Sermon Preached at Northbrae Community Church, May 22, 2005

By Ron Sebring

Innate Dignity

Several books in my library talk about what can go wrong with religion. Some were written by psychologists, some sociologists, historians, some theologians: The True Believer, Religious Extremism, The Declining Church in America."

I looked for them this last week, and could not find a one of them. That’s the problem with letting a library get disorganized. But this may be good … thoughts here rely on recreated memory, and some reflections encouraged by what we saw this last week.

I do remember the title of one: Religion can be Hazardous to your Health.

That says it very well. What people believe can uplift their lives and make them strong.

Or it can steal life, clouding it with guilt and all kinds of distortions. It can divide communities, one from another. We’ve seen it, in the last election, divide a nation.

Religion, too often in history, has been the rationale for war.

This last week, Connie and I went to the Berkeley Rep to see the play, People’s Temple.

It was about Jim Jones and the events that led to "Jones Town." Particularly in the Bay Area, people remember this San Francisco cult that moved to Guyana in South America and eventually committed mass suicide.

People’s Temple is a story that needs to be told. It hold’s deep lessons about religion.

It took three years of research and interviews to tell the story as accurately as possible.

The play consists of actors speaking to the audience from various points of view, chronologically through the events that happened.

Congressman Leo Ryan and many in his investigation were murdered. Under the power of Jim Jones and his cult-ideology, 914 people committed mass suicide. 638 were adults. 276 were children. The world asks "why," and while memories fade, the question lingers.

An actor in this play, representing a news reporter at the time, had an interesting line.

"Religion can be really weird!" While I advocate religion, I tend to agree: religion can get really weird.

The play points out the various things that can go wrong with a religion. Things I half assumed, but still surprised me. About my approach: here, I’m using "Jim Jones" symbolically, for the lessons.

Even for him, I do not want to take snap-shots through the prison bars of history.

That makes for "tabloid" sermons.

Here, I want to take the "story," and the characters of the story, and glean from the story patterns that might inform today’s religions. Jim Jones was well educated. He held degrees from Indiana University and Butler University. Education does not make a religion immune to radicalism.

Prior to Jones Town, I had not realized how popular Jim Jones was with politicians, celebrities, ministers and other notables in the San Francisco area. Many religious movements trade on their popularity, and feel it is a justification for their approaches.

The saints we honor in our windows went through long periods of unpopularity, clinging to their faith and their cause.

Jim Jones belonged to a main line denomination, which happens to be my own denomination. At the time, our denomination allowed local churches to select and ordain their ministers. Now, this is no longer the case. There is an intense interviewing process, with clinical experience required, before allowing recognized ordination.

Jim Jones preached about something to hate … something to be against. Many religious movements, especially as they become radical, draw their strength from having an enemy.

There is a deep need in these movements for an identified ‘evil’ out there against which people can take a stand.

In my opinion, any religion obsessed with an ‘evil’ is suspect. And this is so, even with milder forms of negativity—finger pointing, backbiting, reducible, self-righteous indignation. Negativity is seldom, if ever, nourishing for a religion.

The People’s Temple screened its members. This was a very subtle procedure. People who didn’t fit the profile were asked to come back next week. People’s Temple was highly selective, and bussed in people who were vulnerable and who needed something to believe in.

The music was hand clapping, foot stomping and swaying with the rhythm. Their choir was very good, and even cut an album. Decisions were invited amidst heights of emotional enthusiasm.

And perhaps most telling—Jim Jones claimed to have the final answers. He claimed that his word was God’s, and that he had the ultimate authority. There is a subtle narcissism of power that comes from believing that your way is the only way.

I woke up the next morning thinking about this play. I believe religion, broadly defined, is necessary for human happiness. Indeed, if religion represents our most important concerns, then anyone with passionately held concerns is religious and has rituals of worship.

This is so, regardless of whether their faith is institutionalized or recognized as such.

Religion is how people give meaning to life. How we consciously or unconsciously give meaning to things is our "belief" system and the arena of our "faith" activity. Space allows us to understand WHERE something is. Time allows us to understand WHEN something is. The way something works allows us to understand HOW something is.

