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March 9, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 9, 2003

Courage in the Face of Doubt: Unitarian and Universalist Women

March 8th was United Nations International Women’s Day organized to recognize and promote equality of women. While this and other nations have made great strides in that direction, reminds us that there are still many parts of the world where women are considered mere property and prevented from providing for themselves and their families on an equal footing with men. The horror stories that came out of Afghanistan about the subjugation of women under the Taliban were a terrible reminder that there are still many women who are in virtual slavery and abject subjugation in many places today, and most of that subjugation takes place in cultures supported by religious doctrine.

Standing before you as a woman minister, I am mindful that you chose me to be your minister, so my self-interest in the subject of women as professional women, including the clergy, is obvious. Thankfully, I do not have to convince you of the worthiness of women to be professional people in business, or to be artists, doctors, astronauts, or ministers. My work today is far easier, for I want to share the blessing that women have brought to our faith, to our country, and to the world; and to praise the men and women who truly are strong in heart and mind in our Unitarian Universalist movement. Which is not to let anyone off the hook, meaning those people who have gone out of their way to oppose women in all realms that once were exclusively male, such as the clergy, and I daresay there are some still in our midst. Yet, as the years have shown, an ever-increasing number of women are choosing to study for all the various professions, including our UU ministry, and throughout the professions we see more and more women taking their places beside their male peers. For the clergy, we have seen an ever-increasing number of congregations who have chosen and are choosing women for their pastors; so, the fact of real equality in our UU clergy is no longer in question. Some will point out that women are still not compensated at the same level as men, or given the same opportunities to serve the larger, better funded organizations and congregations, but that too is changing. And, I can say from my own experience, that the only clear case of chauvinism I personally have experienced was when a man, in the congregation’s leadership, told me how I ought to be spending my salary, which I don’t believe for minute he would have done to a male minister--but I set that straight.

My good friend and colleague, the Rev. Patrick O’Neil, some years ago categorized sermon topics as ranging from hot to cool. Talking against going to war in Iraq is a “hot” topic, talking about UU history tends to be a “cool” topic, so as my sermon today is about history, the history of UU women who have made a significant difference, you have little to fear that I will come up with a radical proposal, or painful spiritual challenge this morning. This sermon is for your edification, and to give you and all UUs a pat on the back for supporting women. Yet-yet-how often has education, or learning about something, some simple fact, been the spur to a man or woman to do something great with his/her life? That’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences.

There are two salient facts that can tell you a lot about our Unitarian and Universalist forebears (remember that until 1961, the Unitarians and Universalists were two separate religious organizations): the first women to be ordained in America were either Unitarian or Universalist. As we continue to be, on purpose, we UUs have always been at the forefront of any social justice issue. We have been willing to be persuaded of the right thing to do, which is not to say that all of us have been persuaded, but as a movement our progress as always been forward to greater inclusivity. I have felt strongly since I left my Christian roots, that what I left was the institution of Christianity, but not Jesus. All that I read in the New Testament seemed to clearly say that Jesus was about greater inclusivity, of open arms to those who were considered different, even outcastes. There is a passage in the gospel of Luke 9:49-50 (NRSV) that is an important statement of inclusiveness when the disciple John says to Jesus:

          49 Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name; and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.

          50 But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for us.”

This is the understanding of Jesus that became an important part of our earlier Christian UU past: that there are many ways to do the same thing. For them, the reading of Jesus’ word showed that Jesus had a message that focused on love, God’s love of all his creation, and that our work on earth is to learn to accept that which, however different from our own experience, does not harm us and is not against our spiritual growth and challenge.

The Unitarian and Universalist women of the previous two centuries believed in the message of love, and they wanted to be part of the growth and acceptance of this message. They often ran into obstacles in their efforts to be preachers of this good news, to be evangelists for love, for they began even before the Suffrage Movement, and we remain after it as promoters of the Principle that teaches us that our first responsibility is to respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

There are many more of these important women leaders than I can talk about today, but here are a few of the women that contributed significantly to this country, to the world even, because they saw their own inherent worth and dignity:

Olympia Brown (1835-1926) was a Universalist minister, and she is best known for being the first female ordained minister of any denomination in the U.S. In addition, she was a reformer on women's issues from 1866 to 1926. She served as president of the Federal Suffrage Association from 1903-1920.

