The Truth About Generosity

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Full Transcript, November 22, 2020:

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I’m going to start off today by telling you a personal story.

The year I lived in New York City, I was so poor I couldn’t afford a cup of coffee.

I was lucky - I was housed, thanks to an arrangement with a loved one, and I rarely went hungry thanks to a steady diet of scrambled eggs on toast. Every two weeks I would splurge on a $6 cut of meat. I cleaned the apartment and fed the both of us, and in return I had a safe place to stay for free.

I had just escaped from one of those types of relationships we’d rather forget than talk about, and I got on the train to Manhattan with one large suitcase and my safety and not much else.

Every week I lived in New York City I’d drop off more job applications for minimum wage jobs, and every week passed without the phone ringing. I made a little bit of cash doing spare work here and there, and it allowed me to survive. One week, I made a mistake - I went to a free event with a friend, but when I got there, I discovered that there was a $2 required coat check. Those two dollars meant that my wallet was empty when I tried to get on the subway the next morning. That day, I walked eight miles to my support group meeting.

Around mile five of this journey, someone on the street approached me while I was waiting for a walk signal and asked me for spare change. I put my hand in my pocket, smiled, and handed her my last 85 cents.

I had a rule for myself, you see. If someone asked me for help, give it. It’s an act of faith, you see. It’s an act of laughing in the face of scarcity, because that sense of scarcity could have stomped my soul into the dirt if I had given it one iota of credence.

What did I feel like to be that poor and give someone money?

Sometimes it reminded me that I was still a part of the world, the great continuum of giving and receiving that connects us all.

Sometimes, it reminded me that there were plenty of things I valued more than money.

And sometimes, if I’m fully honest, it gave me a reassuring sense of superiority. There is still someone I can pity. There’s someone below me on the food chain, someone who needs me, and I have the power to decide to help.

That last feeling is not exactly a generous one. In fact, I would not claim that I was being a particularly good example on the days that I shared my pocket change just to feel like I wasn’t the poorest person in the city and walked away feeling smug. A hard truth I’ve come to learn is that trying to do “good things” with a bad attitude often results in doing something that is overall harmful.

What I’m trying to say is that giving matters, but HOW we give also matters.

Have you ever received a birthday gift from someone which initially really excited you? Whatever it was - a concert ticket, a beautiful orchid, a new bicycle, a stylish watch - it was definitely what you wanted and perhaps something you’d asked for. But then, the person who gave you this gift behaved in a way that ruined it. Perhaps there were unspoken expectations attached, or perhaps they seemed to think that the gift absolved them from being accountable for some sort of bad behavior. With the right attitude, generosity is a great and appreciated thing. With the wrong motivations, however, generosity turns sour.

I believe the right attitude for generosity boils down to the desire to make someone’s world a better place, and when we recognize our interconnectedness, that means making choices which make stronger relationships.

There’s a theory about respect, it goes like this: there are two definitions of respect. One definition is the respect of equality - knowing that you and another person both have immeasurable worth and treating each other as such. Expecting this kind of respect - the respect of peers - can guide us to hold our own needs in balance with those of others, while recognizing that we are all different.

The other kind is the respect of authority. This is the kind that demands to be addressed by “sir” or “ma’am,” the kind that sees it as rude to be questioned, the kind that demands a closed-mouthed compliance. Expecting this kind of respect is all too often a “reasonable” explanation for violence - from a smack on the mouth from a parent to a taser dart from a police officer. It’s justified - after all, they needed to learn some respect.

These two radically different definitions of respect come from two radically different ideas of how we ought to build relationships. So when we’re called upon to be generous, it’s a good time to ask: what kind of relationship are we building? Hierarchical or mutual? A relationship between equals, or one where someone is superior?

Every day, we in the United States experience one particular type of hierarchical relationship: that of class. Think of the terminology we use: higher class and lower class. Successful people are “social climbers.” The people “on top” are the super-wealthy. The people “on the bottom” are the working class. (The ones who have nothing are even lower than the low - almost out of the picture altogether.) It’s no surprise that in such a cultural context, donating capital resources is a unidirectional act.

But wait! That sort of status is EARNED, right? After all, the people making all that money did so by working hard. Giving money to the poor is a fundamentally selfless act - sacrificing some of that hard-earned capital for those who don’t even bother to clean themselves up and get jobs, right? There’s only so much you can expect people to give up - if they worked so hard, they deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Maybe if people living on the street spend their money on a good suit and a haircut instead of vices, they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Well, here’s what 7th grade teacher Joseph Capehart has to say about that in their recent viral TikTok video:

Wow, that’s a lot to take in! Mr. Capehart shares this truth at a lightning pace that I had to watch a few times before it all stuck, so let me re-emphasize a few points: History matters. Policy matters. Other people’s perceptions and actions matter. Sometimes we’re purposefully hindered from being successful by people who would rather protect what they have (or acquire more) than consider the good of their neighbor.

And the part that hit me right in the feelings: Life ain’t fair. Let’s do what we gotta do to make it more fair. Don’t romanticize struggle so much that you fail to see how this country is letting people down.

Because truly in this country, it takes so little to lose everything. We’ve bought so deeply into the idea of worth-by-merit that statistically most of us are just one injury or illness away from total bankruptcy. What separates a middle class person from an unhoused person? In many cases, luck of the draw - circumstances of birth, neurotypicality, physical ability, upbringing, age, race, gender, appearance, country of origin… all have far greater an impact on someone’s economic prospects than any choice a person will EVER make.

So when it comes to the things we have agency over, there is fundamentally very little difference between the CEO and the sandwich maker. And one of those few things that we actually DO get to control is how we choose to be in relationship with each other.

