“Every day we face many hard choices. Moreover, many worthy causes call for our limited energy and resources. How can we build a reliable framework to guide our ethical living?”

by Bruce Davis, Intern Minister

A sermon given November 30, 2003

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

The Rev. William Schulz, one of the great social justice ministers of our time, has authored our opening words:

Come into this place of peace

And let its silence heal your spirit;

Come into this place of memory

And let its history warm your soul.

Come into this place of prophecy and power

And let its vision change your heart.

Come together as one in worship, knowing that in community we are made strong to serve our world.

Responsive Reading #571

The Spirit of God has sent me

To bring good news to the

Oppressed,

To bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And release to the prisoners,

To comfort all who mourn,

To give them a garland instead of ashes.

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit,

They shall build up the ancient

Ruins, they shall raise up the

Former devastations, the

Devastations of many generations.

You shall be named ministers of our God.

Reading    “Listen—”    by Alla Renee Bozarth

There is no difference between

Healing your body and healing the Earth

Or helping another to heal.

It is all the same Body.

There is no difference between

Healing Earth’s body and healing your own

Or helping another to heal.

We are all the One Body.

Begin anywhere.

Begin with one tree,

Or a bird.

Begin with your own heart

Or skin, clean out your liver,

Clear your mind.

Begin with the growth of a child,

Your family’s food.

Then continue to include

One small part at a time.

You will be healing the Whole.

This morning I woke up in Portland. It shouldn’t be shocking news, since I live here now. But after a deep night’s sleep, lost in dreams, I was a bit disoriented when I awoke. “Where am I?” “How’d I get here?”

When I think about the series of steps I’ve taken from being a family doctor in Seattle to being an intern in UU ministry in downtown Portland, I notice the flow of the events. It’s as if a river of activity has carried me along its course, from the early nineties to now. The flow of my life toward UU ministry has seemed steady and necessary.

“How did I get here?” It is a question that comes up in the befuddlement between dreaming and waking, but it is a haunting question even when we are fully awake.

It is in retrospect that our lives have that quality of flow or unfolding. Looking ahead, while we are taking each step along the way, we know that what seems like a flow is really a series of choices. Sometimes big choices. Sometimes hard choices. Sometimes simple decisions that don’t feel like choices at all. But always, always we are choosing to take one step rather than another.

So, how do we go about choosing one action over another? This is what the word “ethics” is all about. Assuming that we want to make our best decision among the possible options, is there any reliable framework that we can use? And when we feel pressed to do more good things than we can possibly get done, what then?

Practitioners of the world’s religions accept codes of behavior that they use to simplify such choices. Live by the sacred law, and stay out of trouble. At least, don’t get caught. The consequences may be disastrous. In the Hebrew Scripture of Deuteronomy, for example, there are pages and pages of ethical guidelines. If a married woman is found to be unfaithful, the law is clear. Just take her to a public place and stone her to death. We should notice that there is no such law to govern the infidelity of the men-folk. Or we could look to India and the ethical guidelines of the caste system. Following the mores of caste, a cow wandering the village streets appears to have more rights than certain outcast human beings. Who, I wonder, are the outcasts here in our own city of Portland?

The ethical systems of the world’s religions are akin to creeds and dogmas. You believe them because the hierarchy, often the patriarchy, of the religion says that they’re right and good. Or, more likely, because you want to avoid the dire consequences of disobedience.

In 1960 the Unitarians and Universalists were about to consummate a relationship that had been on-again, off-again for nearly two centuries. As part of the merger a framework of action principles was written and agreed upon, based on about a hundred and fifty years of effort by Unitarians and Universalists to describe our faith. It included the liberal religious voices of luminaries like Hosea Ballou, William Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sarah Safford, and William Channing Gannett. Then it was put on the shelf, where it sat gathering dust for about twenty years.

I think that document might have remained on the shelf if two wise feminists hadn’t come along. Natalie Gulbrandson and Denny Davidoff were successive presidents of the UU Women’s Federation in the early 1980s when they made public the inadequacy of these so-called guiding principles. They felt that the principles were sexist and exclusionary, and the two women led a process to re-write the document, to get input from all constituencies, and finally to get it ratified. In the General Assemblies of 1984 and 1985 their work was approved in its current language as the seven principles and five wisdom sources that inform our movement.

Our principles and values are not a creed or dogma. Nor are they an ethical system. They are a framework that allows us to approach our world with the intentions of justice and service. Many times these principles have helped me with hard choices. They don’t give me simple answers, like the codes and moral laws of other religions. They don’t tell me what to do. But they do help me to clarify why I might choose one action over another when I am facing a dilemma.

