Sermon

What Reclaiming the Principle of Our Inherent Worth and Dignity Can Do for Us.”[1]

INTRODUCTION: Back in August 2000, I had the opportunity to serve as the Interim Minister of the Greater Lansing Unitarian Universalist Church, in East Lansing, Michigan, which was located about eight to ten blocks from the great Michigan State University.

It was a wonderfully challenging year, with a significant number of the congregation coming from the faculty, staff, graduate students, undergrads at Michigan State University and their families. That meant the church had an incredibly talented and highly educated membership. I still remember that I had a full professor in physics assisting me with my new laptop, which was somewhat daunting, since my highest computer skill level seemed to be knowing how to press the “On” and “Off” button.

When Sunday morning attendance began to soar, we opened up the big sound curtains that closed off the Fellowship Hall. When that was not enough, it seemed clear that going to two services was the only option; but I was reluctant to do that until absolutely necessary. So one Saturday I went to the church determined to find a way to gain more space.

As I analyzed the worship area, I realized that if we turned the seating to face the North, rather than the East, we could gain quite a bit of space. Then I also noticed that there was an accessibility ramp to the platform for the disabled that took out at least 25 seats if not more. Since I knew there was no disabled person participating in leading the service the next day who would need that ramp, I concluded it could go. So I rolled it out of the auditorium and placed it elsewhere in the building.

I then proceeded not only to move the entire platform, pulpit, and chalice lighting stand, but also the piano and organ, the Joys and Concerns table, plus I set up some 250 or more chairs facing a new direction. Of course, there were also more than 100 kids in religious education classes. But when I was finished, I walked to the front, and then walked to the back and to the sides, and I felt like God must have felt after he created the world in six days, except it had only taken me most of one day. It was good!

So the next day, Sunday morning, the people started appearing. At first there was some surprise – actually quite a bit of surprise, since no one knew it was happening! But as they sat in the new configuration and experienced the new space, they seemed tentatively, at least, to be okay with what I’d done.

Then Lauren appeared. Lauren was one of the first people I met at the church in E. Lansing. She had a lifetime disability, was quite a bit overweight, and spoke with a slight speech impediment. But she was most articulate, a strong feminist, and a recognized spokesperson for people with disabilities. In fact, at that very moment she was in the process of publishing her findings from a statewide study on accessibility issues in the state, which had been funded by the Michigan Humanities Council. In the Spring, she was going to give eight lectures across the state on what she had learned.

When she saw what had happened to the seating in her own church – specifically, that there was no longer an accessibility ramp to the platform– her face flushed. She looked at me from her wheelchair with such pain that my heart sank. I rushed over to assure her that the ramp had been removed because no one who would need it was participating in the service that day. And that we could bring it back anytime we needed it, plus it gave at least 25 or 30 more extra seats.

She looked at me for a moment before saying anything. Fortunately, we had been out to lunch together, and she had also come in for counseling about some personal issues she was facing. Now, she quietly said to me, “Wayne, the accessibility ramp said to anyone who looked, ‘Everyone is welcome to participate at the UU church…including the disabled and those in wheelchairs. With the ramp gone, it says, ‘Everyone is welcome to participate…except the disabled and those in wheelchairs.’ It says, ‘Forget your dignity, we will get some strong people to lift you up on the platform if need be.’”

You can be sure that the ramp was back for the next set of services. Thanks to Lauren, I learned a very important lesson: The inherent worth and dignity of every person…able and disabled.

The disabled are not necessarily sick -- the medical model of disability. Nor are they broken and require repair -- the mechanical model of disability. The fact is that they may very much enjoy their lives as they are. Our task is not only to enable that where possible. But it is also to underscore that they too have an inherent worth and dignity equal to that of the able.

The disabled do not necessarily consider their disability an aberration. It is simply intrinsic to the human condition, that is, their condition. They may or may not like what’s happened to them or the world into which they were born. But they have the right to live it, to learn from it, and to teach us about it, including teaching an insensitive minister.

That principle comes from a statement of principles and practices that I want to call to your attention as found in our hymnbook. Please turn if you would to the very front of the book and the introductory pages, some of which are enumerated in lowercase Roman numerals. It should be about Roman numeral page 9 (though you may have to count). The page has a heading about “member congregations” and then underneath that is the very first statement: “The inherent worth and dignity of every person.”

Now admittedly, that principle is somewhat akin to the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence passed by the Second Continental Congress in 1776, which reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….”

We know well that the Founding Fathers really only meant “men are created equal;” really, they only meant “White men;” really, they only meant “White men who own property;” really, they only meant “White men who own property and are Christian;” really, most of them probably only meant “White men who own property, are Christian and heterosexual.” And because that’s what they really meant, we had to fight a civil war in which one-half million Americans died…women had to launch a suffragette battle to finally obtain the right to vote…and African Americans had to launch a civil rights movement to gain the right to vote. Conversely, heterosexuals, especially very religious heterosexuals, are now battling to keep that original discriminatory meaning of the Constitution in place, specifically, that no one can marry except a woman and a man.

