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Evil and Worthiness

Sunday Service - October 5, 10:00am
Rev. Julie Stoneberg

Unitarians affirm the inherent worth and dignity of each person, but what about when the person misbehaves, or is downright evil? How do we reconcile ‘worth’ and ‘worthiness’?

Opening Words

In the words of George Odell, we gather because we need each other. We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted, we need one another when we are in trouble and afraid, and we need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves. There are no greater reasons to be together than these. 
 

Responsive Reading

Strange and Foolish Walls    #662
 

Message

Vegetables, as organic matter, go bad. People, or people’s bodies anyway, also ‘go bad.’ But today’s topic is not about our human matter, but rather about what matters about being human.   Are we, all of us, inherently good as our first principle affirms? Or are some more worthy than others? How do we compute the worth of someone who commits atrocities?
 
I chose this topic, several months ago, in order to try to examine my own mixed feelings about the shooting at the Tennessee Valley UU Church in Knoxville in July. Coincidentally, the daytime book group was reading “The Science of Good and Evil” by Michael Shermer, and so it seemed the perfect opportunity to wrestle with the concept of evil.   In the present moment, however, I recognize that our heavy hearts may not be receptive to such a serious exploration...and while I’m going to talk about it anyway, I promise I won’t go too deep or too long. We can come back to this again. Evil, unfortunately, is not about to go away, and we will need to go on talking about it and figuring out how to deal with it and even to confront it. 
 
But for today, I will tread lightly, and hopefully just raise some questions for you to ponder.  
There are a myriad ways to come at this topic. We can talk in a rather detached way about what a Unitarian theodicy might be...that is, how do we philosophically reconcile the existence of evil with a belief in a benevolent god or universe? We could examine belief in any deity that would recklessly play with our fates through random ‘acts of god.’ We can talk from a social justice perspective about structural evils... systems and cultural powers that are life-destroying and which have taken on a self-perpetuating power of their own. We could talk, as Shermer does in his book, about the evolution of morals from a scientific point of view.   We could do a lot of hand wringing about our moral demise, from a viewpoint that sees humanity as hopelessly sliding down a slippery slope toward hell on earth. We might make a case for claiming that while people do bad things, evil, at least as a disembodied force, does not really exist, and just put it aside. Or, we could talk about why bad things happen to good people, and why good things happen to bad people, that is, if we believe there are bad people. And, we certainly could spend a lot of time trying to define what evil is, exactly. From the sound of it, I could put evil on the pulpit docket for the rest of the year.   (But I won’t). 
 
For today, let’s just look at a couple of ‘simple’ things...you know...those kind of simple things that are so incredibly obvious that we just can’t accept them. Like, that our bodies are affected by what we eat...or that the laundry isn’t going to do itself...or that the cold weather isn’t coming. Simple facts that we resist accepting.   
 
So first thing. We’re not perfect. Not one of us. We make mistakes. But more than that, we all choose, once in a while, to do something bad. Call it bad judgment. Call it sin. Call it evil. The point is that all of us have the capacity for evil and all of us exercise that capacity from time to time and to some degree. As Universalist minister Clarence Skinner said, the line which separates the good from the evil runs not between us, but through us.   Of course, in some it’s a bit off-center.   There are degrees of goodness and evil...there are a few humans in history who have come pretty darn close to perfection...just as there are those who might be seen as pure evil through and through.  
 
Second thing.   We are animals. We are apart of an interdependent web of creation that is highly predatory. Nature depends on other nature to survive, and usually this involves destroying life.   We are each a ‘rearrangement’ of atoms that previously formed other matter, and so our very existence depends upon something else having died or ended.   Our human ethical systems need to be complex enough and well-considered enough to hold this reality, even as we try to point ourselves in the direction of goodness, that is, toward things that are life-affirming and life-sustaining. 
 
Third. Blessedly, we are still evolving. We can change! As individuals and as a race, we are constantly monitoring and adjusting, and will continue, as we have for millennia, to change and evolve. You and I might not see it through the lens of one lifetime, but when we take a big historical view (as Shermer does in his book), we can see a trajectory toward figuring out how to be more cooperative and therefore more universally life-affirming. This is, I think, the place where Unitarian Universalism can really serve the world...by sharing our message of inclusion and respect and cooperation.  
 
