"Speaking the Truth in Love"

A sermon by Dave Weissbard

delivered at

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Rockford, Illinois

4/23/06

Where I live, summer’s keynote is abundance. The forests fill with undergrowth, the trees with fruit, the meadows with wild flowers and grasses, the fields with wheat and corn, the gardens with zucchini, and the yards with weeds. In contrast to the sensationalism of spring, summer is a steady state of plenty, a green and amber muchness that feeds us on more levels than we know.

Nature does not always produce abundance, of course. There are summers when flood or drought destroy the crops and threaten the lives and livelihood of those who work the fields. But nature normally takes us through a reliable cycle of scarcity and abundance in which times of deprivation foreshadow an eventual return to the bountiful fields.

This fact of nature is in sharp contrast to human nature, which seems to regard perpetual scarcity as the law of life. Daily I am astonished at how readily I believe that something I need is in short supply. If I hoard possessions, it is because I believe there is not enough to go around. If I struggle with others over power, it is because I believe that power is limited. If I become jealous in relationships it is because I believe that when you get too much love, I will be short-changed.

. . . The irony, often tragic, is that by embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear. If I hoard material goods, others will have too little and I will never have enough. If I fight my way up the ladder of power, others willbe defeated and I will never feel secure. . . . We create scarcity by fearfully accepting it as a law and by competing with others for resources as if we were stranded in the Sahara at the last oasis.

In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically. It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common store. Whether the scarce resource is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around. Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection , but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need.

. . . Here is a summertime truth: abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community doesn’t just create abundance – community is abundance, If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed.

If I were to choose what I believe is one of the greatest challenges of our culture today, I would say that it is our sense of powerlessness. It may be one of those myths about the past, one of those romantic dreams that never really existed, but I believe that in the less complex world of the past there was a greater sense that what an individual did mattered. We carry around with us at least an historical sense of the relationship between cause and effect that is questioned today.

Once upon a time, we believe, what one did had an impact, a consequence. If you were honest and worked hard, there would be a payoff. People lived in communities where they were known. They developed reputations that they carried with them and most people cared what others thought of them. They felt a sense of responsibility.

In today’s world there is an increasing sense of anonymity that carries with it a decreasing sense of responsibility and an increasing sense of powerlessness. We all know people who, for instance, devoted their working lives to companies which, in turn, promised to care for them in their old age – companies which have been bought out by distant corporations which say, “We can’t afford to keep those promises. You’ll have to take care of your own medical expenses.” Or, the company has gone belly-up and the pension fund, which was invested in the company, has evaporated. The current Enron trial is but one example.

There are those who contend that the media, rather than reinforcing the message that in a democracy the people are responsible, in fact promote the belief that the common person is powerless in the face of political forces over which we have no control. “What can the individual do?” “You can’t fight city hall.” Citizen participation, voting, in America continues to decline because of the increasing sense that it really doesn’t matter whom you vote for. Republicans stand for getting rid of deficits, right? Sure. Our children’s children will be paying for the war in Iraq – and I am speaking at this point only of the cash, not the impact on our relationships with foreign nations. Democrats believe in taking care of the most needy, right? Look at the welfare reform during the Clinton presidency.

And the problem is that belief in our powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less power we believe we have, the less power we exercise. Why bother?

One of the things I will never understand was Rockford’s vote in 1983 to give up home rule of our community. There were people who believed, and still believe, that we are somehow better off if we give more power over our city to legislators from Chicago and Peoria and East St. Louis and less to the local citizens we elect to our city council. This is mind-boggling.

I contrast this to my experience in the first community to which I was called to serve a church: Bedford, Massachusetts. In Bedford, at that time, we had the ultimate in democracy: we had open town meetings. At least once a year, voters would gather in the high school auditorium to act on the business of the community – to determine the actual budget of the police department and the fire department and the library and the schools and the public works department. Seats were at a premium, you had to get there early, because people took their responsibility as citizens seriously and the meetings generally went on late into the night for several evenings.

I was a member, and later chair, of the board of the Bedford Free Public Library. We needed to be clear with the community about how we were proposing to spend its money. At one point we had a librarian who did not inspire confidence and the town meeting felt that the budget she proposed was not realistic, so it got amended down. The library board took back the responsibility for presenting the budget and I, as chair of the budget committee, was able to get a significant increase the following year because we laid out our numbers and made a case for how we were serving the community.