Each year around election time I confront at least a dozen decisions about issues and candidates. “Inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Which candidate would that be? “Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.” Does that help me choose yea or nay on a referendum? “Acceptance of each other.” “Free and responsible search for truth.” “The right of conscience.” “The goal of global community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all people.” “Respect for the web of interconnection in our world.” How can I align my vote with these principles that I hold dear?

Arguably feeling my way through our principles toward a decision is more work than just making a random choice. However, when I have made the choice, I know that it has come from guidance that I am deeply committed to. If the principles and values are a map for how I want my heart to come into action, and for me they are just that, then by using them I know that I have spoken or acted from the heart.

Ethics informs our environmental policy, our human rights commitments, our healthcare system—really all ways that we are together in community. Among the defined ethical systems, the tension between two off-setting principles has been particularly helpful to me. On the one hand is the principle of autonomy. That means, all good things that each of us as individuals want should come our way. On the other hand is the principle of distributive justice. That means, in a world of scarce goods and services we should always be sure that the greatest possible well-being goes to the greatest number of persons. Neither pole in this ethical tension is by itself right. What is important here is to notice the tension between two good things and to bring this tension forward into decision-making. It means making tough but informed choices. It means prioritizing among too many good ways to spend time, money, and energy. In my healthcare work this tension became a critical framework for hard choices.

Two of my areas of programmatic responsibility as a physician were preventive care and organ transplants. The money available to do the work was limited, and the demand for services always over-stretched the dollars available. An effective smoking cessation program cost about $700 per year of life saved, and a liver transplant program cost about $300,000 per year of life saved. Here’s the struggle. How best to distribute services over the whole population justly? How best to ensure that the individuals who wanted and needed the expensive procedures got them? The result was that I had to balance prevention with transplants in a way that got the best results for both within the limited dollars available. Of course, in the end, it’s an impossible task. No wonder I went into ministry.

Here’s another ethical framework that serves me well. Three fields of my life seem to demand my attention: family, work, and community. Imagine for a moment three intersecting circles. How big each circle is depends on how much energy, time, and resources you put into it. How much of myself am I putting into family? How much into work? How much into community? What this framework allows is a chance to rebalance how you invest yourself in your life. A teacher of mine once said that if you want to know what’s most important to someone, don’t ask them. You’ll only get their opinion. Instead, watch what they do. Watch where they put their energy. And their money. We declare our intentions in our actions. A desire to spend more time with the family only becomes real when you can actually shift time and energy in that direction.

Imagine for a moment the intersecting place common to all three fields of your life. It’s yourself. How am I keeping myself alive and strong so that I can give myself meaningfully to all that I want to do in the world. For me, one of my greatest challenges in building ethical balance in my life has been taking time to nurture the person who I am.

Principles and values, ethical principles, and life-balancing are key to making our choices, but for me there is another important step: finding that issue or that concern that becomes an over-riding passion for your service in the world.

Through my life I have at times been overwhelmed by all the obvious world problems. I feel the gnawing hunger in India. I abhor the devastation caused by AIDS in Africa when the technology is there to help. I decry the toxic waste that is building up in the ocean. I bemoan the thinning of our ozone shield. I am saddened by a homeless teenager, shivering in a doorway. My concern about so many disasters and potential disasters makes it nearly impossible for me to act. Where shall I begin?

Former president of the UUA, John Buehrens, suggests that many UUs feel a broad sentiment of concern about social and environmental ills in our world. The great risk he points to is our tendency to begin the journey of justice at a symbolic level, seeking to have as broad an impact as possible. In his words, “There is the temptation to become known, inexpensively, as prophetic or courageous. Often this means doing or saying something that has no real moral authority.” (p 71, Our Chosen Faith) Buehrens suggests an alternative direction here, “…through concrete acts of service and through the tough work of building a moral consensus—through study, dialogue, and support for diverse witness.” Buehrens challenges us to move beyond sentiments of justice and mercy to acts of justice and mercy if we would live ethical lives.

One of our modern UU prophets, James Luther Adams, echoes this challenge. “The immaculate conception of virtue,” in Adams’ words, will not get us to “the social incarnation of the good we love.” “The immaculate conception of virtue,” will not get us to “the social incarnation of the good we love.”

This is just the point, I think. What is the good that I love? If I don’t limit myself to a vital few directions in response to a hurting world, I will waste myself. Nothing will happen. By not doing the good I could do, limited though it might seem, the net result is actually further harm. The socially engaged mystic, Thomas Merton, expresses the danger here:

To allow oneself to be carried away

By a multitude of conflicting concerns,

To surrender to too many demands,

To commit oneself to too many projects,

To want to help everyone in everything

Is to succumb to violence.

The frenzy of the activist

Neutralizes his or her work for peace.

Accepting our limitation allows us to embrace action. Social activist Dorothy Day states:

People say, what is the sense of our small effort.

They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time,

Take one step at a time. (Reading 560)

Doing even a small thing relative to the enormity of world problems is to do a great thing if it is done with your passion.

