Why Is Everybody So Mad? -- Bring a Friend Sunday

How many friends are here today? Who did you come with? I want to thank our members for inviting their friends and I want to thank all the friends for taking up the invitation. I hope that your being here and sharing this experience tells you more about each other and enhances your friendship. We also hope that you learn something about us -- Unitarian Universalists. Today’s purpose is not conversion; is not to convince or pressure anyone that this way is preferable. No. Our purpose today, our invitation, is for sharing ourselves with each other so that we may increase understanding and build bridges. We know that religion can divide people and that is surely not our purpose today. It’s kind of like the story we just heard, in which Toad searches for the button he lost. At first he’s convinced that only the four-holed, big, round, thick button will fit the button hole of his jacket and he initially has no use for all the other square, or small, or two-holed, or thin buttons he finds in the course of his search. However, he eventually learns that, in unexpected and different ways, his jacket has a place for each of the buttons. How does he celebrate? He sews them all on and shares the buttons with his friend Frog. If it sounds kind of Zen-like, it is. If we think of our beliefs, or our religious practices, or our spirituality as a button, we might think that only one particular button will fit us. And it might be that only one size button fits our button hole, but there are many jackets in the world and many different buttons fit them. What do we do with all of these buttons? We find a place for them, maybe we marvel at their diversity, maybe we learn from them, maybe we share them with our friends. We don’t all have to wear the same jacket to appreciate each others’ buttons.

Today we share the button called Unitarian Universalism. What kind of a button is that? Unitarian Universalism is a non-creedal, ethically based religion, meaning that we claim the right and the responsibility to stru cture our own personal faith systems. This, of course, results in a community of people who define their beliefs in very different terms. What holds us together is an ethical approach to life, as delineated in the Statement of Principles and Purposes which you can find in the front of the hymnal, or on many of our pamphlets. Unitarian Universalists seek authenticity and congruence. Faith and reason both must play a role in beliefs; experience and conscience, in dialogue with community values, must each play a role in actions. Our vitality comes from our recognition that the deepest of human experiences, usually explained as religious experiences, are those accompanied by feelings of connection to something within ourselves and beyond ourselves, however we describe that something. Some call it God, others call it nature, science, Higher Power, Spirit, and more. Those feelings of connection promote wholeness. Our spiritual practice, as manifested in our worship services, our social action and our religious education, is to stay present with one another and to encounter one another as whole persons -- emotions, thoughts, ideas and actions. When we know and experience congruence between what we feel, what we think and how we act; when we experience messages from each other that acknowledge our feelings with acceptance, then connection arises. Unitarian Universalism, by affirming and promoting connection, is a way of life whose ultimate goal is transformation: for healing, for justice, and for peace.

Thus we welcome you here today, new friends and old friends. We welcome the chance to have you know us and we look forward to the opportunity to get to know you. Thank you for coming.

I have titled my sermon Why Is Everybody So Mad? An explosion of incivility has overtaken us, from the behavior of some people during our national dialogues on health care to Serena Williams’ melt-down upon being called for a foot fault in the semi-finals of the US Open Tennis Tournament to Kanye West’s jumping on the stage at the MTV Music Video Awards to declare that Beyonce’s video was much better than the winning effort of Taylor Swift. Apologies often follow such outbursts, but do not put an end to them. Just this week I turned onto North Front Street from Wall Street and a fireman accosted me. You see, a fire truck was parked across North Front, but not all the way across, and I saw a car driving on North Fro nt so I thought it okay to turn onto it. Mistake. They meant to close off the street but did not quite do it. The fireman, waving his arms and shaking his head strode up to me and spoke to me very unpleasantly. What’s the matter with you? What part of the fire truck blocking the street don’t you understand? Get out of here.” And so on. It’s everywhere. As a result of such a public and private onslaught, lots of people, from clergy to op-ed writers to social commentators to teachers have lots to say about the need for a return to civility in our society. While I wholeheartedly agree with that need and am gratified to hear so many voices calling for civility, my interest today is the cause of such incivility. Why is everybody so mad?

Do you wonder what this has to do with Unitarian Universalism, or bringing our friends? Here’s the connection. Friendship rests upon the qualities of goodwill and trust. Without them friendship cannot flourish. We like our friends; we enjoy their company; we share common interests; we wish them well. We entrust our friends with ourselves, our feelings, our fears, our imperfections, our failures, our triumphs. We allow our selves to rely upon their support and help and we allow ourselves a measure of vulnerability regarding them. We care what our friends think of us. Without goodwill and trust, friendship cannot continue.