[Parenthically, I was on the library board because its state charter provided that the minister of the Unitarian Church was a member. I got the state legislature to change that and I ran for my seat on the board and received the highest plurality of anyone running for office that year. That’s something of which I will always be proud.]

I have said all of this as preface to looking at our own church because it relates. A Unitarian Universalist church is like a traditional New England town meeting. It is a pure democracy. The power is right there for all to see and exercise. As we always point out in our new member orientations, the power of the congregation is absolute. You could vote at a congregational meeting to become Baptist, and this church would be Baptist, if the Baptists would have us. You get to decide who will be ministers, and for how long. Something that really freaks me out is the perception that some people in the church have that they are without power to determine the direction of the church. Surveys have invariably reflected the perception by some members that there is a “they” who run this church, a “they” who make the decisions, and it is a “they” of which those members do not feel a part. No matter how hard nominating committees work to involve the broadest possible cross section of the congregation in its leadership; no matter how hard boards have worked to seek input from the congregation in the drafting of proposals that are presented to the congregation [printing information in the Kairos, holding forums to solicit feedback] there are always people who say they feel excluded form the decision making process. It seems as if the societal sense of powerlessness is carried to the church. “There’s no point in trying: no one will listen anyhow.” In many cases, this only means, “The majority made a decision with which I do not agree,” but the perception is nonetheless real.

One of the things about this church is that it does offer clear opportunities for you to exercise your power. That does not mean that your view will always prevail, because we do not all agree on everything, but you always have an opportunity to be heard, to have an influence. What you do matters. Each of you has the opportunity to have a direct impact on the life of this religious community.

Like any organization, there are times when there is a certain amount of inertia, when things tend to keep rolling along in the same direction unless something major happens.

Well, friends, in case you haven’t noticed, something major is happening. There is about to be one of those sea changes as you seek a new senior minister. This church, 3 years from now, will be different. Nothing remains the same forever. You are about to engage in the process of building a bridge from today to the future. This is going to be an exciting time in the life of this congregation. You have not chosen a new senior minister for more than a quarter of a century. You will not be powerless in this process. You get to determine the shape of that future.

Last night, at the annual dinner, a trio presented a song about that bridge which I am sure those of you who were present would like to hear again, and those who missed, should have an opportunity to hear. Friends, Misha and her boys. [The song was sung.]

When I came here 27 years ago, I promised I would “speak the truth to you in love.” I have always tried to do that. I have a limited number of opportunities left to do so. There is an area of church life in which you each exercise a great deal of power – some more consciously than others. It is an area which is often difficult to discuss because of a variety of defense mechanisms that get triggered. I have worked at being clear about it over the years, but my clarity has been impacted by my clear self-interest. I am, of course, speaking of money - a very touchy subject – one which deals directly with power. The giving and witholding of money is one way in which you exercise your power. This year I am freer than ever to address this subject because I have nothing to gain personally. I feel the need to address it because of the impact that it will have on the bridge you are building. Potential ministers, if they are any good, when they are deciding where to invest their career, look seriously at the support the members provide to their church as an indicator of how much the members care about their church, how much commitment there is, how fertile this ground is for a productive ministry.

There are three areas of concern I want to share with you about where your financial support has gone, areas that I believe will be of concern to potential successors, and then I will share some concern about that support.

One of the glaring, though understandable, shortfalls of this church’s budgets has been in the area of its building. We have a spectacular building which, because of its design and age, has required relatively little maintenance. But it has aged. Knowing that the aging process does involve some deterioration, it is always important for any responsible owner of a building to set aside resources for addressing that deterioration when it becomes necessary. Every year, your finance committees have provided in preliminary budgets for a capital maintenance fund to set aside for the future. Most of the time, when the inevitable gap between our dreams and the reality of the support pledged has emerged, this has been one of the items that has been eliminated from the budget because the need was less immediate than others. When it was there, the money always was spent, so we have no accumulation to turn to for such major repairs as our sanctuary roof, which has been leaking, and our driveway and upper parking lot which are in disrepair. We are talking big bucks. You cannot reasonably expect some future generations to take care of this. That’s concern #1. There is a serious need to provide support for the care of our building.