Lydia E. Pinkham (1819-1883) is known as innovative businesswoman, inventor, and social activist, who used and improved marketing techniques. Pinkham patented a vegetable compound for curing women's complaints. Three spoonfuls a day were recommended for most problems, including a PMS. The tonic probably did help ease the pain for women since it was 18% alcohol. By 1925, Pinkham's company had made four million dollars selling the product. Pinkham was also a charter member of the Lynn Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) was an English author who wrote a series of books that began with the book The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a book so popular that over six million copies of it have been sold. Early in life, Potter began carefully observing and drawing animals. This early practice and talent led to her early success. A lesser-known fact about Potter is that she became an expert in the study of mushrooms during her lifetime. She had to struggle against the Victorian mores which were against women doing anything outside the home. The first books were published anonymously. Later in her life she became a successful farmer, raising sheep, and also and ecologist. She left her large farm holding to the English people to remain unspoiled in perpetuity.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was the First lady of the second president of the newly formed United States of America. Abigal Adams appealed to her husband, John Adams, for equal rights for women in a letter in 1777. Abigail wrote these often repeated words: "In the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember that all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation."

Clara Barton (1821-1912) who, because of her tireless efforts to help wounded soldiers during the Civil War, is perhaps the most remembered nurse. She founded the Red Cross and when the war was over, went on to organize search efforts to find missing soldiers. She opened hospitals in Europe during the Franco-Prussian War (1869-1873). Before turning to nursing, Barton worked as a teacher and started one of the first public schools in New Jersey. When the school expanded and Barton was passed over as headmaster and a less qualified man was hired for the job, Barton resigned in protest.

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) became the first qualified medical doctor in this country. She was denied admission by twenty-nine colleges, before she was finally admitted to medical school as a joke. When she finally began practicing medicine, she was refused hospital and office spaces in New York City and scoffed at by strangers. She is best known as the first female physician in the U.S. In 1868, she opened the Women's Medical College in New York City in an effort to improve the training of female physicians.

Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915) is best known for her famous cookbook, Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, published in 1896. She was a pioneer in the field of dietetics and health, and the "mother of the level measurement." Farmer provided guidance to hospitals and other institutions.

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) is best known for writing the song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the Civil War, Howe was an author and reformer. She helped found the National Woman Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone and Mary Livermore. A peace activist, Howe led the U.S. wing of the Woman's International Peace Association. She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Mary A. Rice Livermore (1820-1905) was a dedicated abolitionist, and she co-chaired the Civil War Army's Sanitary Commission. She formed more than three thousand local units to provide soldiers with food, medicine, and other supplies. She was the founding president of the Illinois Suffrage Association, published the Agitator, and formed the National Woman Suffrage Association along with Julia Howe and Lucy Stone.

Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was an astronomer, and was the most famous 19th century female scientist. At age twenty-nine she discovered a new comet and also led the way in photographing stars. She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences and became a professor at Vassar College. Mitchell was one of the first women chosen for the Hall of Fame.

Louisa Alcott (1832-1888) was an author, of a family of authors in Concord, MA, who wrote of one of the best-loved girls' stories of all time, Little Women, Alcott also authored Little Men and Hospital Sketches. Little Women, published in 1869, gave girls a new role model; the book's main character, Jo, is independent and energetic. Before 1869, children's books had been notoriously didactic and moralistic. In addition to writing, Alcott also worked for women's right to vote, served as a nurse during the Civil War, and as a teacher.

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) was first a teacher, but Dix left her job and began advocating for the mentally ill after visiting almshouses and prisons and seeing the appalling conditions. She spent two years touring Massachusetts institutions and used a scientific approach to report on their conditions to the state legislature and to call for reform measures. She continued her efforts in twenty other U.S. states and in Canada and also had an influence on European countries. She urged the establishment of institutions for the poor and mentally ill who had formerly been treated as criminals.

