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Money as Scapegoat, Savior, and Enabler

A Sermon by the Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
March 2, 2003

Garrison Keillor tells this joke in his Pretty Good Joke Book:

This guy’s father dies, and he tells the undertaker he wants to give his dad the very best. So they have the funeral, and the undertaker sends him a bill for $16,000. He pays it. A month later he gets a bill for $85, which he pays. The next month there’s another $85 bill, and the next month there’s another. Finally, the guy calls up the undertaker. The undertaker says, “Well, you said you wanted the best for your dad, so I rented him a tux.”

When people join a congregation, sometimes they comment on the fact that people keep coming around asking for money. Not only do we have our annual pledge drive but we also have special fund-raising events throughout the year, and different groups in the church try to raise additional funds through sales and car washes like the one going on today for the camp fund. We also have requests by needy and deserving organizations who share their efforts in Sunday services now and then. It got to the point that a few years ago, we decided to limit the special collections in the Sunday service to four a year, and request that committees funnel their fund-raising activities through the finance committee so we wouldn’t be stepping on each other’s toes.

There are a lot of great organizations to support. Our own religious community is not the least of them. We care very much for these people gathered here, a gathering that is welcoming to all, that encourages different theological opinions, and is supportive in our need and challenging in our disillusionment. It is true that we want “the very best” for our community, and though I wouldn’t want to take the analogy to the point of comparing our congregation to a coffin, I do want to say that for $85 a month you would get much more out of your money here than you would renting a tux.

I was surprised to find out, when I calculated what $85 a month equals in a year, $1020, that that is just about our average pledge. We have all levels of pledges, from nothing to about $4000 or so, last I heard. People who truly cannot give anything due to their financial circumstances are forgiven their pledge, of course. You who are in that situation know that it is your turn to receive the help of this congregation in your struggles, and when life turns around, as hopefully it will, you might be in a position to help others one day, or maybe you already have. Since time is money, except when you don’t have a job, people give service to the congregation as well. If people are unable to give neither money nor service, it is the responsibility of the rest of us to care for them and to support them to the best of our ability. We are here for each other.

We are all kinds of people with all kinds of income and levels of commitment, and we have varying ideas about what money means in our lives. Because someone makes more or less money doesn’t mean they are more or less happy with their jobs and lives, or more or less worthy because of it. Here is another joke from Garrison Keillor:

Three souls appeared before St. Peter at the pearly gates. St. Peter asked the first one, “What was your last annual salary?” The soul replied, “$200,000; I was a trial lawyer.” St. Peter asked the second one the same question. The soul answered, “$95,000; I was a realtor.” St. Peter then asked the third soul the same question. The answer was “$8,000.” St. Peter immediately said, “Cool! What instrument did you play?”

What we earn isn’t necessarily a measure of how much we are valued, as every musician or teacher knows. And what we earn isn’t necessarily a measure of how much we can give to others. I’ve told some of you in years past about the teacher in my last congregation who found out that she was the largest pledger. At first she wanted to cut her pledge in half, feeling as if she had been duped. On reflection with us, she realized that her pledge was a measure of how much the congregation meant to her, and without children or other care-giving money needs, and with her simple life-style, she had this money to give and wanted to give it. When she shared her commitment with the rest of the congregation, many of them wanted to show that their commitment was at least as great as hers, and those people who were able to pledge more upped their pledges to beat hers. Everyone benefited from realizing how much one person, one not-so-rich person, loved their congregation.

Hey! I love that kind of competition. And it’s not because it pays my salary. Minister’s salaries, like mortgage payments, are not usually what is affected by the increase in a pledge drive. Since staff salaries and building needs are at the bottom of the pyramid, it’s the program support and enhancement that raises in pledges allow us to have. Or new staff positions that are sorely needed. Or even, maybe, one day, a new piano!!

We are a growing congregation. There is always something more we want or need. Thus, every year is a tight budget year, and will always be a tight budget year, because we dream so beautifully! We cram as much as we can into our budgets each year and hope that the left-over dreams will be realized in the year to come, with new folks and new pledges, and deepening commitments that lead to increased pledges.

Giving more, that can be scary. Most people, I would wager, live within tight budgets. Just like the congregation with its budget, we fill our lives with those things we can afford, and if we don’t make room for the congregation, we will find we are unable to commit to it financially. People have to be nurtured, to nurture themselves, into putting the congregation into their home budget, to include it with the car payments and school loans. I think of it as my second mortgage, since this is my second home, my community home, and it is right we should pay our fair share to sustain it, to nurture it, and to enhance its growth.

The question always seems to come down to: what is fair? In a culture where people very well may walk out of here if I were to start talking about how much Curtiss and I make and how much we give to the congregation, it’s hard to give an example. I did that one year, and I don’t think anyone quit the church. We are sensitive to money issues, and have a hard time, some of us, reconciling that money is power. There’s guilt and fear and all sorts of emotions around the money issue, and when you put 200 folks together with different backgrounds around money, you could wind up with deeper problems than you bargained for. That was a pun: bargained!?

Anyway, here’s a better joke from Garrison Keillor. It’s the last one because I couldn’t find anymore on money:

A man went to church, and afterward he stopped to shake the preacher’s hand and say, “Preacher, I’ll tell you, that was a damned fine sermon. Damned good.”

The preacher said, “Thank you, sir, but I’d rather you didn’t use that sort of language in the house of the Lord.”

The man said, “I was so damned impressed with that sermon I put $5,000 in the collection plate.”

The preacher said, “No shit?”

For those of you with sensitive ears, I apologize, but it was a damned fine joke. It’s every preacher’s dream to so move someone to give from the heart like that. I guess it’s every congregant’s dream, too. But that man who gave $5,000 is sitting right here right now. What I mean is, the givers of miracles aren’t out there, they are us. We are the ones who will make the difference for our congregation. We just experienced a little miracle last month, when we made, gave, $10,000 at our Service Auction. We have the money. Yes, we do! We just have to find a way to get as excited about our operating budget as we do about wine, cheese and trips to the mountains.

How much would you bid for, say, our wonderful view of the Catalinas? How much for this all-wood pulpit here? Or that wall, although these walls could sure use some fixing up! How about bidding on an interfaith field trip for your child? How much for a sermon! That went for a hundred this year. Surely everyone wants one of those. How much for the newsletter? Or a great choral piece conducted by Michael? If you think about all that you receive here, what is it worth to you? How much would you bid? For all of it!

That’s the thing. When you bid, when you pledge, you get it all. You give a piece, but you get the whole shebang! Together we give each other an extended family, a second home, work that is meaningful, support in time of need, witness for our rites of passage, affirmation of our deeper selves, folks to travel with on our search for truth and meaning and justice and peace. OK, sometimes we squabble like any family, and our home needs fixing up like any other, and sometimes those committees can get tedious, and sometimes we don’t feel as affirmed as we’d like, but we keep trying, like any committed community, to be the best we can be. We give so that we can be the best we can be, together.

If you came to hear about how money is scapegoat, savior, or enabler…sorry! That didn’t come out this time. I’ll just have to change the title of this sermon. How about “Giving From the Heart?” Or “How to Pledge More than a Rented Tuxedo?” Or, what was that last joke? -- “The Inspired Pledge!” What would move you to put $5,000 into the collection plate? What would inspire you to pledge three to five percent of your income, gross, not net?

Your heart is here, somewhere. Find it! Find what moves you to come here, and celebrate that! Celebrate it with the biggest pledge you can afford. No money? Then celebrate with the biggest commitment of service you can afford. Unable to get out of the house? Then call us. We want to be there for you. For each other. That’s what we’re all about.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson