Recently, Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, stood behind the podium at the United Nations and called President Bush, "The Devil."

I know. I know. That thought may have crossed other minds … but somehow, it didn’t seem right for him to stand there, in that honored place of world peace, and say it.

He was cute about it. "I can still smell the sulfur," as he made a cross over his chest.

I was reminded of our own President standing up and pointing a finger into the air, and referring to an "Axis of Evil."

Three nations, one which we’ve attacked and is no longer,

And two which are researching nuclear arms against us.

The President of Iran is an echo of these same remarks, pointing a finger across the waters and calling America, the "Great Satan."

Believing that before the Messiah Iman can come, there has to be a final battle with the "Great Satan."

And that, he says, is us.

And then there’s Jerry Falwell who stands up before over 100 pastors and Right Wing activist and associates Hillary Clinton running for President with Lucifer.

He said it was tongue-in-cheek.

But news reports captured his words and held them up before a nation.

The Devil is getting a lot of press, these days.

What is going on, here?

It’s like people need an enemy.

It’s like people need an enemy to rally around a cause and pick a fight.

What people do to make an enemy is demonize them. "Evil." "The Devil." "Satan."

It’s no different than what can happen in a schoolyard where children play.

The rich kids gather in one corner.                                                                   TOP

The athletes gather in another corner.

The poor kids and the ones that don’t quite ‘fit,’ in another.

It’s bully against the bullied.

A theory of psychology, back in the late 60s and early 70s, referred to this as "Discounting."

A department store having a sale, or when one goes out of business; they "discount" the items in the store.

Essentially, they are saying that these items are not as valuable.

That is great for a shopper.

But when we do this to people, discount them, say they don’t count for much.

We dehumanize them.

We marginalize them.

The great struggle … from playground squabbles to wars among nations … can be thought of as a defense of honor, a bid for respect, an effort to reclaim lost dignity.

Last Sunday, a group of us went to Freemont for an Ohlone gathering.

It was an open and welcoming place, with booths and crafts, indigenous foods and political causes.

A couple of us strolled along a row of booths.

An Ohlone Indian stood behind a folding table, under a tent, passing out brochures. We overheard a conversation.

An elderly white woman, purse in one hand and camera in the other, stood back and took his picture.

Then she went up to the man and said, "What do we call you, Indian or Native American."

The man responded, "Indian is fine. I’m an Indian."

The women couldn’t leave it at that, she persisted, "But I want to be respectful, politically correct, wouldn’t it be better to call you a Native American."

The man became apparently frustrated. "Look," he said, "You are a Native American. I’m an Indian."

Then he added, "Only in Berkeley do they call us ‘Native Americans’."

Racism is a complicated thing.

I’ve heard it defined as one race feeling superior to another.

And while that may speak to it, perhaps it’s not entirely accurate.

For in racism, there can also be deep feelings of inferiority, with the privileged admiring, having sympathy for, and trying to be like the very people they are oppressing.

There is a paradox, here.

When any people take the dignity from another, they lose a bit of their own.

Perhaps racism is a bid to reclaim some of that dignity by identifying with the other, while at the same time, trying to protect controls on socio-economic advantages.

Affirming human dignity is at the heart of religion – Judeo-Christian and others.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a is the creation story.

God creates the world in six days. In almost every one, God pronounces it GOOD.

On the day God created people, male and female, God pronounces it GOOD.

On the final day of rest, God looks, and behold, it is VERY GOOD.

We see it again in Psalm 8.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor."

The Hindu people have a greeting, "Namaste."

They place their hands together and bow.

It means the spark of the divine in me honors the spark of the divine in you.

In seminary, one of my professors authored a book entitled, "In Defense of Honor."

It was about the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.

Job had everything—property, family, friends.

Then suddenly, he lost it all.

The dialogues that ensue are interesting … the professor characterized Job’s efforts as "a defense of honor" against the assault of religion and reason.

We feel our dignity when everything is in place, but when something happens to rearrange our building blocks, we feel an affront.

What made this book and its author significant for me is that much of this happened in the life of this professor.

Sickness. A drug overdose by one of his sons. Problems.

I felt his struggle, and how he wrestled with Job’s friends, along with Job.

A story about the Mulla Nasrudin …

(And I’m not sure how to pronounce that, whether Nas-RU-din or Nas-ru-DEEN. If anyone knows, please let me know.)

A story about the Mulla Nasrudin has him in a coma, appearing as if he where dead.

His loved ones have a funeral for him and they are about to nail the lid on his coffin.

But then, he wakes up, and sits up in his coffin.

"What are you doing!?!"

"We are burying you."

"But I’m not dead."

Everyone ponders for a moment. They whisper. Then one of them steps forward.

"The doctors pronounced you dead, we have a death certificate saying you are dead, so you are dead …

Now lay back down so we can bury you."

This is what happens when we stereotype people, and dehumanize them by putting them into some kind of a conceptual box.

We see the image we hold of them, the way we culturally define them,

Instead of being open to what is right there before us.

To embellish a story taken from the Talmud, from the Agada, a group of rabbinical students sat about a wooden table discussing the question: Why did God create only one Adam? [My source of this story, which I have paraphrased here, is from A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, edited by Nathan Ausubel, p. 6]

Why not start with many humans and have a variety?

Why only one?

They came up with four reasons:

(1) God created only one Adam to demonstrate that a person is an entire universe.

This way, God could teach people that to kill one person is to destroy an entire world.

And to save one person is worthy of saving the whole world.

For each person is an Adam, an extensive universe and universe to come, unto himself and herself.

(2) God created only one Adam so people might not feel superior to each other.

Saying, "I’m descended from this famous person," or "I’m descended from that famous person.

Our lineage all goes back to one, common source.

We are all, one humanity.

(3) God created only one Adam so that all people could believe in ONE Creator.

If many people started the world, each group could claim their own god.

One God, creating one Adam, witnesses to our common divine Source.

God is ONE, and our humanity is discovered in that ONEness.

(4) God created only one Adam to show how many different things come out of ONEness.

A maker of coins has one mould. Each coin is stamped and each coin comes out alike.

Not so with God. God can start with one mould, and no two human beings come out alike.

God’s creative power show in the diversity that comes out of God’s underlying unity.

And hence, we can all feel in our uniqueness, something very special.

God created the whole world on my account. It’s here for me.

At the same time, the same can be said for others.

Dignity, or to use another word, sanctity, is ubiquitous throughout the universe.

Our communion, as common-union.

For all of our differences, we are spiritually, quite literally, sisters and brothers, one with another.

When we can balance these two, deep in our hearts, we will have peace on earth, and good will among all people.