Lydia Marie Child (1802-1880) was an abolitionist, who was among those leading the fight against slavery. Her writings became controversial in 1831 for her views in favor of abolishing slavery. An author of more than two dozen books, including An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans, a book against slavery, Child wrote the Thanksgiving song, "Over the River and Through the Woods," during a lean period when her work was rejected due to its political slant. The song remains popular to this day and has touched nearly every American.

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was considered one of the great thinkers of her time, Fuller was a leader in the Transcendentalist movement and also discussed women's place in society in her book, Women in the Nineteenth Century. Ideas in her book, favoring women's rights and equality of the sexes, influenced organizers of the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls. In 1839, she launched "conversations," a series of weekly seminars for women. Disregarding a ban on paid female public speakers, Fuller drew Boston's best female leaders to her lectures on science, art, ethics, and mythology. She became a renowned literary critic and also worked as a foreign correspondent; she became involved in the Italian Revolution in 1847.

These women were leaders among leaders, and role models for thousands of girls and women in their day, even as they are today. Women who followed heart and conscience, who were determined to use their minds, to be independent and to serve others. Some of those women became grandmothers and mothers, and taught by example what a life well lived can be. Maybe your grandmothers and mothers were among them. More importantly, your sisters and wives and daughters, now have the unquestioned right to live by the dictates of their hearts and minds, regardless of their gender. Few would deny these rights to the women in their own families. So, how can we not support these rights for others?

Even as Jesus taught, all we need to remember is that women are not against men, rather they are for acceptance. To be a Feminist is to be for women. To be supportive women in their efforts to develop full and productive lives.

Our UU faith teaches that religion should not be a barrier to any person’s full development. Real spirituality is centered on what we do with our lives, not with our gender, or race, or nationality or any of the things that have been used--still are being used--to keep people subjugated. Spirituality is about equality of love and it does not matter what we call ourselves; what matters is what we do.

So be it

 

March 23, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 23, 2003

War and Peace: The Moralist’s Blueprint

There is an old gospel hymn, # 162 in our hymnal that says: I ain’t study war no more . . .. The hymn is also known as Down by the Riverside-it is a baptismal hymn, about what one will or must do to be clean of spirit, to be born again in the spirit of Christ in the Protestant way of Christianity. That is, to be clean in all the things of the heart and mind, in order to have the loving spirit Christians believe is epitomized in Jesus, or for those who are not Christians, believe lifted him up as a great humanitarian. So that war, the warring mentality, the spirit of wanting to war has to be put aside. I ain’t gonna study war-that is, think about, be a part of the mentality-of war.

Perhaps it is the cold contrast from constantly thinking, reading, researching about this war with Iraq these past months and especially this past week, that keeps this song coming into my thoughts. How dearly I long to be able to do as the song says and “study war no more.” I am studying war with constancy, reading the pros and cons, trying to keep my maternal feelings at bay in order to evaluate the comments that come to us by way of TV, radio, and print media. I am trying to find a blueprint, a guide, for a moral/ethical stance regarding this war and any war.

I can only suppose that virtually everyone in the country, and in this room, has a belief that we should either be in this war, or that we should not. If you believe strongly, passionately in either position, then chances are that what I say today will offend you. But I am called as your minister to challenge as well as comfort this congregation, so duty prompts me as well as conscience.

Rather than argue the merits of going to war or not going to war, I want us to think about why we would ever want to go to war, regardless of arguments relating to Saddam Hussein and this war with Iraq. For if we are to study war, and we cannot avoid it at this juncture, then we should study it with the same rigor we would study a disease, the economy, or a social issue like clean air and water. Just taking a position with no foundation other than, for example, one supports or hates this administration is weak thinking. We ought to be willing to explore beyond our basic inclinations, even when it is painful to do so. And it is always painful to do so.