Lee Barker, former president of Meadville Lombard Theological School, is often paraphrased by the student body in regards to choices. “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be in relationship?” is a phrase that echoes through the halls on campus. I think there’s a lot to chew on in that idea - and it’s certainly become a cornerstone of my marriage - but I think it also has some interesting implications when it comes to generosity.

Thinking arbitrarily, charity is “right.” I won’t argue with that. Charity is a good thing to do. But if we have a choice, what puts us in relationship? What is even better than the rightness of charity?

One relationship-building alternative is mutual aid. Radical activist Dean Spade breaks it down like this: With charity, the “members” are donors. In a mutual aid model, “members” are the people participating and making decisions. Charities tend to get run by professional teams and closed board meetings, while mutual aid projects are run transparently by volunteers invested in each other’s survival. Charities follow the rules laid down by existing, flawed and inequitable power structures. Mutual aid projects rely on unregulated sources of capital and voluntary labor. Charities help people conditionally and in a way that enables survival or mobility within the existing system, whereas mutual aid projects distribute resources without expectations or conditions while working to restructure the social landscape and flatten hierarchies.

In a mutual aid context, everyone is expected to participate in both giving and receiving. It’s very difficult to see oneself as more or less important than another person when you’re both taking home food from the same pantry.

Another big alternative to the charity model is looking at privilege as a responsibility. It’s kind of like saying, I was blessed with a voice that loves to sing, so when singing is asked of me, I say yes. Some folks were blessed with enough capital resources to help change the world, so when you have the opportunity to make change, it’s time to say yes. Sure, writing a check is a great place to start - but don’t let it end there. Just like voting, it’s an important thing to do to help protect others, but there are hundreds of thousands more opportunities to improve public policy in the four years between election days.

In seminary, we’re often challenged to define what faith means. My personal definition is this: faith gives us the means to, temporarily, travel directly from “surviving” to “thriving” without having to pass go or collect $200. Similarly, a faith community is the place in which we can be temporarily exempt from the “laws” of that hierarchy of scarcity we were all born into, receiving and contributing resources as we need. I believe the church should be a place where we can re-order society on a minute scale to short-circuit the systems that create economic and class inequality in our larger society.

Obviously this is an aspirational model - many faith communities do a decent job of living up to this goal, but in certain ways fall short - and that includes our church. We haven’t yet magically overcome our cultural context, and class division certainly exists in a multitude of unspoken ways at MDUUC. If you don’t believe me, don’t worry - you’re going to hear many examples throughout the year as my leadership initiative project works to reveal areas ready for growth. But let me tell you a story about something going on in our church right now which proves that we have the potential to escape the more hierarchical practices of generosity.

Next Thursday happens to be a holiday when, traditionally, people get together with their loved ones and eat a big meal. Sound familiar?

In previous years, this congregation has offered a Thanksgiving feast open to community members of all means and backgrounds - a chance to share the holiday meal side-by-side with others - and I’ve heard that this is an event that many look forward to throughout the season. This year, of course, it would be unsafe to gather and eat together - but how could we allow Thanksgiving to pass without providing for those who depend on this event for physical, social, and spiritual nourishment?

Last week, we announced that we would be working with a team of volunteers to help bring meals to those who wanted one, and we asked for responses from those willing to volunteer as well as those who wanted a meal delivered.

Since then, I’ve received quite a few responses from people who are willing to deliver meals. In fact, I’ve received quite a few responses from people who are EAGER to deliver meals. Several of you wrote to me that it would mean a lot to you to be assigned some deliveries - being of service during this holiday season is deeply meaningful, during a year when days have often felt meaningless. (I’ll put in an aside here - please do continue to volunteer. There’s no such thing as too many willing helpers!)

But here’s where this story gets interesting: so far, I only have about a third as many people who have asked to receive a meal as those who have offered to deliver one.

In this moment, the willingness to receive a Thanksgiving meal has become a generous act. The needs which are present right now are: Connection. Fulfillment. Purpose. Hope. A sense of community. Together, we have the means of surviving covered and are now offering each other the means of thriving. This is the magic of the faith community.

This church needs to be a mutual space. The church needs people to give their time, talent, and capital because the people also have a need to be in the continuum of giving and receiving. Each of us will get very little fulfillment from this arrangement until we take the time to inspect what it is that we think of ourselves when we give and receive. When we put ourselves in solidarity with each other, knowing that each of us is a being of immeasurable worth, knowing that what hurts one of us hurts us all, knowing that what heals one heart heals the world, the next part is easy. This loving solidarity is what gives us the power to break down the pillars of a system that condemns and exploits our own human family so that the select few can continue hoarding wealth and we can feel a thrill of sympathetic superiority when we can reach into our own pockets for change. Loving solidarity reminds us that our value is not dependent on what we give and how much - we are all holy, and whole, and deserving of the deep connection which comes from supporting each other into thriving.

2020 has been a viciously hard year. We have all lost so much. If there’s one thing we find this year, let it be the wisdom to choose relationship. Let this be the year that we learn not to stop at casting a ballot or writing a check. Let this be the year that we start to learn the deep satisfaction of living in solidarity and mutuality. Let a community of connective thriving be our holiday gift to each other.

My prayer for 2020 is that we recognize that sharing our needs is as valuable as sharing our goods. I pray that we no longer allow what we give or what we take to set us apart from others, but to bring us closer together. I pray for the clarity for us to see through the carefully crafted illusions of scarcity and comparison which are used to divide us. I pray that we reach out for each other as though for a sibling, a cousin, a dear friend - knowing that what happens to the least of us happens to us all. I pray that no one is forgotten.

Let this be our prayer, and let it carry us forward into a new and healing world in the year to come.

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[Copyright 2020 Miranda (Bran) Lennox]