As an aside, nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court have been much in the news of late, most recently Justice Samuel Alito. And one of the themes they keep mentioning is the “original” intent of the framers of the Constitution, what’s called, “originalism.” Just remember, however, the vision the framers originally envisioned towards the poor and the unpropertied, towards the role of women, and toward the enslaving of Black Americans. Originalism could very well be used to sustain the discriminatory policies that are just now being reversed in some states towards persons of same-sex orientation (although it was good to note last week that the initiative petition to do that in Florida failed to garner enough votes to meet the deadline).

Like the Bible, the Constitution demands interpretation in the light of today’s understanding of the world, not one of almost 225 years ago. It’s no more right to say, well, we will not take the original intent in one area, but we will in others. Selective literalism is no more valid with the Bible or the Constitution.

So here’s the question, and it comes from Robert Fulghum of Everything-I-know-I-learned-in-kindergarten fame, who writes in our Reflective Reading:

“How can I achieve a balance between what is and what might be…the worst that I often am and the best I might well become…is it really possible to do unto others as I'd have them do unto me…and if so, why is it so darn hard?”

Why so? Why do so many of us want to deny others the blessings that we enjoy? Why would we want to limit good things only to me and mine, us four and no more? Where does that selfishness root?

There are many ways of addressing that, but I think it’s first and foremost a spiritual problem. Any religion that preaches hate is at war with itself. Any religion that wants to punish the oppressed contradicts its message of concern for others. Any religion that wants to deny to others the blessing of love and family, or even medical and pension benefits, violates the spirit of its messenger.

It’s a spiritual problem. We think religion is about beliefs and creeds, that it’s about denominations and organizations. That it’s about conservative or liberal thinking. To the contrary:

During the Apollo Mission in 1969, the astronaut Rusty Schweikert was let out of the Apollo capsule on what’s called an "umbilical cord." Just as he left the capsule, something went wrong. It was so severe that both Mission Control in Houston and the remaining astronauts in the capsule were forced to focus on that problem, leaving Schweikert all alone floating in space.

Imagine what that must have felt like. As the capsule soared through space at more than 17,000 miles per hour, Schweikert had two profoundly different experiences.

First, he looked down at the Earth, and to his mind, it was like a rare gem placed on a black velvet backdrop. He realized how much he loved the Earth, his wife, his children, his family and friends, and the U.S. of A. as he looked down upon them.

Then something else happened. Remember, in 1969, the world was struggling through a very real, but different kind of war: communism vs. capitalism, or democracy vs. dictatorship, or America vs. the Soviet Union. In Schweikert’s own mind, he was a red, white and blue patriot – America first. But when he saw the rivers that flowed between Russia and Europe, and the ocean current that served communist, socialist and capitalist alike, it changed his perspective. He saw that the clouds did not stop at national borders. In fact, from high in the sky, there was no such thing as a nation.

That’s when he had a profound transformation. He realized that as the astronaut Edgar Mitchell put it, "Cooperation and connection are the only viable option…killing each other off is not."
Schweikert had the kind of awareness that comes to all mystics -- the realization of our Oneness. As the great 14^th century Christian mystic, Juliana of Norwich, put it, “When it comes to God and soul, there is no between.” We are one.

Before we were Americans or Iraqis, Muslims or Jews, Black or White, gay or straight…we were one.

Before we were human beings, we were part of the muck and mire of the planet which had such a glorious evolution to become the diversity that occupies our planet today.

Before this planet found its place in relation to the sun of our solar system…before our solar system found its place in the great galaxy we call the Milk Way…before the Milky Way swirled into the distant darkness of an endless space, there was that mystery of beginnings in the Big Bang…the cosmic soup from which all that is and was, found its beginning. And it’s awesome and wondrous to behold.

Albert Einstein said, “The most important function of art and science is to awaken the cosmic religious feeling and to keep it alive.”

How do we do that? Matthew Fox, who for many years was a Dominican priest, silenced by the Vatican for his liberal views, wrote that the way we enter into the cosmos…the way we keep the cosmic religious feeling alive…is twofold:

(For any of you who saw the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you will appreciate this observation.) The sense of a cosmic religious feeling roots in the Greek word mystikos.

First, to keep a cosmic religious feeling alive, it means periodically shutting down the senses. That means silencing the television, turning off the radio or the music, putting down the newspaper, and stopping the motors of our mind racing. Think of it as giving our senses a rest…a break so that they can be renewed and restored. Kick back and relax.

After we’ve done that, the second key to awareness of the cosmos is this: Find a way to confront the primal elements of our world, whether it’s water, wind, fire, the heavens – you name it. But allow yourself to be addressed by the cosmic elements. Enter the awesome mystery of the universe and realize that our very existence takes place within it. The Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

Some have suggested that mystics have looked at the inner world and had similar realizations as the ones that some of the astronauts had. In a sense, mysticism underscores the connection between the macrocosm and the microcosm. It highlights an awareness of the cosmos that’s visible at all levels of reality.

Thich Nhat Hahn said: “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air would be a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

And every person is a part of that miracle…with inherent worth and dignity…including the disabled…including the able…including the young and the old…including everyone. Amen and blessed be.

[1] A sermon on February 05, 2006, at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, as the first in a seven-part series on “The Principles and Practices of the Unitarian Universalist Association,” meeting at the Alliance for the Arts, Ft. Myers, FL, given by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister, UUA.