Sermon: Do Unto Others

The following sermon was shared at the December 4, 2016 worship service at Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

Does this idea sound a little idealistic? A little…naïve, maybe?

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

These words come from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who lived in Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer was staunchly opposed to the Nazi dictatorship. But he’s saying that our compassion for people’s suffering is more significant than our contempt for their actions or inaction.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

Bonhoeffer actually wrote these words from prison. He was imprisoned and eventually executed because of opposition to Nazism and because of his association with people who were plotting to assassinate Adolf Hitler. His writings during this time were smuggled out of prison by sympathetic guards and published after his execution in 1945.

This is the passage where we find that thought; he writes:

“There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know quite well that we have no right to do so, and that it would lead us into the most sterile relation to our fellow-men. The following thoughts may keep us from such a temptation. It means that we at once fall into the worst blunders of our opponents. The man who despises another will never be able to make anything of him. Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We often expect from others more than we are willing to do ourselves….We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them.”

I think that’s an extraordinary collection of thoughts from someone living in Nazi Germany, someone witnessing the very worst that humanity has to offer, someone sitting in prison for opposing genocide.

His words again: “The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them.”

I wanted to share that with you today because I want to remind us all that compassion is not for the faint of heart. Compassion is not something we offer each other only when life is good and easy, when we sit warm and full in the comfort of our own homes. Compassionate living—our spirit study topic this year—is hard work, hard spiritual work, and what might have seemed benign enough when we started in September, now—for many of us—feels daunting and formidable and urgent.

Our study is inspired by the work of scholar Karen Armstrong and her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. We are on steps five and six this month. If you are following along, you are finding, I think, each step small and manageable. So far, nothing is too overwhelming, I don’t think.

Step one: learn about compassion. Learn that all the world’s major religions have teachings about the central importance of compassion.

Step two: Look at your own world. Look at your family, your workplace, your church, your nation. What would these be like if all people treated each other with compassion? Think about what area of life you personally might make an impact through your behavior.

Step three: Compassion for yourself. Perhaps the hardest step for many of you. Karen Armstrong cautions not to move on from any step until we have accomplished the previous one. She writes about compassion for yourself, “Do not leave this step until you have laid the foundations for a healthy, realistic assessment of yourself and made the meditation on love a regular part of your day.”

Step four: Empathy. Offering love and compassion to those we love, those we feel neutral toward, and even those we despise. Just as in step three, this takes the form of a daily meditation practice, offering loving kindness to yourself and to others.

Step five—where we are today—is mindfulness. Mindfulness, as Armstrong writes about it, is our ability to observe ourselves and our own thoughts and actions and reactions. You notice, don’t you, that when you are tired and not feeling well, you are more likely to feel angry or fearful. The skill we want to develop is not to get lost in our anger or fear or resentment or whatever it is that preoccupies us, but to be able to observe, you know what? I’m tired, or I’m sick of having this cold, or I’m frustrated that my knee hurts, and THAT’S what’s really going on.

Armstrong invites us to notice how unhappy our most primitive emotions make us. She writes, “When you are engrossed in thoughts of anger, hatred, envy, resentment, or disgust, notice the way your horizons shrink and your creativity diminishes.”

So that’s all we’re doing on this step: noticing. If we’re doing our loving kindness meditation, we notice how good it feels to do that, how open and calm we feel to offer positive feelings even to someone we don’t like. So much better than stewing with hate and resentment.

And the next step, the companion step to mindfulness, is action. Armstrong writes, “So if you want to be a force for good in the world, you should apply the insights you gain in the practice of mindfulness to your daily dealings with others shielding them from your destructive tendencies and trying to lighten their lives with acts of friendship.”

This is where the Golden Rule comes in, a teaching from all the world’s major religious traditions: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This is pretty straight forward, I think. I imagine that most of us consider some version of this idea when we’re trying to decide on a course of action, or trying to evaluate something we did. But life isn’t so straight-forward, is it?

Think about the situation we heard about in the reading today, the story of a parking lot altercation. Someone uses a racial epithet, the hero of the story denounces the use of the racial slur, and another two people thank the hero for speaking up. The victim of the racial slur is not present and has no part in anything that happens.

That’s complicated, right?

The offender in the story is violating the Golden Rule: the woman using the racial slur. She’s the one in violation of politeness, civility, and decency. She hasn’t committed a crime; in fact, the person she’s denigrating is NOT nearby.

