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  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • Stewardship and Gift Policy
    • Saints We've Known
    • Charitable Giving and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • Sermons 2022-23
    • The Seventh Principle
    • Make Light of It
    • A Turn of the Screw
    • America: Part II
    • What Do You Expect?
    • Good Mourning
    • Beyone Repair?
    • No Signal
    • Absolutely, Maybe, Definitely Not
    • Do Guardian Angels Exist?
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  • LOVEUU
  • Community Resources
    • Mental Health Providers, Worcester MA
    • Southern Worcester County Parent Guide
  • Contact Us
    • Sermons 2021-22
  • Sermon Archives
    • Finding Joy in Uncertain Times
    • The Arithmetic of Joy
    • Of Muck and Martyrs
    • Doing Dishes
    • Idle Worship
    • The Fear of the Refugee
    • It's Not Just You
    • If We Choose
    • Lazy Busy
    • A Most Human Season
    • Running on Empty
    • Alone Together
    • Come Home
    • Winter Warmth
    • How Big Is Your Circle?
    • Thanksgiving Life
    • Kurt Vonnegut: Humanist Hero
    • In Costume
    • Again
    • Borderland
    • The Geometry of Life
    • Transformation and Growth
    • Come Build a Land
    • Our Brains, Our Minds and Our Hearts
    • Gifts
    • Repairers of the Breach
    • The Times They Are A-Changin'
    • Mission Possible
    • It Matters
    • Thanksgiving Reflection
    • Shoes That Fit
    • Winter
    • Ignorance, Answers, and Bliss
    • Questions, Questions
    • Living to the Point of Tears
    • Lost in the Shuffle: UU's Less Popular Principle
    • On the Turning Away
    • A Matter of Degree
    • A Collection of Near Death Experiences
    • I Know Her So Well, I Think. I Thought.
    • Faith-based Resilience
    • To Abet Creation
    • Who Cares?
    • A Matter of Life and Depth
    • Pass/Fail
    • Enough
    • O Holy Light
    • With New Eyes
    • Coming Alive
    • Beyond Words
    • Becoming
    • A Miracle Even Thomas Jefferson Could Embrace
    • Fear Not!
    • The Miracle of Change
    • Meeting Grace
    • R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    • Serving with Grace
    • The Pursuit of Happiness
    • When Heresy Met Sally
    • The Souls of All Living Creatures
    • What Are You Looking For?
    • Beloved
    • Let Me Count The Ways
    • Happiness
    • Chosen
    • Faith and Belief
    • Room To Grow
    • Blessed Fools
    • Don't Be a Superhero
    • Getting There from Here
    • Unfinished Business
    • Universalism's Origen
    • Yearn to Learn
    • Beauty Saves
    • Commentary on Freedom
    • Being Human: Religious Community in a Plastic Age
    • Questionable Certainties and Faithful Doubts
    • Commentaries on Murphy's Law
    • Children of a Lesser God
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Life Incarnate
    • So You Want to Be Happy
    • A Year's End Resolution
    • Where Stars Are Born
    • Thanking Eve
    • Anger, Our Teacher
    • Everlasting Punishment
    • Comprehending Moral Imperatives in a Me-centered World
    • Promises Kept
    • Dancing With The Stars: Science and Religion
    • Two Steps and Missteps: Church Membership for Human Beings
    • Light of the World
    • Dear God
    • Imago Hominis
    • CESA: Reflections on Drug Addiction
    • Falling in Love Again
    • How Does Your Garden Grow
    • Repent! No Guilt Trip Required
    • Go Out into the World
    • Thanks-living
    • Life and Not Life
    • Guilty As Charged
    • Dare To Hope
    • Don't Forget To Chew
    • Break the Silence - Stop the Violence
    • Living Among Strangers
    • What Is Religion Anyway?
    • East of Eden
    • Praying Attention
    • Wholly Human
    • The Healing Power of Forgiveness
    • All I Want for Christmas
    • Let It Be...Let It Go
    • Why Not?
    • People Like You
    • Vulnerable Trust
    • Thin Places
    • Now What?
    • Courageously Humble
    • The Last Butterfly
    • The Good, The Bad, and The Whole
    • Sacred Souvenirs
    • Made Whole
    • This Wild and Precious Life
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Where Our Future Can Begin
    • Taking Stock: Managing Our Spiritual Inventory
    • To Convert Life into Truth
    • Are We There Yet?
    • Family Matters
    • Ordinary Saints
    • All I Wanted Was Everything
    • Giving Thanks
    • To Be or Not To Be
    • Entering the Christmas Story
    • A Great Light
    • What's Real?
    • Troubling the Water
    • The Amazing Mr. Wedgewood
    • Lend Me Your Ears
    • Work That Is Real
    • Happy Melba Toast Day
    • The Great Pacific Garbage Dump
    • Plastics, Benjamin!
    • Surprise Beginnings
    • A Place at the Table
    • Norbert Capek’s Flower Communion: A Call To Honor Life
    • Voices of God
    • Hold On To What Is Good
    • The Little Stone Church That Rocks
    • What Would Jean-Luc Do?: A Tribute to Humanist Hero Gene Roddenberry
    • From Who am I? to Whose are We?
    • Turning
    • Spirituality
    • R & R
    • Spritual F-Words
    • Does Anyone Really Like Herding Cats?
    • Prepare to Be Amazed
    • The Greatest Gift
    • The Impossible Will Take A Little While
    • Taking Sides: Journey to the Center of the Universe
    • Help Wanted, Apply Within
    • Two Truths & Plastics and Water Don't Mix
    • The Third Conversation
    • Good People >
      • UU You >
        • Twitter and Covid and Wall Street, Oh, my!
        • I Do Believe in Spooks >
          • Holy Homophones >
            • What's in a Name?
            • So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!
            • Open-Mindedness, As Assigned
            • Going on a Journey
            • Cheap Love
            • Nonproductive Delight
            • The Persistence of Memory
            • Thoughts about the Historical Jesus
            • Lindens and Tiarella and Bearberry, Oh My!
            • Season's Greetings
            • I Still Have A Dream
            • Peace Corps - A Lesson in Caring
            • Spiritual Engineering
            • Thanks for the Memories
            • Our Stories, Ourselves
            • Anxious Gardeners
            • The Best Sermon Ever!
            • UUnited
            • We Are Courageous
            • A Right Way to Be Wrong
            • Sacred Ideals
            • This Wild and Precious Life Revisited
            • 20/20
            • Home
            • What About Now?
        • Fragile
        • Time Ravel
        • Now Is Not the Time for Hope
        • The G Word (It's Probably Not what You Think)
    • No Thanks, I'll Walk
    • Be the Change
    • I Don't Know
    • What Lies Within
    • Guest Perspective
    • Growing Panes
    • De Colores
    • Roots and Wings
BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