The one part of this war that I find the most upsetting is the complaint from either side that any citizen of this country should shut up and sit down. This country was founded on protest; the Boston Tea Party was not a social gathering. The founders made it clear in the First Amendment that to protest, to gather or assemble to do that, was of first line importance. To argue or disagree with our leaders, our senators, representatives, and our President is every American’s right. To keep our leaders honest, we should always let them know that we are paying attention to what they do, and every one of the founders paid heed to this need to not relax our freedom to resist the potential idiocy, ignorance, or tyranny of any given person in leadership. What matters is how you protest. Protest should be directed and nonviolent. I feel sad for my son and other service men and women who have to drive through hordes of protestors, or see them at their gates, for these people volunteered to defend us against foreign invasion, or aggression against this country, and while they may or may not agree with their leaders, they have a job to do. Further more, they are not the one’s who can institute any change-thank goodness. Military coups are common in much of the world, but we don’t want our military people running the show in this country.

Non-violent protest is the right, and even the duty of citizens who believes their voices are not being heard in houses of Congress and in the White House.

I think we all should protest or support in a way that makes a difference, by communicating with the real decision-makers that we send to Washington, DC. Picket Biden’s, Castle’s, or Carper’s offices, march on Washington, or the Wilmington City Hall, if you want your protest to have any weight.

I am also frustrated by the questions we are expect to answer categorically. CNN, and other news media, ask, such as: Do you support the war? But that may not be the right question, especially as they set these up such questions. You often need to question the questions. My response to: Do you support the war? Is that, I support our military men and women who may be either heroes or victims, and didn’t personally get to weigh in on going or staying home. I supported them before the war, too. After all, my son Adam is part of a C17 aircrew, now on his way to Kuwait. Adam said to me: “It doesn’t matter what my personal beliefs are, I have to do my duty.” I do think his beliefs matter, but I understand what he means.

While I always wish for peace, and did not support going to war unilaterally, that does not mean that many who feel this way would not have supported a war under different circumstances, such as having majority United Nations support for this action. I believe a lot of the worldwide protest we are seeing now had more to do with our unilateral action than the issue of ousting Saddam Hussein. Further, to not go to war did not mean that the people of Iraq were being well served by our policy toward Iraq for the last ten plus years. When Bill Clinton took a similar action 1998, he was denounced from all sides, and ex-patriot Iraqis were angered that missiles being lobbed at Baghdad were killing innocent civilians. That is still a common sentiment.

I try to imagine what a professional woman like myself, perhaps a teacher at a college as I used to be, how she might be feeling as one who has lived in Baghdad all these years. A woman who remembers the years of prosperity in her youth, and relative freedom for that part of the world when women could go to college, work, did not have to live or dress by religious dictates, and could enjoy much of the same status as many European countries, when it was a good place to raise her children. Then to come under the leadership of the tyrant Saddam Hussein, who engages in a stupid war for control of Kuwaiti oil, that drives the whole of Iraq into dire poverty through United Nations sanctions. That Saddam refuses to abide by the sanctions is the cause of their poverty and isolation, the closing of businesses and educational institutions, and people like her, haven not been able work, have the barest means of existence, and all the while this leader and his cohorts live well, and continue to tighten the reigns of power over the people.

Then to hear that finally the UN with the United States leading the way is determined to get this dictator to live up to the agreement he signed at the end of the Gulf War, that permitted him to stay in power, and when he stalls, gives him 48 hours to abdicate or war will come to Iraq. This is the classic Scylla and Charybdis problem of Homer’s Odyssey, the being between a rock and a hard place. I think if I were her, I would want to be free of this tyrant, but I would not welcome a barrage of bombs either, especially if I had no way to protect my family. Does the means justify the ends, then? Well, it all depends on the level of pain and suffering one has or is willing to endure, and it also depends on whether you are the one to do the suffering.

I have spent a great deal of time reading and listening to the news, and going online reading statements by Iraqis that range this argument from both sides, all in an effort to try to find if there is a straight path between the great monster Scylla, and the whirlpool, Charybdis. I have not found it, and to continue in this Greek mythic vein, I worry if we are, to further the problem, opening up Pandora’s Box? What will come of this action? People of great wisdom that I respect see either horror or glorious liberation. Not much middle ground between these two either.

Human beings like certainty. We gravitate to absolutes. They make us comfortable even when we know logically that there is rarely such a thing. The certainty of today, all too often becomes the mistake of yesterday. Such as leaving Saddam in power, or the brutal impact of a decade of sanctions on the people of Iraq.