But, finding your passion. How do you go about that? If I wander the tables in Fuller Hall during coffee hour, what I see are many possible directions, all of them good. Reading the Oregonian, I see hundreds of areas of need. How do I find the one that calls to me, that elicits my passion to get involved?

Shortly after arriving in Portland, I got a call from one of our First Unitarian members. Her voice, even over the phone, resonated with the passion that she has found in working in support of the African AIDS crisis.

As a younger woman she had studied the economic development and the historical geography of South Africa, stimulating her thinking about how the developing African nations might begin to catch up with the economic powers of the world. But her strong desire to provide support for the disadvantaged in the greater Portland area led her to a career in social service. For years her passion to serve in an international context lay dormant.

In 2002 she went to the UUA General Assembly in Quebec. She surprised herself by how caught up she was in the inspiration of the event. Particularly she was moved by a passionate talk from the humanitarian Stephen Lewis. He spoke with great power about the African AIDS crisis. Her earlier passion for the tribulations of the African continent suddenly woke up. She puts it this way:

What I heard - REALLY heard for the first time  - was the enormity of the crisis in Africa and that we in the West are letting it happen. We have the capacity to intervene to stop the death toll, but instead we sit on our hands and let it continue. Because it's so far away we don't have to feel we have any personal obligation.

That night I woke up. It was as close as I have ever come to a "Call,” the feeling that it was not going to be OK for me to let this understanding go the way of other insights. This time I was going to have to make the commitment to do whatever was in my power to engage others in the realization that it is up to us to take action.

The next morning she discovered that a close friend, who also heard Stephen Lewis speak, was just as passionate as she was, and this redoubled both of their commitment. Together they learned that they were not alone. They found themselves immersed in a community of passion on the issue of African AIDS.

The story here goes on. Together this passionate community sponsored an Action of Immediate Witness in our national association, and congregations throughout the nation are beginning to address Global AIDS. Our national UU association is advocating for resources and interventions to effectively address the world AIDS crisis.

To commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday, the Global AIDS Coalition of our church is sponsoring a conversation today after the second service, entitled, “Global AIDS: Putting Your Heart into Action.” The Steven Lewis talk that was an important spark for some of this passion will be shared, followed by a group conversation.

I believe that our commitment to action has to do with passions that are latent within us. The work that we are personally and uniquely called to do in the world relates to who we are. When Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a reporter to comment on his humanitarian work, he said, “Be the change you want to see.” For me this statement works the other way around, as well. “Consider who you uniquely are and your passion for changing the world will become clear.”

During my ministry studies I was challenged to do fieldwork in a social justice cause. The list of options was long—too long for an easy decision. My first idea was to work on developing consensus among businesses, universities, municipal departments, and other stakeholders in the Seattle area on the important social justice needs of the community. The fieldwork director challenged me. Was this what I really needed to do, or was I just taking an easy way out? I went back to the drawing board.

One day, I was walking back to my home from a meeting, and I encountered a young woman, probably fifteen, huddled alone under a bridge. I stopped to talk with her and learned that she had just been thrown out on the street by her boyfriend. She had been homeless before and said she knew how to take care of herself. Mostly I just sat near her, listening supportively. Finally, she asked me to go.

Funny thing. I suddenly knew what I would do for my social justice fieldwork. I felt a passion rising in me about this young woman’s situation. I couldn’t tell exactly where in my story it was coming from. Was I sensing my own isolation during teenage years? Was I remembering the vulnerability that I’d felt with my own children at that same age, when I sensed the risks they faced but had all too little ability to influence their choices? Somehow my story was emerging into action on behalf of this young woman and her brothers and sisters on the streets of Seattle. For the next year I was consumed with that work in the Sanctuary Center in Seattle’s University District. It was where I knew I could make a difference.

The great UU minister Edward Everett Hale puts it this way:

I am only one

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything,

But still I can do something.

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the

Something that I can do.

In the interconnected web of this world, it doesn’t matter where you hold on. It is all the body of the same wonderful, hurting world. Caring for the part is caring for the whole. Start somewhere that means something to you, and that’s enough. Your passionate service is about putting your heart into action. It is about making decisions that arise from your ethical framework and performing actions that speak loudly about what is most important to you right now. It is about your calling. It is about your ministry.

PRAYER

Holy One,

Sometimes we become overwhelmed

By all the suffering and distress in our world,

And, feeling the futility of too much to do,

We do less than we wish we could.

Help us, O Spirit,

To remember the parts of our lives

That are calling: our families, our work, our wider community.

Kindle in us the fire of our passion,

Each of us in our own unique ways,

So that we may come to know the ministry

That we must do, now.

We pray in the name of all Souls

Who are One in the Infinity of Over-soul. Amen.

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