Over the next few months, I plan to explore with you each of our seven Unitarian Universalist principles. This month we’re looking at the first two, today and on October 15. I think It's especially important, in a time when many new people are joining us as visitors, friends and often eventually as members, to try to ensure that our Sunday services, as well as our discussions and adult education programs, help orient newcomers to the basics of our religious movement. Those of us who've been around for a while also need to rethink those basics regularly if we're going to have a faith that's truly ours.

We begin today with the first of the seven Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association: "the inherent worth and dignity of every person". As I consider this with you today, I'd like us first of all to be aware of the limitations of this statement -- all that it doesn't say. There are many things that most of us believe to be true and worth affirming about people which aren't included in this first principle, and I think it's important not to read into it more than is there.

Does that mean that it's simply a motherhood statement, a lowest-common-denominator principle, framed so that we can hardly avoid affirming it? Perhaps so, although when we look at its implications we may see that, narrow as it is, it does say something which goes beyond the self-evident and commonplace. I was startled to discover a few days ago, as I was reading a booklet for Roman Catholics called "Catholics Engaged in Pastoral Care", a reference to the Ontario Human Rights Code -- a reference we might want to remind our MPPs about. It states that

It is public policy in Ontario to recognize the dignity and worth of every person ..... [policy] having as its aim the creation of a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person ...

A Catholic publication and a provincial government Code -- so removed from this UU Church in some ways, but affirming in common with us the worth and dignity of every person. It must be something which needs to be said, something which is not self-evident, even though it's a belief held to be vital by very different secular and religious groups.

Unlike the writers of the American Declaration of Independence, we do not hold it to be self-evident that everyone is created equal. In fact, this principle doesn't speak of the equal worth and dignity of every person -- did you notice that? Equity's mentioned in the second principle, which I'll be discussing with you in a couple of weeks, but it's not in this one. It says "inherent" worth and dignity, not equal.

Maybe I have lots of it and you only have a little! The possibility is left open here. And it only refers to persons, not to animals or any entity which might be considered less than a person. I've heard animal-lovers claim, only half-humorously, that "animals are people too", but this is not something we all believe.

If you've followed any of the legal and moral arguments over abortion, you'll know that the definition of a person is obscure and difficult and very important in deciding rights and responsibilities. You'll also recall that it wasn't until well into this century that women were recognized as persons, with the same rights and responsibilities as men. For people of various races and backgrounds in this country as well as in other parts of the world, the fight to gain recognition as persons has been a long and painful one.

It's still not clear to some of us exactly what constitutes personhood -- is it something that can be surrendered or lost, for instance, by someone guilty of inhuman behaviour, or by someone in what is referred to as a vegetative state. Or is it something you have forever, once you're conceived, or born, or reach a certain stage of development? This principle only says that those human beings recognized as persons (by you or me or society at large) have inherent worth and dignity.

I wonder what difference it makes whether we believe in this principle or not. Probably almost all of us here believe in the evolution of everything in the universe from earlier forms, but that belief doesn't have an everyday impact on our lives and behaviour, except when we're engaged in debate with creationists. Our UU principles are important only inasmuch as they're foundations for our way of living; otherwise they're just abstract mental exercises.

So how might our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person affect our behaviour? I think that government document sums it up well; the principle leads us to want to create "a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person ..." As the preamble to our own Principles puts it, this is something we "covenant to affirm and promote." We are committed, as Unitarian Universalists, to affirming and promoting the worth and dignity of each unique person, varying as we do in so many ways, and creating a welcome for each other.

How do we do that? How do we best understand and respect each other, and create a welcoming climate? In a way, I think it's a circular process. By thinking through our beliefs and exploring them in each other's company, we come to understand each other better and to create that respectful climate. And the climate of respect that we find here helps us to articulate our beliefs and commit ourselves to making them real, not only here but in our lives away from this congregation, out in the wider community. As we become more diverse in the congregation, we have ever-increasing opportunities for enlarging our understanding and appreciation of different kinds of human beings and their worth.

Does it mean we'll like everyone equally? No way. That's against human nature and would be a losing struggle. But it's when we don't naturally feel drawn to someone that it's most important to respect them. There's no challenge or moral stretch involved in acknowledging that our favourite people are worthwhile, but there's a big challenge in recognizing the worth of people who we may find anything from mildly unattractive to morally repulsive.

The stronger the repulsion, the greater the spiritual stretch! And that's where this principle stops being a platitude and becomes a difficult and essential platform of our faith. Where's the worth and dignity of Paul Bernardo? Saddam Hussein? The newborn baby with literally no brain? Your abusive spouse? The drunk driver who kills a child? Your worst enemy? According to this principle, if they're persons, they have inherent worth and dignity which we, as a U.U. congregation, have covenanted to affirm and promote.

Sometimes, the little accidents of life are marvelously instructive. I once noticed in another congregation’s newsletter that by some slip of a keyboard the title of a sermon on this topic appeared as "Inherit Worth and Dignity". When I saw that, I wondered whether it altered the overall sense of the title in any important way, and I decided it did and it didn’t. "Inherent" worth and dignity suggests something that belongs to us simply by virtue of who we are, not something that's gained by what we do; it's inherited; it's our heritage as persons. And yet, an inheritance can be squandered and lost. Can we, similarly, lose our inherent worth and dignity, by our acts or our inattention?

