by Rev. Thomas Disrud

A sermon given July 28, 2002

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

Benjamin Franklin, while he was still in his 20s, set out to become good. He wanted to arrive at what he called “moral perfection,” and to do this, he came up with thirteen virtues he would strive for and practice. This is his list:

Temperence—to eat and drink in moderation.

Silence—to speak not but what may benefit others or yourself.

Order—to let all things have their place and to let each part of your business have its time.

Resolution—to resolve to perform what you ought.

Frugality—make no expense but to do good to others or yourself.

Industry—always be employed doing something useful.

Sincerity—use no hurtful deceit, think innocently and justly.

Justice—wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Moderation—avoid extremes, forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Cleanliness—tolerate no uncleanliness.

Tranquility—be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Chastity—rarely use venery but for health or offspring.

And finally, Humility—imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Not a bad list for a guy in his 20s. It was a good project, but it did not last long. Franklin wrote that he soon found he had undertaken a task of more difficulty than he had imagined. And even though he did not arrive at perfection, he was a better person because of the endeavor.

All we have to do today is look at a newspaper to know that we are still far, far away from finding moral or ethical perfection for us as individuals or as a society. Reading the headlines we realize that we still have a ways to go.

It seems that just about every day there is a new report about corporate shenanigans. Things in the business world have gotten out of hand—or at least we are now more aware of just how much things have been out of hand. The ever-present drive to push up earnings, combined with the practice of stock options for executives that also provide an incentive to push up the prices combined with accounting practices that are more than questionable has led to many questions. I usually don’t pay a whole lot of attention to what is happening with the stock market, but the past few weeks have been different. I find myself paying close attention and wondering where the current issues will end up. And the story is not over yet.

When first there was just the Enron fiasco, I didn’t really feel all that affected by the situation. If anything it seemed that some bad guys were getting their comeuppance and lots of innocent people lost a great deal. But the months went by and more and more corporate practices were being called into question and the market started to react—big time.

The situation really hit home a few weeks ago when I opened the mail. I am a person who is fortunate enough to have a pension plan, and a little money in mutual funds, and when I got my quarterly statement, I realized that I am very much affected by what is happening. It is not a particularly good feeling to get the statement to see that the amount contributed in the quarter is dwarfed by the loss that has been recorded. I know that it is just on paper, but the paper is pretty darned important. Some of you may have had the same experience.

Suddenly the demands for change have been coming from all kinds of quarters. It seems that when enough people are affected by some action, the pendulum towards ethics can suddenly swing.  Seeing our leaders in Washington scrambling to pass reforms doesn’t make me particularly hopeful. Our top leaders can’t speak with much authority given their own histories in this area. All of this only leads to more uncertainty and an awareness of the depth of some of the problems. Just a few months back, not many leaders were willing to pass much reform at all. And now all of a sudden it seems that they can’t wait to do something. All, it seems by the November elections, in hopes of doing something that will lessen the potential for backlash from the voters. It is no wonder the market is nervous.

But the market may be just what corrects the situation—at least for a time. Investors, in order to feel comfortable, will move towards companies that don’t take the risks and push the limits like the ones that have been in trouble. That is likely where money is going to go for a while.

It seems that ethics have been somewhat out of vogue in our culture for some time and all of a sudden they are making a comeback. The problems currently engulfing the corporate world and the markets are putting them front and center. Too often, it seems that the modus operandi is to hear no evil, see no evil. Ethics will take care of themselves—we don’t need to pay attention.

I heard a story a few weeks ago about how many business schools in the past years have stopped offering ethics courses. The reason? Students weren’t signing up. I was shocked when I first heard this. I assumed that it would be part of just about any good business program. But then I thought about the culture of the last few years. At a time when the main goal is to increase profits—and to increase them even if you have to push the limits, or as some would say, think outside of the box. That has been translated to do what you need to do. In that culture it is no wonder that ethics classes have not been in vogue. 

But ethics are foundational to how we live. Most simply, ethics articulate how we are going to get along in a world of competing demands and values. They are guides for how we are going to live. The word ethics comes from the Greek, ethos, meaning customs, usages, character. They have been needed to bring order to life. They have been needed to help us make sense of life.

When people were first gathered together, there was a need to have rules so that there would be order in the group. Eventually one tribe came in contact with another tribe and they learned that they did not agree on everything, and if they were going to co-exist, something had to give. Eventually there were nations and they needed to learn how to live together. From there the world has only continued to get more and more complex, the ethical issues we face are not necessarily the same ones that our parents or grandparents or great-great-great grandparents faced. They did not think about cloning, or dirty nuclear weapons in the hand of rogue nations.