I would like to be a pacifist like many of my colleagues. I wish I could be with all my heart. I used to think that only humans caused war, that is was the evil nature of human ego that led us down this path, then I read Jane Goodall’s account of a war between chimpanzees. War seems to be somehow more primitive in us than our modernity would indicate. So, while I would love to be a pacifist, my reasoning has never allowed me to go to that corner, for it seems to me that while the ideal of pacifism is noble, and would be wonderful if uniformly practiced, it remains to me an ideal. I feel, despite my inclination, that at this time in human existence, at this place in our evolution toward greater civilization, that pacifism is utopian There are no pacifists by choice in tyrannical states, the people are pacifists by threat of torture and death. The evil rulers of the past like the Roman emperor Caligula, Bismark, Hitler, Saddam, continue to populate the world-like sharks teeth, there are always more to take the place of those who go--so that sometimes we are forced, despite our wishes for peace, to preserve freedom. But not all wars are equal, few wars have been so clear cut as World War II, when a tyrant of such proportions rose up with a clear aim to conquer his neighbors and the world, to commit genocide, and wholesale terror. And, even Hitler’s menace did not seem all that clear to us in the U.S., despite our British brethren’s pleas for help that had gone on for nearly two years.

War, like our own personal self-defense, can sometimes be justified, when it is no longer a choice, but that which is forced upon us.

What I keep coming to in my attempts to get a grip on this issue of war is this: I cannot believe that anyone of good heart can want war. My deepest belief is that we can never call ourselves truly civilized as people, as the human species, as long as we ever choose to go to war.

The operative word is choose. England, Poland, Czechoslovakia, did not want to go to war in 1939-40, they had war thrust upon them. They were forced to defend themselves. To me the parallel is unmistakable: Would you choose to attack another person? Would you defend yourself if attached? We expand to our families and ask would you stand by and watch as your brother, mother, nephew attacked another person? Would you stand by and watch them be attacked? There is nothing that happens however large, but that it comes down to a person making a choice, who has a choice in a matter, or to being forced to chose between helplessness or action. Here action is the operative word. But action may take many different forms.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “the choice is nonviolence or nonexistence.” And, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “we must learn to live together as brother and sister, or perish as fools.”

Women and men of good heart and good will and do come to different points of view about war. Holy scriptures of all great religions deal with this conflict. How do we bring resolution to the desire for peace, the view that peace is best, with the evil that arises in humankind? Edward D. Schneider writing about the ethics of war from Biblical standpoint stated following the terrorism of Sept.1, 2001:

      While war was understood as wrong - a denial of God's commandment of love and a consequence of sin - it was presented as sometimes necessary to preserve freedom and prevent the total victory of evil powers in a sinful world: "The price of freedom may be so high as to require war.... it is possible that a nation and its people cannot have peace, security, and freedom. Under some circumstances their only alternatives may be either the peace of surrender to tyranny and totalitarianism or the security and freedom bought by risking and engaging in war."

What gives me the most sadness from our position as citizens of the United States, the greatest democracy ever to exist, is that we have decide to not practice what we have preached over fifty years ago after World War II. We were one of the principle supporters for the United Nations; we gave land in NYC for the independent organization of the United Nations. Americans wrote much of the charter. It was Unitarian Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), politician and diplomat, was twice the candidate for President of the United States, who, in 1945, helped formulate the preparatory documents for the United Nations Organization.

We have always turned to the United Nations for support, and have intellectually if not generally believed it was wiser to work with the other nations of the world. We clearly believe this about economics, and we ought to believe it about war. Certainly the UN has had greater or lesser leadership at different times in its history, but Kofi Annan is considered a very good leader.

Let me read just this one bit from the UN Charter:

      Chapter VII of the UN Charter- Article 39

      The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Many of you will not know that we have UU United Nations office, this from their website:

      For over fifty-four years, the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office has promoted the work of the United Nations through communication and education among the members of more than one thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association in the United States and fifty congregations affiliated with the Canadian Unitarian Council.