But to get to the essence of WHAT something is, we must give it meaning. The "Inner Essence" of any event or thing is not inherit in that event or thing, but relies on its context.

And we assign the context by the way we choose to perceive it.

The "meaning" comes from us, from here, down deep inside, and not from things and events in themselves. People change by changing their "religion," that is, by re-framing the context and giving things and events new meaning. In this sense, the source of life’s happiness is from our "religion."

The question is not whether we are religious, but what makes for a healthy religion?

A healthy religion does not indoctrinate, but teaches people to think for themselves.

This is especially critical for children. Important for any Church School education that we present the options in a positive way. But equally important is that children learn to discern for themselves.

Healthy religion invites us to be humble about what we believe and what we know.

The Rabbis tell a story about a man who won the lottery. [Story paraphrased from A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, edited by Nathan Ausubel]

"How did you win?" asked one man. The other man answered, "I dreamed of the number 7, dancing before me, 6 times, one for each day of creation, just before God rested. So I played the number 49."

"But 6 X 7 is 42, not 49," the man protested. The other man was taken a back. He thought for a moment. "I guess you’re right." He said. "You do the math, and I’ll win the lottery."

Life is paradoxical, and sometimes people who get their facts wrong still come out to be the winners.

Healthy religion fosters a deep respect for the goodness and dignity of all people. Indeed, all creation. In a healthy religion, negativity is not nourishing. It’s not about what we’re against. It’s about what we’re for.

The Creation Story, for all the arguments and divisions of fellowship that Christians have put into this story … says something very beautiful. Seven times, the affirmation is repeated.

The world is created GOOD. When God created people, he pronounced his creation, GOOD. When God rested on the seventh day, he saw it as VERY GOOD.

The belief in this GOODNESS is a thematic echo, throughout the Bible. It finds expression in Psalms 8. The Psalmist stands under the canopy of stars, the vastness of the universe, careening his neck and asking a question:

"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?"

With the next breath, he responds: "Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor."

Throughout the teaching of Jesus, we have this same affirmation: Even the hairs on our head are numbered. (Though for some of us, God doesn’t have to count as high as for others.) God cares for each sparrow that falls. If God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and provides for them, how much more will God care for us.

A rabbinical story captures how so easy it is to let the fantasy of the mind take and create a belief that both eschews reality and demeans the dignity of another. [Story paraphrased from A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, edited by Nathan Ausubel]

Mendel was getting everything ready to move. All the boxes were packed, the landlord was paid in full, he had worked hard. The next day was his only window of opportunity.

He had to move to his new residence.

But then it started snowing. A heavy snow. Blanketed the ground. So he began worrying about the move the next day … he couldn’t pay anymore rent. Uneasy, he undressed and went to bed. But he couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned.

Then he thought: What if Goldberg would lend me his sled? That would make the move easy. Just put the boxes on sled, and pull it to his new home. It’d just take a few trips.

Mendel started to go to sleep, but thought, "What if Goldberg will not lend me his sled?" "He does care a lot about that sled of his." How dare he … after all I’ve done for him!

The scoundrel!

Tossing and turning, wallowing in the thought, Mendel became convinced, "Goldberg loves that sled too much and will not lend it." How dare him … after all I’ve done for him! I got him his first job. I introduced him to his wife. The best man at his wedding.

I loaned him money when he got into a pinch. How dare him!

Mendel was so convinced that he crawled out of bed and went over to Goldberg’s house. He banged on the door and woke him up—the middle of the night. He stood on the front porch and yelled at him. You no-good. How dare you! You can take that sled of yours and …. My source for this story goes on to finish that sentence.

Mendel turned and stormed off the porch, leaving Goldberg scratching his head with confusion.

So important it is, not to allow our beliefs to become eschewed: Healthy beliefs stay in tune with reality, never filling in gaps for what we do not know. Healthy beliefs do not trade in negativity.

Healthy beliefs have in their foundation a deep respect for the goodness of life and the dignity of all people.