But no matter what the level of complexity is, there’s the basic issue of how we are together and what that will mean for all of us. In a world of competing demands—and there will most always be competing demands—it is about our relationship with self, with other, with something greater than all of us. It is about how we maintain a sense of integrity for ourselves and others in our living. We always have to attend to the ethical dimension of life.

In our culture, where profits are what make or break the business world, it is ethical standards that make for certain rules. In all professions, in walks of life, there are rules that we play by. Some are very precise, others are not. They may be conscious or they may not be.

The world’s religions have historically had something to do with articulating what our ethics should be. Those rules have articulated not just how we are to behave towards others but how we are to be with God. In fact, sometimes these rules seem to almost come from outside of us. And historically they have backed up the need for follow those ethics with the threat of eternal punishment, along with sometimes earthly punishment.

They agree on some important things: that killing is bad, along with stealing, telling lies and sexual misconduct. They also point to the need to avoid hatred, pride, malicious intent, covetousness, envy, greed, lust and other things.

As Unitarian Universalists we have our principles and purposes. They give us guides for how we hope to be together in community.

--respect for each person.

--justice, equity and compassion in our relationships.

--acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

--a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

--the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.

--the goal of world community, with peace, liberty and justice for all.

--respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

There is a tremendous paradox with these principles. On the surface they seem so logical and direct—who couldn’t agree with those? But then comes the hard part. We are asked to live them out. It is probably something like what Benjamin Franklin went through when he came up with his 13 virtues. What would it mean to truly not covet something that our neighbors have? Or what would it mean to truly honor every person has having inherent worth. What would it mean to truly let everyone act according to what their conscience told them to do? Those are pretty radical concepts.

We strive for these things, but we are always striving, and that is how it should be. There is no graduation and diploma from the ethics class of life.

Each one of us comes to develop a set of values. We come to have those values, whether we might always be able to articulate them or not. They are influenced by our families, by our teachers and mentors, by our colleagues and friends. They are influenced by the faith community we join. In the work that we do, in the relationships that we foster, these are principles that guide us, whether we are conscious of them or not.

I grew up in a small farming community and it had a way of keeping watch on itself and all the people there. If somebody got a new car, people noticed. Be aware of being ostentatious. If people didn’t keep their yards up, people noticed. If something wasn’t right, neighbors had a way of noticing. There was a way that order was very much maintained. It was not necessarily ideal, but there certainly were values that were upheld.

In the current business scandals, I wonder about the people on the inside of those scandals. I expect they were mainly people who would call themselves ethical. I would even venture to say that there are some who very intentionally knew what they were doing and found a way to justify it. But I bet there were more who knew something was very wrong but didn’t say anything. After all, the train was going and the money was coming in, so don’t mess with it. There were some people who asked questions, some who stuck their necks out, but just how many is not clear.

What one person does can affect what happens with the whole. But we may not see it that way—particularly when we are in the middle of a system. If we see ourselves as powerless in the system, then we may think that it doesn’t matter what we do. So we might as well go along with things, or we may see it as a ticket to do what we want, even when we know it isn’t right.

If we feel powerless, we don’t necessarily see the need to be ethical. In his book Fast Food Nation, writer Eric Schlosser reports that a high percentage of robberies committed against McDonald’s and similar places is perpetuated by former employees. Schlosser attributes this to a reaction to low pay, poor working conditions, the lack of chance to advance and union busting. Schlosser cites a study by Jerald Greenberg, professor of management at the University of Ohio, an expert on workplace crime, who reports that “when people are treated with dignity and respect, they are less likely to steal from their employer. The same anger that causes petty theft, the same desire to strike back at an employer perceived as unfair, can escalate to armed robbery.”

I’m just one person in a vast system, so what does it matter what I do. I think that too often today that is how we see things. That might be why so many people don’t vote.

I think that too often today we don’t connect our actions with what happens to the whole. I know it is not so good for the environment to buy a sport utility vehicle, but I’m just one person and that won’t make such a difference. But the truth is that it does matter. We are interrelated beings, and what we do very much affects others. And what we do or don’t do affects how we are in relationship with everything else.

Often when we hear about ethics, we hear about them in the form of the ethical no-win-situation questions. You’ve heard them. There are 10 people in the water and the lifeboat will only hold seven. Or your child needs medicine that you cannot afford. Is it okay to steal in order to get the medicine save your child? Of course if you steal it and get caught and go to jail, then what will happen to your child?

As much as these questions make us think, they are usually not the ethical questions that we actually deal with day by day. Those are the questions about where we live, how do I spend by resources, the way we spend our time, the meaning and purpose of the work we do. The answers in our complex world are not always very clear.