Our Unitarian Universalist values are also based upon the qualities of goodwill and trust, extended out to a community, national, world-wide level. When extended out, goodwill, wishing each other well, translates into fairness, even justice. Didn’t someone say that justice is love from a distance? When extended out, trust translates to behavior that takes into account the well-being and relative security of everyone, as far as that is possible. Civil rights, non-discrimination, opportunities for all -- manifestations of trust, builders of trust.

My point is that the qualities of goodwill and trust, which undergird personal friendships, also undergird the ethical umbrella of Unitarian Universalism and that these qualities, when app lied to an understanding of why everybody is so mad, can lead us in a different approach to public policies and public behavior, an approach that could alleviate some of the great distress our society currently operates under. I do not speak from a political or partisan point of view. I am not here to tell you which policies to support. I speak from the ethics that inform a Unitarian Universalist perspective and spirituality. I think we have something helpful to offer.

From India -- an excerpt from a Jataka tale, as re-told by Heather Forest. (Wisdom Tales) “A great flock of quail lived together in the forest. Food was plentiful and life was peaceful. One day a crafty hunter, who could imitate their song perfectly, came to the forest. When he whistled, a great group of quail gathered in response. When the flock landed on the ground, the hunter approached silently and threw a huge net over them. With a hearty laugh, he slung the net over his shoulder and took the quail to market. Each day he played his trick, and the flock grew smaller and smaller.

After some time, the wisest old quail assembled what was left of the flock and said, ‘The hunter is skilled and can easily trick you into his net. If you work together, he cannot defeat you. Beat your wings as one, and you will lift the net that binds you.’”

Meditation
Joys and Sorrows
Offering and Offertory

Trust and goodwill, fairness and commitment to the common good. Qualities that enliven the connections within friendship and of society at large. How can we revive them, make them foremost in our dealings with one another, so that we can restore civility; so that we can have an economy that prospers; so that we can come to some resolution about health care, about immigration, about Afghanistan, and so forth? How can we lift these nets that bind us? Why is everyone so mad? What’s behind all of this incivility?

I would suggest three factors behind the anger and resentment all around us, and within us. First, people, I think, generally want fairness. We want to be treated fairly and we want to think of ourselves as treating others fairly. Fairness lies at the cornerstone of our democracy and of our identity as a people. Some of us are fortunate enough to have grown up with the expectation of fairness. That applies to our personal dealings and to our societal dealings, which are complicated by the perspectives of class and race in our country. The rage we have experienced in the last forty years, and particularly currently, comes from significant portions of the people thinking they have not been treated fairly: by their government, or by their employer, or by the media, or you name it. Historically and presently some groups of people have not received a fair shake. Others have had more opportunity to benefit from the privileges of their race and class, yet I know of no group that does not feel unfairly slighted in some way. Such a conviction cuts across partisan lines and lives within both the left and the right. Last year I spent a while in traffic with a cab driver in Dayton, Ohio. She worked two jobs and feared that she would lose her home. “All I want is fairness,” she said to me.

I believe that a majority of the people in this country want a fair chance to make a living, and to have some measure of security. Some o f us have that, some of us do not. I believe we want health care that offers fair access to quality services at a sustainable cost to both individuals and society at large. Some of us have that, some of us do not. To whatever extent anyone’s anger is justified, I believe that many people do not feel that their country has done fairly by them.