Reverend Dana McLean Greeley, first president of the UUA until 1969, was dedicated to peace and justice, as expressed in his ministry until his death in 1986. He enjoyed the ear of Washington during his leadership, and was one of the principal founders of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, [and] he believed that strengthening the United Nations is part of our commitment to world community with peace, liberty and justice.

Today all over the world Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists, along with many other people, are hoping and praying for peace. We do not all agree about the means or necessity of war. As with most things we learn to find common ground. I believe all people of goodwill desire peace, and it is this that I lean on in this trying time.

The fact is we have gone to war with Iraq and all I can do is to try to put myself in the place of the ordinary Iraq citizen, I can read widely and write to those who need to hear my point of view, and pray that deaths are few. With all this in my heart, I sit a daily vigil for peace and hope that the Iraqis find strength to re-build their country-this place that is the heart of civilization, the fertile crescent, into something wonderful again.

So be it

 

March 30, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

March 30, 2003

In God We Trust: Money and Ethics

Most everyone around here knows that Frank MacArtor, our hard-working Finance Committee Chairman, calls this annual sermon, that follows the Fellowship Dinner kick-off for the Canvass, the Sermon on the Amount. While Frank has no trouble asking people to give money to support this congregation, I confess that I do not like asking people to give money, not because I am shy, but rather, as your minister, I see this on-going need we have to support, repair, replace, renew the fabric of our religious home as something much larger. Money is one of the ways this happens. Money is a tool, and a powerful tool I grant you.

No doubt many of you, like myself, did not see the movie of a few years ago called Jerry Maguire, with Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, but I would guess most of us remember a catchy phrase from that movie about this young black, very talented athlete and his agent, Maguire, who brings the athlete lots of promises from the different teams, but the character comes back with : “Show me the money! Show me the money!” The message is clear: Don’t just make me a lot of promises I can’t spend promises. I can’t pay bills with promises. I can’t put food on the table with promises. Show me the goods, the dollars. By a token bit of serendipity, 3-4 nights ago I was reading while my husband was doing some channel hopping, when he clicked on one of the evangelical TV preachers, the ones that say with exaggerated diction Gaw-wud for God. Just a couple words got my attention, and I asked Tom to go back. These preachers alternately make me laugh and scream, with their tactics. Like 99% of these TV evangelists, after telling the audience about how sinful the world is, how Satan is roaming unfettered, how evil their-the audience-their nature is, how much they need Gaw-wud’s forgiveness, they launch into how they, how you and I, can increase our wealth, health, and general prosperity by giving in accordance with Gaw-wud’s holy word. They are referring to the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament exhortation to the people of Israel to give a tenth of their crops and animals, their wealth, to care for priest and the temple. Now the part that really irritates me is the blatant greed factor that is clear on one side and assumed on the other. This particular preacher was sifting grain through his hands and reminding his flock that as God had promised in the Bible, if they sow their seed, they will reap much more in return. In other words: Give me your money and God will give you a lot more in return. Clearly this works for lots of people, just like playing slots or the stock market.

This is to me a great misuse, even abuse, of what are often fairly simple people’s weaknesses. Of course, the preachers can say that the precedent is set in the Bible, and it would always be better for people to give their money to the church or TV ministry than whatever else they might use it for. Well, I might respond, if in such a dialogue, the Bible also says go into Canaan and slaughter every man, woman, child, and beast, and claim it for the people of Israel. So, is it okay to do that, too? That would mean wiping out an area considerably larger than what constitutes modern Israel.

What do Jerry Maguire and this TV preacher have in common? They are both about: Show me the money.

Something about that phrase reminds me of a Bob Dylan verse that says: "'Money doesn't talk, it swears."

For me, though, the whole issue of worth, what it is that I want to see, what you should want to see from me and each other, is far larger that just showing the money. Rather, what I want is: Show me your caring. Show me your commitment to our liberal religious faith. Show me your vision, not just for yourself now, but for yourself and others for now and the future. Show me your ethics, your moral virtue, your deepest longings in your heart-of-hearts for courage, compassion, and love. If you can show me these things, if I show you these things, then money, if we have it in our means, will come.

Virtually everyone of you has heard me say that I believe completely that people will take care of what they love, you will take care of this congregation if it means anything to you, if you love it.