But our hero is offended to hear this language, and rightly so, and good for her. She quickly assesses that this language is not okay with her, and she confronts the offender, stating that this language is not okay, it’s racist, and that America is about diversity. The interaction sounds heated, but not too bad, right? The offender even tries to end the conversation on a lighter note.

I think we need more interactions like this in our country, even though they’re difficult, and even though it’s debatable whether or not this kind of interaction changes minds. We tend to think such interactions are divisive, but what’s really dividing us is that we ignore each other’s behavior, that we refuse to engage across our differences. Maybe we can find a way to change people’s minds and hearts, and maybe we can’t, but we have to fight the good fight. We have to be able to say, “This kind of language is not okay. This behavior is not okay.”

Racism is not okay, and who has to fight that fight is white people.

Sexism is not okay, and who has to fight that fight is men.

Homophobia is not okay, and who has to fight that fight is straight people.

Xenophobia is not okay, and who has to fight that fight is Americans.

Rev. Elizabeth from our congregation was down in Hillcrest this past Friday, sitting in her car, minding her own business, wearing her “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt. A man yelled at her, “You’re the problem,” called her a slur that I won’t repeat here, and concluded by saying, “Make America great again!” This man was holding a small child, by the way.

Now, Rev. Elizabeth wears her t-shirt with intention. She is a white woman, and she knows the shirt is provocative to many people. In that moment, her first time being yelled at this way, she replied, “Have a blessed day.”

She has reflected that if something similar were to happen again, she would like to approach the person and say in a calm and quiet voice, something like “It seems like you’re upset; would you like to talk about it?”

I thought this kind of response seemed excessively generous to someone who had been verbally abusive, but she feels that she is wearing that shirt with the intention and hope of starting such conversation.

Remember the words of Bonhoeffer: “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

Elizabeth wants to learn more about the suffering of someone who would shout such things at a stranger in a car. It is generous and compassionate and courageous and a high aspiration. It is what Karen Armstrong would call “an act of friendship.”

For most of us, the idea of responding to these abusive comments is challenging, right? For women, in particular, we learn at a young age to ignore offensive comments and keep moving. And I am absolutely NOT suggesting that anyone here put themselves in a dangerous situation by responding to someone who is behaving violently. But remember what I said:

Racism must be fought by white people.

Sexism must be fought by men.

Homophobia must be fought by straight people.

Xenophobia must be fought by Americans.

Rev. Elizabeth is a white woman, and she wears her t-shirt to do her part to address racism. I admire that she takes this work seriously.

As we discussed a few weeks ago, if you witness harassment and intimidation, support the victim and ignore the attacker. But most of us have experienced and will experience overhearing language that is not okay and even witnessing behavior that is not okay. Something disturbing and damaged seems to have been unleashed by our presidential election, and I think it is dangerous for us to ignore it. I can’t imagine what would prompt someone to curse and shout at a woman sitting in a car doing nothing, but we cannot pretend that such behavior is okay.

To ignore such behavior is to suggest that it’s normal, and it is not normal. We have a collective responsibility to each other, to the community as a whole, to confront such behavior when we feel we can do so safely and calmly, like the hero in the parking lot story.

How this comes back to the Golden Rule: I can’t imagine what would have to be happening with me to prompt me to shout at a stranger or to use racial epithets in any context, but I believe that if I did those things, or if anyone here did those things, we would want to be confronted about it. Because it would be a sign that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

We have to hold each other accountable for our behavior. We have to. With love. With compassion. With calm, quiet voices, and with a great care for what the other person may be suffering. Because anyone who shouts and uses slur MUST be suffering.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know quite well that we have no right to do so, and that it would lead us into the most sterile relation to our fellow-men. The following thoughts may keep us from such a temptation. It means that we at once fall into the worst blunders of our opponents. The man who despises another will never be able to make anything of him. Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We often expect from others more than we are willing to do ourselves.…We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others – and especially to our weaker brethren – is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them.” The will to hold fellowship.

May each of us here look with love upon all our fellow broken and flawed human kin.

May we require of each other behavior that upholds basic human decency, civility, and politeness.

And may we have the will to hold fellowship with those whose suffering prompts them to push us away. Remember that love always wins.

Blessed be and amen.