Re-orientating towards abundance – Unitarians in Ringwood muse on letting go of scarcity 15 September 2024

The challenge set before us today was to look behind our thought processes and see whether we are generally operating with a mindset of scarcity.  The mindset of scarcity lies at the heart of many fears to do with survival, and is a root cause of animosity, xenophobia and conflict, even war.  For, if we believe we only have just about enough to get by, we guard our resources jealously and are reluctant to share them with others.  We begin to make judgments about whom we are prepared to share with, and put up barriers to protect our resources from others who mean less to us than those we view as our own — in other words, we begin to ‘other’ certain people.  This is where tribalism begins.

The first reading in today’s gathering was from the book Seeking Paradise by Stephen Lingwood.  Having suggested that alienation from the Earth, our bodies, our neighbours, and the source of life itself, are all, in essence, the same problem, Stephen highlighted that early Christian teaching was that evil can only be resisted by becoming deeply attuned to the divine presence within and all around.  As an example, we then heard some ecstatic poetry written by Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373 CE).

The second reading was from the Bible Book of Mark chapter 8.  This is the story of Jesus feeding a large crowd with a very small amount of food, for the second time, and Jesus’ frustration afterwards with his students, who didn’t seem to understand what had just happened and what they were supposed to learn from it.

While we were chewing these readings over we had some hymns and songs about giving thanks, the harvest, rejoicing in the truth, counting our blessings etc and then we heard the president for the day present thoughts on the two readings.

Pointing out that we need to understand what abundance is and how we can enjoy abundance in a world affected by climate overheat and biodiversity crash, and the population flows that will naturally follow, she said, 

“Abundance is not defined by having more stuff........nor is it about being able to access more and more data, information, music and moving images at the click of a carbon-expensive button.......Abundance is about connection.  Connection between people, certainly, but also connection with our environment, connection with what makes and gives life...... A greater sense of connection comes first and foremost from stronger communal living........We need to re-orientate ourselves, so that a sense of abundance becomes the whole context of our lives, the grounding on which we then go about the other more usual activities.”

 

She explained that her understanding of the Bible reading was that Jesus was teaching exactly about this act of re-orientation towards a mindset of abundance:

“Traditional churches use the miracle stories about Jesus as evidence or proof that Jesus is actually God.  Unitarians have the luxury of skipping that entirely, treating it as not a matter of interest.  Unitarians can look at what is actually going on in the story.

“When Jesus rebukes his students he is frustrated with them.  They are not paying attention to what he’s trying to teach them at that moment.  Jesus and his friends live as Jews under the yoke of Rome and under the religious authorities intent on appeasing Rome.  The Jewish people live under a socio-economic and political yoke that makes it hard to find the still, quiet, clarity at heart that Jesus is entirely orientated towards and teaching about.  Jesus calls it the kingdom of God.

“In the boat he is trying to warn them about the insidious nature of the power of the religious authorities and of the king who is a vassal of the Roman imperial oppressors. But his students aren’t listening. 

“It’s not even that the students are distracted by trying to think through and understand the miracle that Jesus has just performed.  It’s rather that all they are worrying about is that they only have in their possession a single loaf of bread.  They are in a mindset of scarcity.  Scarcity is once again worrying them, and putting everything else out of their minds.

 

“Jesus can see they haven’t absorbed the teaching about the miracles of the feeding of the many. The four thousand people that had gathered to listen to Jesus seemed to be in a state of scarcity.  And there was only a little bit of food to be found between the students, and this food was presented to Jesus.  ‘Hey, Jesus, here’s the problem!’

“Before doing anything with the food, Jesus blessed it.  He gave thanks.  By doing this he brought to attention what wonder and a marvel it was to have this food at all.  Then he broke the food up.  He split it into even smaller pieces, and gave it away.  He told others to give it away too, to share it with everyone.  It was distributed widely.  And somehow, in seeing it as a gift, a wonder, a measure of abundance, and giving it away, it actually became an abundance.  

“And this was the second time Jesus had done this.  So Jesus is disappointed and cross that having done this — and not just once but twice — his students now on the boat still haven’t understood.  Those closest to him, those who claim allegiance to him and his teaching about living in the kingdom, are not even listening to him.

“He rebukes them, but even now he doesn’t explain it for them.  He leaves it for them to work out for themselves;  and so it is left for us to work out for ourselves, as well.  

“I think the story about the rebuke by Jesus holds this message :  Look, you live in paradise, a place of abundance.  You think you have almost nothing, just enough to maybe get by, and you worry about the future.  Whereas with gratefulness and wonder and thanksgiving and sharing you have everything you need, and much much more than you need.  All it takes is a re-orientation.  All it takes is a mindset of abundance.”