I will also tell you something I have never shared with you or anyone else before, that it is to me clear as the sky above, that the people who come to any religious congregation for purely self-centered reasons (that is, just for what they want and need with no consideration of what other’s in the congregation want and need), are the biggest complainers, the most hurtful, and the stingiest people that cross the threshold.

People who come because they see their needs and wants reflected in their ability to give of their time, commitment, and money-relative to their ability and their means--are truly the children of God. And I use the word God to mean the Spirit of Life and Love that is inside each of us, that gives us such a will to survive and thrive, the Spirit that makes us want to be better people, and to do more for others-to care for one another. Not the Gaw-wud that is sitting out beyond Pluto with his computer calculator entering how much you gave, so he can give you back more, and showing the money to the high living TV preachers.

This last two or three years there have been a number of stories in the media about suits brought to challenge the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the phrase “In God we Trust,” on our coins and currency. The issue is whether these phrases constitute advocating religion, a clear breach of the separation of church and state. Various circuit judges, representatives, senators, and others in such seats of power want to say that these do not advocate a religious viewpoint, and are merely ceremonial. Even the hanging up of the Ten Commandments has been considered in this light, as merely ceremonial. To all that, I say “hog wash.” God is a religious concept, understanding, or belief. Even if you understand God as I do, as the force of life and love that is a part of all cultures, people, nations reality-even that understanding of God ( that the TV preacher would say was no understanding of God) is religious. Here is a clear test that the word God is religious: Ask any religious person, any Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, virtually any religious person we know of in our western culture what is the difference between them and an Atheist and they will say, I believe in God, they do not believe in God.

People who believe in God, the external God of pain, punishment, accountability and reward, do not believe that those of us who do not believe in that kind of God can be moral and ethical people. They believe that the world will be more sinful if more people denounce a belief in God-usually their specific version of God. To that I also say, Hog wash. No theocracy has ever been better by any great measure than any secular community-the goodness perceived is usually achieved by terror and pain, ergo the Taliban’s methods.

Guess what? For the better part of our American history, we seemed to function quite well without these two phrases. It is also quite true that Jefferson and the other founders, who were mostly deists-Unitarians in name if not affiliation, did use the word God in a very few places as the Ultimate Reality of human decency without which they believed we could not survive. Many Unitarian Universalists continue accept this understanding of God. This is in contrast to a belief in a deity or God that acts in the world. Deists see God as a Prime Mover, or force that set things in motion, and left the rest to humanity. But these self-same deists did not see the word God as a magic bean, or special nominative that somehow had the power to life up the people.

This whole notion of God being equal to human ethics is what is at play here. And, I say, that this is misguided, erroneous thinking, and history and modern life show clearly that religion does not make a society better. Just saying you believe in God does not make society better. People who do the right things make society better. And, oddly enough, the healthier the society is in economic terms, the better the people are. Sounds to me like we ought to show everybody the money! Sometimes the two-belief and goodness-- over-lap, often they don’t. Prisons are full of people who profess, confess a belief in God, yet these same people commit crimes repeatedly. On the other hand, many of the greatest activists in the world have been and are non-theists, and our UU congregations are full of just such people. Don’t tell me how much you believe in God, and in doing the right things: Show me your God. Show me your goodness.

The motto, In God We Trust, you may be surprised to learn, did not come into being with our founding; rather, it was not until the time of the American Civil War, that it came into use. From the U.S. Treasury:

          The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins.

Congress passed the act in 1884, that the motto should appear on all coins, then:

          A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30 <http://www.ustreas.gov/education/history/events/07-jul.html>, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate.

It is not surprising that wars play a part in these things. Many people want to believe in these tokens, these offerings to God, a kind of buying of favor as one understands the nature of sacrificial offerings to a deity. We humans become frightened for our safety, our survival, and most of us will offer something up in hopes of ameliorating our suffering and pain. You and I do it, too. Last Sunday, some of us gathered at the local park for a peace vigil and to support our troops. We found it very comforting to lift up our concerns with the lighting of candles, and a prayer to the unknown that this war might end soon with the least possible number of casualties. The difference is, we who gathered did not want to make everyone else do or believe the same way. We UUs think it is not only good, it is best if we each find our way to the ethical place and the moral action of our souls.