The Greatest Gift
 
Sermon given at Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 18, 2016
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak

 
Recently I was out shopping with my mother and as we met up after wandering around separately in one particular store, she commented how she had noticed in recent years more and more stores marketing things as Hanukkah gifts in addition to Christmas gifts.  The tone of her comment was a peculiar blend of amusement and resentment.  I kind of shrugged, and responded, “Well its a gift giving holiday too.” She knows that, of course.  Turns out she making an observation about the intensity of contemporary marketing.  The blend of amusement and resentment I heard in her comment seemed a realization, at some level, of the absurdity of hyper-consumerism and a reaction against the pressure it exerts on our lives and identities.
 
Indeed this “most wonderful time of the year” comes with a lot of hopes and expectations that have little to do with those lifted up and celebrate through the religious observance of Hanukkah or Christmas.  Nowhere is this perhaps more true than with gift giving.  
 
Some of us spend a lot of time obsessing about finding the “perfect gift” or worrying if our gift is too small or too big.  We debate with ourselves about whether to give a practical or frivolous gift. And sometimes we worry that a gift is more about us than the intended recipient.
 
I’ve done all of these and more and you know what?  It makes gift giving a chore. Another task to add to an already too long “to-do” list.  We can try to rationalize all the stress and tension we feel as evidence of our effort to be thoughtful in our giving, but in the end, we are more likely attempting to dictate an particular outcome, something proven time and again, to be beyond our control.  Case in point…How many of us remember or have seen children in our lives toss aside some big expensive toy moments after opening it and go play or make something else from the cheap cardboard box it came in?
 
So does this mean it doesn’t matter what we give, how big or small our gift is or how much thought we put into selecting it?  No, not necessarily.  But it does mean we can ease up on ourselves.  Because the greatest gift we give or receive may or may not be one we intended or wanted, but is always one we need. 
 
Have you ever had someone thank you or tell you how much something you gave, said or did meant to them?  Sometimes the person doing the thanking wasn’t even the person to whom whatever we gave, said or did was directed.  Other times, we’re not even aware that we’ve given, said or done anything at all. I’m often surprised by this when it happens, but as I think about the gifts that have meant the most to me over the years, I realize the givers of those gifts might be surprised too to learn what I have actually received.
 
What’s the first really meaningful gift you remember receiving?  One who’s memory or impact remains with you to this day.   Who gave it to you?  Do you think that person has any idea of its impact? 
 
