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Human Dignity

First Principle a sermon by John Marsh

The first principle of our Unitarian Universalist Association is the affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. At first glance there might seem nothing extraordinary about such a statement. Everyone wants to be treated as if they had inherent worth and dignity, and most of us are willing to treat others that way. We may even assume that this attitude, so close to the golden rule, treat others the way you would like to be treated, or do not do to others what you would not like to have done to yourself--is part of the basic attitude of all religions.

Well, it is and it isn't.

The questions of whether we are basically good or evil, and whether we can improve ourselves through education, or whether we are the persons we are because of divine election, or random chance, or our environment, or our DNA--these are among the most basic religious questions.

In the fourth century St. Augustine observed: My ways are many and various and violently so without measure. I have become a question unto myself, and this is my weakness.

Most religions regard humanity as being somehow incomplete unless instructed in their own particular way of being religious.

The Islamic faith teaches that we are all born Islamic, but unless we have Islamic parents we quickly forget all the most important lessons that we need to know in order to be good human beings. The very word Muslim means one who submits his or her will to Allah.

Most Christian churches hold the doctrine that we are born in sin, and in order for us to realize our true nature -- in order to be in right relationship with God we must be baptized or even re-born.

What astonishes me whenever I think about it--and I confess I do not really spend a lot of time thinking about it, but whenever I do think about it I really am continually astonished--is that when our twin denomination Unitarian Universalism (then two separate denominations) began in this country, in early 19th century New England, our leaders had clear-cut answers to the question of human nature which were different from the answer of any religion before them.

They taught that we human beings are basically good, and that we, blessed by God with the gift of reason, can improve our condition through education. They further believed that they could prove these theories scientifically, just as others had recently proved the theories of gravity, or that the sun was the center of our solar system. Any of these convictions might have gotten you burnt at the stake 150 years earlier in Europe, but in New England in the early 1800's they sold easily.

The world was smaller then, and more manageable, or at least it seemed that way.

This is not to say that the early Unitarians and Universalists sat on their hands while thinking good thoughts. Far from it. They were in the vanguard of women's suffrage, the movement for the abolition of slavery, the guarantee of public education, better treatment for the mentally disabled, prison reform, and a host of other worthy endeavors.

The Unitarian leader William Ellery Channing led the public opposition to the annexation of Texas, for the simple reason that the land rightfully belonged to Mexico and to take something which does not rightfully belong to you, would be to disregard the divinity within you. He and his followers succeeded in delaying the acceptance of Texas into the Union for over one and a half years.

Channing was not considered an impractical idealist or a radical because of this. At this point in his career he moved easily among the most powerful and moneyed men in America. It was only near the end of his career, when Channing called for the abolition of slavery, that the New England business community began to have doubts about whether Channing was really one of their own.

Unitarianism and Universalism were separately launched. Time went by. The world grew bigger, issues became more complex. Channing would have argued that human dignity is inherent in each one of us. Some of us today might argue that there is nothing inherent about it. It is up to us to affirm it, recognize it, honor it. If we do not grant ourselves and each other human dignity, then it does not exist.

This church in San Francisco was founded 150 years ago this year. It was still establishing itself when the United States began its Civil War.

Although he was schooled in early New England Unitarianism and Universalism, Thomas Starr King, minister of this church during the Civil War, did not preach much about the godlike capacities of human nature. Instead he spoke of the evils of slavery and the degradation of rebel state governments. He spoke of the northern cause as the last best hope for all that was good and worth preserving. Jefferson Davies he compared to the anti-Christ.

The Unitarian Universalist faith in the godlike capacities of human beings was also challenged by the ideas of Charles Darwin. Darwin was a Unitarian himself, but his scientific studies turned up no evidence of any kinship with angels, rather they showed how human beings are part of an ongoing evolution, how we are related to animals, how we are, in fact, one breed of animal among other breeds.

I recently saw a documentary on the mole rat of Africa which is a mammal that behaves like many insects. Instead of composing a family unit of a mate and offspring, the African mole rat lives in colonies, with different members of the colony performing very different functions, much like a colony of bees.

Sigmund Freud gave us a theory of human behavior that said we should not be surprised by human aggression. Aggressive behavior is part of our nature, along with a number of other less than noble urges which might be tempered by education and culture, but will always be within us, and may possibly come to the surface and claim their own no matter how disastrous the consequences.

World Wars I and II confirmed how thin the veneer of polite society really is. Nuclear weapons arrived and brought with them the threat to end everything that human beings know and understand.

In some ways Unitarian Universalists have acknowledged this new, more problematic world, in some ways we have ignored it.

When I was born in 1955 some churches around New England were still using the old motto which said that we believed in salvation by character and the progress of Mankind onward and upward forever.