When I buy by pair of tennis shoes or buy my asparagus from Argentina out of season, what are the implications of that? What if I don’t feel like paying a little more for the goods that I know are made without taking advantage of someone else? I know for myself, too often it is that I want my tennis shoes or asparagus when I want them and I really don’t want to give a whole lot of thought to what the consequences might be.

In his book Ethics for a New Millennium, the Dalai Lama talks about this interconnectedness and how our actions very much flow out of our being. What we do need to come out of a fullness of being—a fullness of heart and mind—that includes a profound sense of how we are connected with all of life. If we can really come from that place it will very much affect what it is we do in life. He asks us to develop a compassionate heart and know that as we are kind to others, we are also kind to ourselves. The impact of our actions registers deep within us. We are aware of this on some level and it affects our own well being in the world.

As I have been reading his words, it really seems to come back to the golden rule, that we are to do onto others as we would have them do onto us. The others, of course, might not be in front of us. They might be somewhere far away, or they may be across the street. And what impact do our actions have on the earth? That, too, needs to be in our thoughts.

Another way of saying it might be to ask ourselves, what if everyone did just what I’m doing, how would it affect how we are in the world?

A friend of mine once told me that you will know your bottom-line ethics by what you do when nobody is watching. How often do we do something for the reward that we will hope to get in the eyes of another? How often do we hope that our virtue will get us noticed?

But maybe most important is what our decisions will mean for ourselves. When we do something that on the surface hurts somebody else, it is a good bet that we can hurt ourselves in the process as well.

Many of us, I expect, have had the situation where we have been given more change back at the store than we should have been given. There is a dilemma there. Somebody else made the mistake, but is that my problem? There are all kinds of wrinkles you can add to the situation—you are no longer at the store when you figure it out, or they overcharged you last week.

What do you do when you are at that campground where you pay on the honor system and if you don’t pay, nobody but you will know. Do you pay? The remarkable thing is that most people do pay, studies have shown. And what if you don’t?

I remember being in such a situation once. I think it involved getting too much change back from the store. At first I didn’t return it, and then I realized that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When I finally took the change back, I remember what a feeling of peace came to me. It was not a lot of money as I recall, but I also knew that it really wasn’t mine to keep. It may not have been much money, but there are costs in other ways. Knowing that I have the power to make the choice is important to know.

So much of what we do comes down to common sense. It comes down to a willingness to be open to what we really should do. It is easy to want to try to justify things, but in the end we usually know what we should do. We have to give ourselves permission to do that.

We all have our guides. I sometimes think to myself, “What would my aunt Helen think of that?” My aunt Helen is an important person in my life and her opinion matters a great deal. If I ask that question and it is something that I wouldn’t want to tell Aunt Helen about, then chances are I probably shouldn’t do it. Asking that question can help me get clear on something in a hurry.

None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes and none of us can really know all the effects of our actions. But sometimes we are asked to go out on a limb. We are asked to not just do the minimum but to do what we can to see ourselves through the eyes of another. We are asked to do what we know is the right thing to do. We need to come from that place of fullness of being.

There is a Zen story about the master Bankei and one of his classes on meditation. They were very popular and students from all over the land would attend. At one of these gatherings, a pupil was caught stealing. A student reported this matter to Bankei with the request that the culprit be expelled. But Bankei ignored the case.

Later the student was caught again and again some students went to him and again Bankei disregarded the matter. Soon most of the other students were very angry. They were so angry that they drew up a petition asking for the dismissal of the thief. If he was not dismissed, they said, they were going to leave the class.

Bankei read their petition he called everyone together before him. “You are wise brothers,” he told them. “You know what is right and what is wrong. You may go somewhere else to study if you wish, but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I don’t? I am going to keep him here even if all of the rest of you leave.” And with his statement, the brother who had stolen got the lesson. Tears streamed down his face and all desire to steal vanished.

In our lives we are often given our share of teachers. We are presented with those who challenge us, those who teach by their example, those who show us what we want to be.

We live in a complex world and in that world, we need to know who we are and where we are going. It is important to know what we most value and how it is we want to live.

Ethics is a profoundly personal thing. But we are by nature relational beings, and our own happiness depends on the happiness of others. The choices we make affect our relationship with that divine mystery, whether we call it god or not. A willingness to live with an ethical perspective is a willingness to be open to how our actions play out. There is a ripple effect in all we do. From here, we begin to find our way.  Amen.

PRAYER

Great Spirit, we celebrate this day and all that we have been given. Help us to lead lives of integrity. Help us to be mindful of the relationships we have, our relationship with the earth. Help us that we might do justice in the world, love kindness and walk humbly with you. We ask this in the name of the good and the holy. Amen.

BENEDICTION

Live fully, good people, be open to life and all that it has to offer you.  

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Copyright 2002, Rev. Thomas Disrud.  All rights reserved.