The first truly meaningful gift I remember with any great clarity was a Fisher Price Castle I received one year for Christmas.  My parents gave it to me. I loved that castle and played with it for hours on end.  I can still picture in my mind.  It enlivened my imagination and sparked curiosity in me about history and gave me lifelong interest and appreciation of architecture.  As I look back, I was given a toy castle but I received much more than that.  I received the gift of wonder.  A gift which has enriched my life immeasurably and even saved it, spiritually, in difficult times.
 
Sometimes we get gifts we’re not sure what to do with.  Following a day spent at the farm of a family friend where my father and I and his friend and sons all when dirt bike riding, and admittedly had a good time, my father went out and bought me a minibike. Even though I had fun that day at the farm, I didn’t want a minibike and I didn’t ride it very much.  It wasn’t until I was older and learned more about my father’s difficult relationship with his own father growing up that I came to appreciate the minibike in the spirit of spontaneous joy with which it was given.  My father gave me a minibike and, as it turns out, the gift of generosity.
 
Once in a while we give or receive a gift that was not, at least consciously, intended as a gift at all.  In middle school I received what I still consider to be one of the most significant gifts I’ve been given in my life.  Middle school is difficult for many kids…perhaps even for some of you here this morning… and for some, like me, it was unbearable.  I was bullied a lot.  At the time there were no zero tolerance policies or even discussions about bullying.  “Boys will be boys”, was the typical response if there was a response at all.  But one teacher, Mr. LeBlanc…my gym teacher, took notice.  He checked in with me, asked if I was okay and offered help.  I’m sure Mr. LeBlanc didn’t think of what he offered me as a gift, but what he gave me could not be bought at any price. I was given caring attention and received the gift of blessing, a gift which today informs my theology of wholeness and has shaped my call to ministry.
 
Perhaps the hardest gifts to receive are the ones disguised as something else.  After discovering Unitarian Universalism as an adult I was completely enamored with my new found faith, the congregation I had joined and most of all, my minister who seemed to say and do everything right. Then one Sunday, I realized I was irritated by something she said or didn’t say in a sermon.  Shortly thereafter I asked her for something, I don’t remember exactly what anymore, but she turned me down.  She apologized saying she just didn’t have the time. 
 
At first I was quite upset and I started to notice other ways in which she didn’t match my initial, albeit illusory, image of who she was.  In time I came to realize my disappointment in her was related to her being human, just like me. My illusions about her were a form of objectification, denying the fullness of her humanity. I was given an experience of disappointment yet I also received the gift of gratitude, a renewed appreciation of what it means to be human.
 
Wonder, generosity, blessing and gratitude aren’t things we can buy, place in a box, wrap up and hand to someone.  We can’t hold them in our hand or display them on a shelf.  Instead they are some of the inner qualities or perspectives of abundance that are awakened or unwrapped within as we seek and make meaning from the different encounters and situations we experience throughout our lives.
 
Our reading “All I See Is A Part of Me” offers a light and joyful illustration of unwrapping.  The narrator confides, “I used to think that I was small…a little body, that was all.”  But things begin to change as encounters and experiences are accumulated and expanded.  First a conversation with the sun in which the sun says, “We are one.”  And then an encounter with a star that proclaims, “You are larger than you know.”  As the narrator explores and reflects on these encounters…”I looked again at all my light And saw shining star was right.”
…. a new perspective emerges…”You are me, and I am you” and the gift of belonging is received.
 
In our own lives, this unwrapping is not always so quick or easy. Meaning, the gift of a particular situation isn’t always or even often apparent immediately, but takes time, sometimes years to unwrap.
 
Our lives are filled with experiences pleasant and painful and some of us have had more, sometimes much more, of one than the other. Leading us, understandably, to doubt or resist the very idea that a gift may be hidden within such experiences.  In addition, there is a tendency, particularly in pop-psychology and spirituality, to think or even insist that all we need to do is shift our perspective a little to find the gift in a given situation, though this is in fact rarely the case.
 
The unspoken truth is that such a shift takes sustained effort and support that is hard to find and maintain alone, in isolation or in the chronic absence of basic human needs.  The gifts from the stories I shared from my own life took time, and a few took a really long time as well as some help, to unwrap. 
 
And so in closing, I offer to you this observation: We typically open gifts in the presence of others.  We do this as a way to more fully share in the experience of giving and receiving which includes loving attention, excitement and the promise of what the Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzburg calls, sympathetic joy, the experience of being happy for another’s happiness. And isn’t that one of the reasons we gather here?  To unwrap the greatest gifts, the ones we may or may not want but nevertheless need, in the presence and with the help of those committed to walking together, to sharing in the joys and struggles of life in community.  May it be so.
 
Amen and Blessed Be
 
 
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