Number two is our support of the larger Unitarian Universalist movement. There was a time when this congregation paid its full share, as 2/3 of our congregations do, but it has been many years. We are not an isolated cpongregation, going its own thing. We are part of a movement on which we are dependent – never more than when searching for a new minister. We have been doing better, but it is important that we take the final leap this year and return to honor society status.

Number 3 is trickier for me to address. For many years, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association prepared charts of what appropriate ministerial salaries ought to be. Those charts were understandably suspect. In truth, until I came here, I was paid more by both congregations I served than those charts suggested. I was critical because the guidelines aimed too low to be of help to me. Until I came here, I almost always received an annual cost of living increase, and frequently received merit increases on top of those.

I took a reduction in salary to come here, naively confident that you would catch up. In fact, the only time in 27 years I received an increase above the cost of living was a year after not receiving any increase at all. I have fallen farther and farther behind my colleagues in ministerial compensation.

Let me be clear. In any field, one way you get increases is by changing jobs. No one has held a gun to my head to make me stay, so I am not looking to make you feel guilty. It has been my choice. But I feel an obligation to you and to my successor to be clear about the problem when it will no longer impact me. [I suppose I should acknowledge that I immediately heard a familiar voice in my ear suggesting that I never received a merit increase because many felt I never deserved one. I don’t believe that is a majority view.]

The Unitarian Universalist Association, in order to provide guidance for congregations, turned several years ago to a leading research firm that deals with salaries for non-profit organizations where “the duties, responsibilities, activities and accountability” were similar to those of church staff.

I have good news and bad news for you. Our office staff is right on target, we are generous with our custodian, and in order to get a music director with the skills we require, we have exceeded the guidelines. It is only in terms of ministers that we fall short – significantly. The guidelines, by the way, are scaled both by the size of the church and by the geographic location. Colleen’s salary would be pretty much “on target” if she were a lay director of religious education like Pat Murray or Leny VanRoojen were. Given her ministerial training, responsibilities, and performance, she is 38% behind where an associate minister in a UU church this size in this geographical area should be after 17 years. I, on the other hand, am right on target for a minister of 3-5 years experience in a UU church this size in this region. It’s only when you recognize that I have been here 27 years that it becomes obvious that you have been paying me 19% less than the guidelines call for. [Again, let me be clear that it has been my choice to remain here. I have had opportunities to move that I have declined of my own free will, so I am not “blaming” you.] These are not blue sky numbers. They are competitive salaries in our movement.

One of the things you will need to grapple with is the expectation under the UUA guidelines that in addition to cost of living increases:

annual merit adjustments will be offered to most employees. Over time, for those performing their duties at a solid, acceptable level, merit increases should drive salaries past the Midpoint toward the Maximum goal. In addition to rewarding competence, these adjustments are conducive to longer service.

If you are not willing to make that commitment, it will directly impact the pool of ministers you will have to choose among.

The immediate good news is that accredited interim ministers expect to be paid at the middle salary level for a church, which is almost precisely what you are paying me. The only increase you will face immediately is because you have been receiving an almost free ride on my health insurance because I am covered under Karen’s policy but you cannot assume that an interim will offer you that out.

Could you find a cheaper minister? Of course you could. I could introduce you to unemployed ministers who would settle for half as much. Would you want to? Would you want a minister who was unable to compete for a church of this quality?

[note: I did not say, although I had intended to, that I never disagreed with the allocation of the money that was available. I often urged the reduction of proposed increases in my salary in the face of greater needs. The problem was a lack of sufficient support.0

What I am saying is that in order to build that bridge into the future with a secure base, this congregation cannot coast. There is a level of financial responsibility that must be faced that has not been achieved thus far. Your decision about how you will support your church will have a direct impact on its ability, your ability, to address building needs, carry a full share of associational responsibility, and offer a competitive ministerial salary to potential candidates.

When one looks at the financial support of this church by its members, there is a very wide range. This is not surprising. There is a significant variation in resources, in participation, in commitment, and frankly in responsibility.

Let me say right off the bat, and clearly, there are a few individuals or families in this church whose financial situation makes it impossible for them to give any financial support at this time. Our bylaws anticipate that and provide that those who need to can request a waiver of the requirement to make and pay a pledge in order to be active members. This is as it should be. We do not value people on the basis of what they can pay.

We also have some members of modest means who give generously of what they have to support this church, although the total amount may be small. The truth is, however, that even allowing for this, there is a very wide variation in support.