And that brings me to my fourth simple fact...cooperation and inclusion is the thing. Until we are able to say “we” and really mean everything and everyone, there will always be an ‘other’ who we can blame or scapegoat or push outside of the circle. John’s family shared with me yesterday that one thing they treasured about John was his desire to be sure that everyone was included, that everyone had a chance. I think this spirit of inclusion is vitally important, beginning even in the small circles created by our individual skins...if we can see the whole picture and love what’s there, accepting both our wretchedness and our blessedness... then we can live wholly, holy lives.   This acceptance of one another is the arc, the direction, the horizon in which to point our lives.
 
We are not perfect. We are animals. We are still evolving. Cooperation and inclusion is the thing. How do these ‘simple’ things help me to make sense of what happened in Knoxville? The shooter, Jim Adkisson has been called troubled and deranged, angry, disenfranchised...it would not be a stretch to say that someone able to walk into a church service with a 12-gauge rifle and open fire is the personification of evil.   But like us, he is not perfect, and for whatever reasons, he made a devastating choice that morning.   Like us, he has an animal nature, and there is much reason to believe that the circumstances in his life had pushed him into a corner from which he saw no way out.   He is not the first, and sadly he will not be the last, to believe that hatred and violence would offer salvation.   He’s not the first, and sadly he will not be the last, who acts out of a personal terror that cannot see a bigger picture...that cannot see the far-reaching affects of his actions...that cannot see that who he is and what he does matters.
 
Perhaps the most inspiring thing about the Tennessee Valley church is their chosen response to this violence. Immediately, they confronted the evil that walked into their sanctuary; a few heroes willing to give up their lives to protect others, literally tackled it. And then, they put a large banner on their lawn, insisting that “Love is the spirit of this church.” This is a great example for all of us. When we see evil, and we see it every day, we can respond. We can tackle it...by naming it, by confronting it, by refusing to let it cross our door. And we can then make the choice to turn toward love. 
 
Where does this leave us with Mr. Adkisson? I leave this question out there for you to consider, but I believe that society has to establish clear guidelines for what is acceptable behaviour, and when those guidelines are ignored, that there need to be consequences.   There have been some who have opined that “if he had just come in and gotten to know us...maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”   I’m not so naive as to think that a little bit of love would definitely have righted Mr. Adkisson’s spiralling life.   But, I do know that a little bit of love is the only thing that has a chance. I have to believe that.  
 
In a moving article about crimes of torture, Bill Schultz, former president of the UUA, and former executive director of Amnesty International, admits to having lost his ability to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of each person. He says that he has seen too much evil to believe that those who have committed heinous acts of torture have inherent worth. Rather, Schultz now believes that “each of us has to be assigned worth – it does not come automatically – and [each has to be] taught to behave with dignity.” Do you agree? If that’s a paradigm shift for you, how would dropping the affirmation of inherent worth affect your worldview?
 
In Schultz’s case, he goes on to say that to do so makes our job, as religious people and builders of the blessed community, tougher and more important. Because if this is true, we can no longer offer a wrong-doer the protection of inherent worth. If this is true, we must confront those who would reserve worth only for a few and who would save dignity only for their immediate neighbours.   And confronting such evil is challenging work, partly because it requires us to challenge the potential evil in ourselves, but especially because the basic premise of that confrontation is love. And loving is hard work. 
 
At the end of this article, Schultz affirms that what has sustained him are two things which he names as bedrock principles of Unitarian Universalism. For him, these are the indomitability of the human spirit and the mysterious workings of an unfettered grace. Maybe all we have is inherent possibility and the gift of hope. Death holds no victory over life. Even in the face of evil and pain, we must never give up on living and loving fully.
 
You have shown this to me, and to each other, so beautifully in the last few days. Long may it continue.
Bless you all. Amen. 
 

Closing Words                                                              

It is said now, “Love thy neighbour”. Love is the balm, love is the cure, love is the thing. Go now and practice it.