"Thanksgiving Sermon"

When it comes time each year

    to prepare for the Thanksgiving service,

        I become aware once again of all the meanings

            of this observance.

For Thanksgiving, 

    with its ambiguous history 

        and many nuances,

            always has new aspects to discover.

Reflection on it can lead me 

    to a different perspective every year.

This year, an added twist helped with the process.

Here is where it took me this time.

Thanksgiving is an opportunity 

    to give thanks for what we have.

Just as the people who settled here many years ago

    gave thanks for a successful harvest

        and survival in their new home,

            we look at what we have gathered in.

And it is plentiful,

    all that we have.

But when we look more closely at it,

    we realize that it is not really ours.

We do not really own anything.

So we give thanks

    "For the sun and the dawn

        which we did not create,"

            writes Richard Fewkes,

                adding the moon and the evening,

                    the food, the friends and the loved ones,

                        even our community of faith.

All these are gifts we cannot own,

    for which we are grateful anyway.

        "For all things which come to us

            as gifts of being from sources beyond ourselves," 

                he adds;

                    for these we give thanks.

We have a lot - 

    much more than many people do,

        but what we have is not really ours.

Humbled by that insight,

    we look around and see the luxury of our position.

As long as there are people 

    for whom survival remains a struggle,

        Thanksgiving doesn't feel quite right

            unless we find a way to share it.

How do you address the inequities in the world?

What can any one of us do -

    as Alice Walker says,

        when our gifts are like small, 

            imperfect stones,

                and the needs are great gaping chasms.

Do it anyway;

    don't give up, she says,

        and we agree.

So one by one, 

    in small and imperfect ways,

        we make our Thanksgiving 

            into something we give to others.

The event that led me to this Thanksgiving message

    was the generous gift, 

        from a member of our church,

            of twenty one-hundred dollar bills.

Their purpose was for us to express 

    our Unitarian Universalist values in the world.

I gave away that money

    in the Sunday service,

        three weeks ago.

Here is what happened after that.

Right away, 

    someone else offered to give money too.

I was about to hand the last hundred dollar bill to someone

    when another church member came up to the pulpit

        and whispered to me,

            "If you don't have enough to go around,

                make a waiting list."

Boosted by this additional gift

    and one other,

        two additional people were able to participate.

Another man said, 

    "I'll give away a hundred dollars,

        but I'll spend my own money."

One more person stepped up 

    and at last the money was gone.

Many of you who took the money

    wanted to tell me about your plans right there and then.

With only fifteen minutes of time to think about it,

    (all of it during the sermon),

        you came up with many different ideas.

Others of you wanted to make sure

    you could take the money 

        and tell me later,

            which many of you did.

Some of you wanted to be sure your plans were good enough -

    these small, imperfect stones are all we have at first -

        but of course, they were all good enough.

Then the reports began to come in.

    "Two Sundays ago," a church member writes,

        "when [I heard] from the pulpit 

            that an anonymous person donated $2000 

                to be used in ways that reflected the values of the church, 

I leaned over to my friend and said,

    'I have to do something.'   

So I signed up after services 

    and went home with a hundred-dollar bill in my pocket.  

I sat for a while thinking of many things 

I could do with the money, 

    but nothing I thought up really stuck in my mind 

        as something of value or worth to me. 

"Then I thought of my past 

    and where I spent most of my time as a teenager, 

        and it hit me.  

I wanted to help runaway youths in Hollywood. 

So I asked a few friends, 

    and went to the store and last Friday night

        three friends and I got together

            and made up lunch bags full of food.

                [We put into the bags] an index card full of helpline numbers 

                    (health, domestic violence, 

                        job training, both AA and NA numbers) 

                            and set out."

These four young adults gave away the bags -

    on which were written the name of our church -

        to homeless teens on Santa Monica and Hollywood boulevards.

Along the way, they encountered surprise and gratitude,

    generated grace and good will,

        and made one night on the street

            a little less bleak in the lives of those they met.

Reflecting how powerful this experience was for her,

    this church member wrote,

        "I guess fate and faith have a way of stepping in 

            when we least expect it.  

The gratitude was so unexpected

    and so welcoming 

        that if I could do this every week or month

            I would."

The next morning she trudged off to work,

    having had not nearly enough sleep,

        but energized by her night out on the street.

This young woman, 

    thinking about her own life,

        found a way to give thanks

            by giving something away to other young people.