82% of the support of this church comes from 40% of its members, which means that 60% of us give just 18% of the total. This does not necessarily correlate with resources nor with participation so much as responsibility. We fortunately have some members who are disproportionately generous – this church matters to their lives and they demonstrate it concretely. The truth is that there are people who are making a living wage, or have adequate retirement benefits, and who participate in the church but contribute little or nothing to its financial support. One of the hardest things to accept is that this always has been and always will be true to some degree. We have no control over human nature and there are people who are “takers” and not “givers” and nothing we can do will ever change that.

There is one thing over which we have some control and that is what we ourselves do. My financial pledge to this church has never been based on what other people do. That’s not entirely true – my first year I did cut back on what I gave to my previous church, based on the low percentage of income for which this church was asking. I did not feel good about it and returned the following year to what I felt was a reasonable percentage, a level of support I could feel good about.

What I learned, when I was in theological school, was not to talk about equal giving, but rather equal generosity. We cannot divide our budget into equal parts because, as I said, our resources vary. What we can talk about is equal generosity. Having just completed my taxes last week, I can tell you that Karen and I had a gross income of $135,000 last year - including her salary, my salary, my housing allowance, and the honoraria I received for preaching and weddings. I was taught that 5% of gross income was a good pledge. That would, in our case, be $6,762. Actually, last year we gave the church just over $9,000 – but that was because we did not evenly space our previous pledge. Our pledge for this fiscal year is $7,200. Giving that amount means that we eat out less often than we might like, and there are some peripheral things we do without, but we put our money where we believe it needs to be.

(You may have seen the comic strip in yesterday’s Register-Star in which a minister, having called upon his congregation to give until it hurts, comments that he is amazed at how low their pain threshold is. I have never talked about giving until it hurts. I only ask that people give at a level which makes them feel good – which makes them feel like they can be proud of doing what they can for their church with the resources they have.)

It is my belief that there are some people who have never given serious thought to how their support of the church correlates with its importance to them – we operate so often on auto-pilot. The cable company tells us how much we have to pay for classic cable service, and we pay it – an amount in excess of what half our members contribute. An elderhostel tells us how much we need to pay for a weeklong learning experience, and we pay it. Starbucks tells us how much we must pay for a latte and a pastry, and we pay it. Along comes the church and many of us consider how much may be left over after we’ve paid the “important” things.

I said before that one of the realities is that there will always be people who do not take responsibility for their support of the church and nothing will change that. I also believe, and in fact know from experience, that there are people who suddenly become aware of the gap between their words and their actions.

Last year I told the story which bears repeating about the member who, two years ago, made a very dramatic increase in their pledge. It was so dramatic that I thought there might have been a mistake and followed up. “No,” I was told, “there is no mistake. My spouse is a fundamentalist and gives 10% of their earnings to their church and I decided that my church was just as important to me.” I told that member we would accept that pledge only with a promise that it would be reduced if it proved to be a burden. It was paid, and renewed last year at the same level of generosity.

The purpose of a sermon like this is to run a flag up the pole in hope that someone new will salute it – that someone, maybe several someones, will begin to think differently about their support of the church.

We are engaged in building a bridge between today and the future of this church. A truly successful construction project will require that you play your part to the best of your ability – to the point where you can look in the mirror and say to yourself, “I care about this church and I feel good that I am supporting it in accordance with its importance to me and my resources.”

You have power. You have a measure of control over the future of this church. Only you can decide how responsibly you will exercise that power. When a representative of the stewardship committee contacts you, welcome her or him into your home and engage in a conversation about this church – something that matters a great deal to you both. They will not try to get you to give ‘til it hurts. They will encourage you to think about its needs and your commitment and to decide for yourself how you will exercise your power and your responsibility. The pledge you make will affect the future of this church.

Parker Palmer pointed out in our reading that while we regard scarcity as the law of life, in community, abundance is the true nature of things. He said:

I have said all my years here that there is virtually no limit to what we could do if we chose to. We, as a community, have abundant resources. As an anonymous minister once observed, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that we have all the money we need to do everything we want to do. The bad news is that too much of it is still in your bank accounts.

We have among us more than enough resources to build a durable bridge that will carry this church long into the future. The question you need to answer is whether you will approach your stewardship of this church from a position of abundance or of scarcity. Only you can make that decision, and how you make it matters very much.