We now smile at the antiquated language of these statements, but is there not something of these sentiments still very much part of our faith in our affirmation of the essential worth and dignity of every person? And is there not part of this heritage that we still might take pride in claiming, and if not, what is the alternative?

There is a story widely popular among preachers about a wise woman who lives at the edge of a city. Early one morning the woman greets a traveler who asks her what the people who live in her city are like.

She responds with a question: What are the people like where you come from?

The people where I come from are greedy and mean, boring and arrogant. Whenever two of us get together it usually ends in a quarrel. That is why I left.

The woman shakes her head and sighs: I'm afraid you will find people here much the same way.

Later in the day the woman receives another traveler who asks her the same question: What are the people like in your city?

What are the people like where you come from?

Oh, the people where I come from are wonderful. They are generous and energetic, and never do two or three of us get together, but the joy we feel at being in each others presence is multiplied and overflows in to some form of music making or poetry, dance and laughter.

The woman smiles and says, You will find that people here are much the same way.

This is a wonderful story, but sometime I fear that we, as a denomination, have identified too much with the clever woman who lives at the roadside, answers questions with more questions and the dispenses irrefutable wisdom. I would have us be more like the traveler who came from the land of wonderful people. I think that traveler is having a lot of fun in life.

We have observed the perversity of our own nature. We have seen how capable we are of cruelty, and have known that striving after perfection can sometimes lead only to feeling not good about ourselves because we fail to live up to ideals that never had any basis in reality in the first place. Or worse, we find fault with other people for not living up to our ideals.

Like Augustine, we have seen that our nature is many and various and violently so without measure. But unlike Augustine we have not regarded this as a weakness on our part. Indeed, we have applauded ourselves on our keen powers of observation.

What I am urging is a return to our position, expounded at the beginning of our movement, of a radical faith in the human potential. Except that whereas our early church leaders thought that this confidence in human goodness and progress could be based on scientific evidence, I am ready to concede that I do not think it can be. For me, it is faith based on faith. Faith, not in the sense of believing in something you know isn't exactly true, but faith in the sense of — this is how I choose to be in the world--to live my life in such a way that, even if this were not true before, my own life makes this true. If this were not true, then my life would not make sense, and in as much as my life does make sense, even if only to myself, then this is true.

Sometimes life does call on us to make heroic choices, like Channing's coming out for the abolition of slavery or Starr King's crusade for a union free of slavery.

More often life calls on us to make smaller choices--small, but real.

Not to long ago I was approached by a woman on a downtown city street. Her walk included some awkward, jerky movements. Her speech was garbled, and she seemed to have a mental disorder. Her first words to me were a request, but sounded more like a command, OK, you will help me, please.

At first I thought she was asking for money. And I was preparing to apologize and tell her no, when something made me hesitate.

How can I help? I asked.

The woman started opening her wallet, which was dirty and did not seem to contain any money, and I started again to prepare my apology and departure, when I realized she was showing me an address that she wanted some help in locating.

She said some more words, half of which I understood, and flung her arms widely towards the air, which I interpreted as meaning that she knew she was not that far from her destination, but had been searching in vain for some time.

I was quite sure that the address was two and a half blocks away, and only half a block out of the direction I was headed. Come with me, I said. I will show you the way.

As we started the woman protested, she had just come from this direction. Now I was making her retrace her steps. I told her I was sure this was the direction.

As we walked the woman told me her name, and that she had a 1:30 appointment. It was just 1:30 now.

I was ninety percent sure I knew exactly where the building this woman wanted was, but the ten percent of uncertainty was bothering me, so as we waited for a light to change, I asked an authoritative looking man about the address. He didn't know.

The woman however, seeing that I was not entirely certain of the way, became agitated and despairing and was ready to head off in the other direction. Suddenly it became the most important thing in the world for me to help this woman get to her appointment. I had no idea whom her appointment was with or what it was about or even if she had the right day or not, but I was concerned about this woman's safety and something else as well.

This woman had chosen me out of a crowd as a face that could be trusted--one who, if he could not help her, would at least not do her any harm. I wanted to help this woman to trust her instincts. I wanted this woman to keep her faith in human nature.

Come this way, I said to her, and I will make sure that you get where you are going.

A little ways further and suddenly the woman's eyes lit up. OK she said. I know this. She had been to this building before, she now recognized the neighborhood and walked with a sureness in her awkward steps. It was not necessary for me to go that last half block out of my way after all, though by this time I would have happily gone any number of blocks out of my way to ensure this woman's safe passage.

I felt like I have saved the world. And in a way I still feel that I did. The decisions that we make on a daily basis determine the kind of world we live in. Whether we believe that human dignity is inherent, or only exists when we recognize it, it makes sense to me, that affirming it, should be our first principle.