Deciding what to give away

    was a group process for our families.

I received several written reports 

    that began, more or less, like this one:

        "After seemingly endless discussion

            on what to do with the one hundred dollars,"

                followed by an account of the compromise 

                    crafted by family members of all ages.

One family's compromise involved two beneficiaries:

    they bought an acre of rain forest

        and adopted a polar bear.

Another household supported a shelter,

    shopped for socks,

        and bought a beehive through the Heifer Project

            for a family in Afghanistan.

In another family, 

    a five year old held out 

        until a satisfactory plan involving food for homeless people

            could be worked out.

Together they arrived at the idea 

    of delivering groceries to a shelter.

Many responses came back with plans 

    to give the money to shelters of various kinds:

        Samoshel,

            Daybreak,

                the Salvation Army Transitional Housing Center, 

                    and the Free Spirit Shelter all benefited.

Our eager shoppers bought not only food and socks,

    but Christmas gifts, 

        books,

            taxi coupons,

                and blankets to give to them.

I've noticed that you have different styles 

    of handling your gifts.

Some of you are expediters:

    your turnaround time was incredibly fast, 

        by the way.

Overnight I had word of money turning into gifts

    not only for the shelters 

        but also for worthy local agencies.

A hundred dollars bought nine turkeys

    for the Westside Food Bank turkey drive.

Another hundred went straight 

    to the Westside Family Health Center.

Others of you turned your hundred dollars

    into projects that would increase in value.

You made a deal in Forbes Hall:

    two participants got together there.

One matched her gift with another hundred dollars.

The other used hers to take advantage of 

    a forty percent employee discount.

Together they purchased 

    hundreds of dollars worth of books.

The books - 

    on parenting, adolescent development, 

        diversity and sexual health - 

            will go to a teen group at a shelter

                where one member volunteers.

The books are an extension of a commitment

    she has already made.

        "During our time together [at the shelter]," she writes,

            "and throughout our discussion 

                is woven the notion of the inherent worth and dignity 

                    of each person."

She goes on to mention the other Unitarian Universalist principles

    and how also she brings them 

        into her volunteer work in this program.

These weren't the only participants

    with an entrepreneurial bent.

Our Coming of Age group will use their money

    to raise money.

Watch for more about that later in the year.

There isn't enough time 

    to make an exhaustive account

        of all the ways you spent the money.

Some of you still owe me a report!

And others of you - 

    who took the challenge as a creative opportunity -

        are still busy working away at the unique gift

            you want to give to the world.

We will hear more about all of them another time.

One participant wrote,

    "It did not take us long to understand 

        what our anonymous friend understood so well

            in the generosity of the two thousand dollar donation

                divided into twenty parts.

Unconstrained within the spirit of a good challenge,

    the parts will become more than the whole.

So in that spirit we matched the original hundred dollars

    with a hundred dollars from each of us.

Two hundred dollars will go to the Carter Center -

    the foundation Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter initiated 

        in partnership with Emory University -

            which is 'guided by a fundamental commitment 

                to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering;

                    [and] seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts,

                        enhance freedom and democracy,

                            and improve health.'

The original hundred dollars," she continues,

    "remains taped to the refrigerator.

There is nothing like a good cue

    to remind you of a good challenge,

        to do something good every day."

Every participant in the program wrote kind words of gratitude

    to our anonymous donor

        for the opportunity to put our values into practice. 

We are grateful, this year,

    for what we have to give away.

And so are the recipients,

    who rewarded participants with surprising gestures

        of gratitude and appreciation, 

            even flowers!

In the Guatemalan fable about the emerald lizard,

    the magical transformation of a lizard into a jewel of great value

        takes place only when it is given away.

Brother Pedro eases the suffering of a poor man with this gift.

The poor man eventually becomes a rich man,

    and when he does,

        he gives the emerald lizard back to Brother Pedro.

But Brother Pedro sets the lizard on the ground,

    where it becomes alive once again,

        and is free.

What we have to give away is far more precious

    than anything we keep for ourselves.

It grows in value.

It reveals the good heart of the giver

    to a needy world.

And it rewards the giver

    with the gratitude we receive from others.

This year - perhaps every year,

    Thanksgiving is about what we give away.

Through our generosity and kindness towards others,

    we learn that our lives are good

        when we give others reason to be thankful too.

May we give thanks this year

    for all that we have given

        for this is all we have ever really owned,

            and though it may be small and imperfect