies. Make connections. Plug yourself in.
Don’t cut people out of your team because they aren’t perfect in all things. Tolerate disagreements on unrelated matters as long as you agree on the issue at hand. As the Unitarian Francis David teaches us, “We need not think alike, to love alike.”
Start your change work with a clear goal and stick to it. Let your vision pull you toward it. Sometimes you’ll need to respond defensively to something horrible someone else is doing, but stay on offense as much as possible. Work diligently to achieve your own goals, rather than getting pulled into re-activity against someone else. The goal of change isn’t to make something new. That requires pro-active, positive work.
Beware of beguiling yourself with your own intelligence. Keep always in the forefront of your mind that relief from suffering is the goal. Actual lives made actually better for actual human beings and other creatures. You might need a theory to create your strategy, but the goal shouldn’t be perfecting your theory, and defending your theory. Love people more than you love your ideas. Be flexible. The suffering in front of you is more important than the idea you have in your head. The work isn’t about total understanding of what’s supposed to happen, or mastering the right language, or even changing the policy. The work is about real lives actually made better.
Today, I want to add one more suggestion. It’s a simple one.
Honor each one’s gift, no matter the kind, or the form, or the size. Any contribution moves the effort forward. Accept the smallest contribution with grace and gratitude. Don’t insist that everyone be as fully committed to the cause as you are. Don’t condemn or belittle those who are not as far along as you are on an issue, or not as passionate as you are, or who set their priorities differently than you set yours.
The Gospel of Mark gives us the story called “the widow’s mite”. The same story is repeated in Luke.
Jesus is teaching in the courtyard of the Temple. This is during the last week of his life, after he has entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and before his arrest and crucifixion. He teaches lessons about Stewardship and marriage and about rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and so on.
And then there’s this (Luke 21:1-4):
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
There are two reasons that a person might give only a small contribution to your cause.
One, is like the widow. Her commitment is large but her resources are small. Compared to what she has available to give, her gift is larger than the person who gives much more but whose gift is a smaller portion of what they have available.
A person who loves the cause and gives what they can should be honored, not shamed for what she cannot do, or ignored because her gift will have so little impact.
This is tricky for a person working on a cause.
It’s natural to honor the big givers and give small thanks to the small gift. The cause needs the resources from the large gifts. The large gifts support the work. The large gifts make the work possible. You can’t pay the bills with the widow’s two small coins. No matter how much her gift means to her, her love for the cause won’t mean much to the work that needs to be done.
So, while we put the big donors name on the wall, we must be careful to honor the small gifts, too, for the sacrifice they represent. No gift is too small.
On the other hand, having learned the moral of Jesus’ story, we sometimes treat all gifts equally, and this can also be a mistake. The widow’s small gift is valuable as a symbol of her commitment to the work. But the large gifts are valuable, too, in a practical way. And change work is accomplished by practical efforts, not symbolic ones. The large gift has a larger impact on the work. The cause needs the resources. The big donors make the work possible. It dishonors the large donors not to recognize the important contribution to the cause they make. And it does no dishonor to the small donor, to give the large donor a special kind of thanks for their special gift.
The lesson being that all who give should be honored. Large gifts, small gifts, a large portion of what you have, all that you have, a small portion of what you have. No gift is too small, or too large, either.
The other reason a person might give only a small contribution is that they have large resources but only a small commitment to the cause. They just don’t care that much.
This is the opposite of the widow. This person throws two coins into the collection plate because they aren’t inspired to give any more. They hold on to what they could give, because this just isn’t their thing. The cause doesn’t meet their passion. They aren’t moved. They aren’t motivated. They aren’t invested in the cause, and so they don’t choose to invest their money, or their time, or whatever else you might wish they would give.
What to do with these people?
It’s frustrating, when people don’t share your passion. When you see that overstuffed wallet going back into the person’s pocket instead of funding your good work. Or when they stay home and you know they have the time to come out and volunteer. Or when they don’t speak out, or stuff the envelopes, or gather the signatures, or whatever work it is you need to get done. The cause is important. The cause is good. You need all the help you can get. And they give so little. Two meager coins and then they turn on their heels while the world’s suffering continues.
So, it’s easy for our frustration to turn to anger. And it’s natural for the passion we feel for the social change we seek to turn to outrage at the people who just don’t feel what we think they should feel.
But here is the truth to realize about these people whose resources are large but commitment to the cause is small. These people are on your side. Minimally, yes, but with you to the slightest degree. These are your allies, demonstrated by those two copper coins bouncing off the bottom of the kettle. These aren’t the people who pass by giving nothing. These aren’t the people working against you. Your passion for the cause is reflected in them, to the slightest degree.
They care, but not very much. Which means their commitment to the cause is there, but thin. Meaning you have them, barely, but it wouldn’t take much to lose them.
So your job is to turn up the fire of their passion. Your job is to fan their small flame until it blazes to match your own bonfire. Your job is to encourage their interest so it gets larger. That is accomplished with praise and thanks, not with condemnation. A word of scorn, or an expression of insufficient gratitude for the small gift, may be all it takes for them to withdraw entirely. You’re trying to build a larger coalition of helpers. This minimally committed person is a resource for you to tenderly develop. Your job is to motivate them to commit further.
In my experience, shaming and scolding, do not motivate team members. Shaming a small donor for not giving enough, scolding a reluctant worker for not doing enough, judging and sneering at a minimally committed person is not likely to increase their love for you or for the causes you care about. In fact, their demonstrated small interest in your cause is so fragile, that they’d likely welcome any excuse to give nothing at all. Don’t give it to them. Your job, it to give them a reason to give more.
What should we give?
Here is the news from the prophet Micah (Micah 6:6-8):
How shall I enter the Eternal’s presence?
Shall I come with sacrifices, with yearling calves to offer?
Would the eternal care for rams in thousands, or for oil flowing in myriads streams?
What does the Eternal ask from you
But to be just and kind
And live in quiet fellowship with your God?
To be just. And to be kind.
Are those small gifts, or large?
Perhaps to be just and kind is small compared to thousands of heads of livestock, and oil pouring in rivers, like the water, this year, flowing off of the Sierras. Or perhaps, merely to be just, and kind, is the larger gift.
John Milton asked this question in his most famous sonnet. He asks, what should we give?
He references another parable of Jesus, called the parable of the talents, where a master goes away and leaves some money in the charge of three of his servants. Two of the servants use the money to make more money, while the third, afraid of losing the money entrusted to him and angering the master hides the money in the ground to keep it safe. When the master returns, he rewards the servants he used the money and punishes the one who merely kept it safe.
Milton asks what he should do with the “talent” given to him. He asks. What does God, or “the eternal” ask from us?
Milton says this:
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
To be just. To be kind. To stand. To wait.
Sometimes the work of social change is to do seemingly little work.
“A heart that’s kind, a heart whose search makes Love the spirit of our church,
where we can grow, and each one’s gift is sanctified, and spirits lift,
where every door is open wide for all who choose to step inside.”
Let us learn to welcome, whole-heartedly, all who choose to step inside. Whether they burst in with a song and a shout and showily rush to the center of our sanctuary, or whether they hesitantly peer across the threshold, wondering who we are and if they belong. Whether they give extravagantly (but maybe not giving nearly what they have available) or give little (but maybe giving all they have); whether they share your personal passion, or are following their differing passion in another direction, “wherever light of conscience leads.”
If they are just and kind. That’s enough. If they speed over the land and ocean to do good work without rest. Or if they stand and wait. If they stand on the frontlines. Or cheer from the sidelines. If they grab the megaphone to make the speech, or retreat to the back of the crowd to breathe a silent prayer. If they write the letter, or the check, or disagree in love, or take a few days to consider what you said, if they take two steps forward and one step back, but are still trying. If they stay with you to the end, or walked only a little way and tired early. It is enough.