If I were intent on inscribing a motto for everyone else to abide by, it would be like the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated. Or, maybe some more elegant like, Don’t be a Jerk. Or how about, In common decency we trust. At least those would be easier to understand.

God and ethics and money are related in as much as the culture or society from which they emerge together. This is how we have warring cultures, and peaceful cultures; if God were the same to everyone, like water or air is the same to everyone, then we would all be either peaceful or warring. Of course, all kinds of explanations, rationalizations, myths, stories arise in any given culture to explain why it is right to believe and do as the culture dictates. If this were not so, then the three cultures related to the ancient Hebrew culture of the Torah, of the Old Testament, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, would all abide without hesitation or equivocation to the commandment exhorted in the Ten Commandments that say: Thou shalt not kill.

These arguments about God and ethics extend to our public schools, and the desire of many, especially of the religious right, for prayer in school. Gordon Hinckley, leader of the Mormon Church said: Is it too much to expect that prayer, public and private, be once again established in our national and private lives? Once again implies it was established as a legal practice in the first place, which it was not.

People believe lots of interesting, odd, even weird things. The belief that we cannot or are not ethical without plastering around pictures of saints, or bodhisattvas, or lists of Commandments, or mottoes about being under God, is plainly not true. Such behavior, which I willing participate in my own way privately or with those you who care to join in, is an expression of our longing. Longing for protection and safety, longing for justice, longings that relate to both our best selves and our worst. They all work to the degree any one person believes in them.

An Englishman of a banking family who became a great social commentator of the late 19th Century once said, during a period of economic struggle for the common people who were rising up with strikes and demands for fair wages, and so forth: "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult for them to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell"

I came across this story last year, which I offer to you for consideration:

          In London, office cleaner Edward C., found L27,000 pounds [@$46,000] in a broken cash machine left in a corner of the building society [savings and loan to us] that he was cleaning. [~~]He took it home and spent some, but two weeks later he confessed and handed over to the police the whole of what he had taken, plus an extra L200. The embarrassed building society said they had not missed the cash and he could have gotten away with it.

What would you have done? Now an office cleaner, a janitor, barely makes a minimum wage, if that. Why do you suppose he gave it back?

I want you to remember this about the issue of our ethics or morals: Morals and ethics come first, religion comes after. If we all live on our own mountain tops, or in our own little burrows or trees with no contact with each other except for some brief mating rituals like some animals, then ethics is not a big issue. Perhaps you need some level of very basic ethic regarding yourself and your environment, but ethics and morals are primarily concerned with how we interact with other people. When we lived in small clans, our ethics were pretty primitive, too. But as we had more time on our hands than our primitive ancestor hunter-gatherers did, when we settled down to agrarian life, in stable communities where we stayed for long periods or even for life, then we needed a commonly understood set of guidelines, that is ethics, by which everyone should be guided for the community to be a safe and wholesome place. It is not surprising that regardless of where you go in the world, from the most sophisticated to the most primitive, the main ethical tenet is Thou Shalt not Kill-at least not in that particular community.

Community requires a code of conduct, a set of moral (what is right or wrong) precepts; otherwise, the community cannot hold, and certainly cannot thrive. From any given community the need to lift up those ethical values and principles results in rite and ritual, and eventually to a codification of them into what we understand as doctrine, or creed. Religion varies so widely because each community varies, but ethics do not vary widely by contrast.

You are here for community. You are here to figure out better ways to live your life. We are here to lift up our ethical principles, to act out our rituals of caring, hope, and love. God has as much or as little to do with our ethics as we believe and/or we show by our living. In this community we value highly the principled life, this is a religion based on reason and ethical behavior, not on mottoes, creeds, or doctrines before which you and I must all must bow and pay homage.

We are a community of love, that values diversity of life, especially the religious expression of life. If this liberal religious community means as much to you as it does to me, and many others, then I know you will care for it in all the ways that you can. That is the most I can ask of you, and it is the best you can give of yourself.

So be it.

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