This desire for fairness and the accompanying resentment at not experiencing it is exacerbated by a pervasive fear among us that we will lose what we have. Rich or poor; more powerful or less powerful. With good reason. These are uncertain times. Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve, says the recession is over. The cover of Time magazine reminds us that the jobless rate has climbed to double digits and looks to stay there. Of course among some groups, such as young black men, that rate has been in double digits for many years. The quality of fear, as of resentment, is complicated by racial and class perspectives. Nevertheless, fear has increased. Some of us fear losing our retirement savings. Others fear losing our homes or our jobs. Others fear losing what we value in our health care coverage. There’s not enough fairness an d there seems to be little security and many are afraid. Which leads to the third factor in our fog of anger and resentment: we do not trust anyone else to have our welfare at heart. Not another economic group, not another class, not the government or the state. We seem convinced that we must rely solely on ourselves to protect our interests. Thus we are seriously divided. Politically, economically, socially, ethnically. While this has been present in our country from the beginning, it has gained momentum during the past thirty years, as the gaps in income and wealth have grown, as the prison population has exponentially increased, while services which would strengthen a person’s chance to re-join society productively have been decreased, as the boom years gave way to recession, as the unemployment rate has risen without concomitant job re-training programs, more and more people have been left behind with no one to promote their interests. The rhetoric now is full of winning and losing and some people appear to desire the complete defeat of those who disagree with them. Some would rather have no improvements, even if they themselves would benefit, if it means that groups of people deemed “unworthyD would also benefit. In our anger and resentment we have lost sight of the common good. We now equate the common good with that which is good for us, regardless of anyone else. So if a longing for fairness, a fear of losing what we have and a lack of trust in each other lie at the base of the anger and resentment flooding our society, what do we do about it? How do we restore those qualities of friendship: trust and goodwill? I can think of two parallel and interweaving courses of action. The first is to call us back to our ethical and, for many our religious, bases. The religious and ethical teaching of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Unitarian Universalism tells us explicitly to care for the common good. To provide for the people who have less and need more.

UU’s affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and call for justice, equity and compas sion in human relations. Muslims are enjoined to give away a percentage of their income to help those in need, considering such a way to worship God. Hebrew Bible prophets over and over again warn the Israelites that they neglect widows and orphans, sick and needy people at their peril. “Hear this word, you cows . . . Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that behold the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.” (Amos 4:1-2) Jesus said in the New Testament, (Matthew 25:35-40), that those people would attain the eternal life of the Kingdom who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison. In the gospel of Luke (10:29-37), in answer to the question who is my neighbor, Jesus tells this story. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him he had compassion and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to20an inn, and took care of him. . . . “ Not only does the story make the point of helping anyone who needs help, it also packs a wallop in making the Samaritan the one who helps and the priests the ones who do not. Samaritans and Israelites hated each other and although they lived side by side, did not mingle. Not only did a stranger offer aid, the stranger was an enemy.

There’s no getting around it. The moral imperatives are clear. There is no us and them. There is only we. It is our job to care for the common good. Not, what’s good for me should be good for everybody. Not, some groups don’t deserve our help. Not, I want to keep what I have and the heck with you. Not, I’d rather give up my own gain as long as it means you won’t benefit. There’s no getting around it. Our current attitudes and behavior run counter to the basic teachings of our various religions. They run counter to our own ideals.

The more voices calling us to our ethical heritage, the better. As we reclaim the best of our morality, we can go about building fairness and trust in our society. We can demand civility of ourselves and of public officials and media celebrities. No more smug superiority. No more tantrums. This is a start, but it is only a start. Respect for different people with divergent points of view must also be a foundation for discourse, public and private. Respect. We can hold ourselves and others to the standard of respect. That means no name calling, no character assassination. Any conversations we have, any choices we make, any policies we adopt, any laws we pass must be engaged with the common good in mind. That probably means compromise. The outcomes may not contain all we want. They may not be perfect, but they might be an improvement over what we have. Both the process of reaching a decision and the decision itself must be perceived as fair by reasonable people on all sides of an issue. Only then will our fear of losing what we have diminish. Only when we show that we will take one another’s interests into account will we begin to trust one another again. Only when we move away from the winner take all, loser be destroyed, scenario will this resentment loosen its grip on our hearts and minds. Holding on to our religious and ethical base will help us make the change from “us vs them” to “we.

We have serious challenges before us as a society. We must repair and retool our economy; we must find a way to peace; we must deal with undocumented workers; we must do something about health care, to name only the ones most pressing at this moment. Haven’t we wasted enough energy fighting each other? Can we get to work now?

May we find the way to replacing anger with goodwill. May we find the way to replacing fear with trust. May we offer a measure of fairness to everyone. It will take time, of course. But a commitment to goodwill and trust, to friendship writ large upon our nation, will help to get us there. “A great flock of quail lived together in the forest. Food was plentiful and life was peaceful. One day a crafty hunter, who could imitate their song perfectly, came to the forest. When he whistled, a great group of quail gathered in response. When the flock landed on the ground, the hunter approached silently and threw a huge net over them. With a hearty laugh, he slung the net over his shoulder and took the quail to market. Each day he played his trick, and the flock grew smaller and smaller.

Song #131 Love Will Guide us

Closing words: Frederick Gillis
May the love which overcomes all differences, which heals all wounds, which puts to flight all fears, which reconciles all who are separated, be in us and among us, now and always.