I believe that just as we inherit a physical capacity for growth and health, which can be distorted and even negated by accident or intention or neglect, so it is with our spirits. There's a tremendous thrust in all human beings, right from conception, towards healthy growth, but all kinds of things can go wrong. Still, even the most diseased and disabled body needs physical care -- the more so, in fact, for being diseased or disabled -- and even the most diseased and disabled spirit deserves a comparable care, I believe. It's the form the care should take which makes for so much disagreement among us. The inherited, inherent worth can only be given reality and substance by how we treat each other with dignity, and we see that in so many different ways.

When I spoke passionately to you a couple of years ago about Robert Latimer's ending of his daughter's life, I did so out of the conviction that he was respecting her worth and dignity. Many of you feel that affirming worth and dignity always means maintaining life, no matter what its condition. Others think about how you would want to be treated in a particular situation, and it might not involve being kept alive. This is one of the areas in which striving to understand and respect each other's beliefs can be most helpful to us, however difficult it is -- perhaps because it's difficult.

I find it vital to remember, when I'm talking with people who hold very different views from my own on such matters as abortion, gay rights, capital punishment, euthanasia, social welfare, Medicare and so on, that what we differ on is how to affirm worth and dignity, not whether to affirm it.

The worth and dignity is inherited and inherent, but how we create and maintain the climate where it can best flourish and be respected will probably always be a matter for productive and passionate debate, as will the question of whether physical life in itself is our ultimate value. What I know for sure, for myself, is that no-one is of no account, and that, whether we're involved in the giving or sustaining or taking of life, our own worth and dignity requires that we always act with care and attention.

The question of how we can best treat each other with care and respect is one of the two greatest human challenges, I think (the other one being about our relationship to the non-human world) and one which has concerned philosophers and teachers from Jesus of Nazareth to Immanuel Kant. Kant, the 18th century German philosopher, gave us a cornerstone of ethical thinking when he wrote that we should

So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end, never as a means only.
Each person is worthwhile for who they inherently are, not only for what they can do for me or you or the world at large; no one is ever just a means to an end.

Kant lived in a very different time and place from this, but his ideas transfer right to our situation. Canada is made up of people with origins in just about every country of the world, and from just about every socio-economic class, religion and ideology imaginable. This congregation is not quite as diverse as that yet, but we do have a multiplicity of kinds of people here. And we don't ask anyone to give up who they are by nature or background or choice and become like everyone else in their outlook and behaviour. Rather, we believe as Unitarian Universalists that each person's embodiment of worth and dignity enriches the whole, and that our care and respect for each differing person is a source of personal growth for us as well as for them.

Learning to respect the dignity of our Sikh neighbour who wants to be able to wear his turban in the Legion or the RCMP is perhaps not as difficult as respecting those who insist on teaching their children that believing in Jesus as your personal saviour is the only way to be saved from hell.

True respect for inherent worth and dignity has to go even further, even to those who drink too much, or who vote for the Communist Party or the Canadian Alliance, or who give us bad advice which makes us lose money on the stock market -- these people are ends in themselves, quite apart from whether they provide the means of ruination or salvation for the rest of us, quite apart from whether they're willing to change or not.

Anyone who's ever been involved in doing marriage counselling or interpersonal therapy of any kind, or just in talking at length with friends about their personal problems, knows that the wish that's expressed over and over again is that the spouse or friend or parent will be different, that they'll change in some way. I was in therapy myself at various times, and I used to think all my troubles would be solved if only my husband or children or someone else were different.

Well, maybe so, but they weren't going to change, and only when I came to terms with this and started thinking about the changes I could make was there any hope for a more healthy way of living for me. Sometimes the most vital change, even the only change that we can make is in ourselves, and the most useful change we can make in ourselves may be to find a little more understanding and respect for the inherent worth and dignity of the other person. That can be truly transformative.

Jesus of Nazareth told two stories which I find wonderful illustrations of the worth and dignity of all persons. One is the story of the Good Samaritan and this is what Jesus said:

A man was on his way from Jerusalem down to Jericho when he fell in with robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went off leaving him half dead It so happened that a priest was going down by the same road; but when he saw him, he went past on the other side. So too a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him went past on the other side. But a Samaritan who was making the journey came upon him, and when he saw him was moved to pity. He went up and bandaged his wounds, bathing them with oil and wine Then he lifted him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, and looked after him there. Next day, he produced two silver pieces and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Look after him; and if you spend any more, I will repay you on my way back." Which of these three do you think was neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers [The listener] answered, "The one who showed him kindness." Jesus said, "Go and do as he did."

We can all identify with the plight of that innocent person who was beaten up -- it may even identify one of our own fears -- and we have very little trouble affirming the worth and dignity of that innocent robbery victim who could so easily be us. But Jesus told another story about someone who's not quite so easy to identify with, who seems to have brought most of his trouble on himself. Here's that parable:

There was once a man who had two sons; and the younger said to his father, "Father, give me my share of the property. So he divided his estate between them. A few days later the younger son turned the whole of his share into cash and left home for a distant country, where he squandered it in reckless living. He had spent it all when a severe famine fell upon that country and he began to feel the pinch. So he went and attached himself to one of the local landowners, who sent him on to his farm to mind the pigs He would have been glad to fill his belly with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

Then he came to his senses and said, "How many of my father's paid servants have more food than they can eat, and here am I, starving to death! I will set off and go to my father, and say to him, `Father, I have sinned, against God and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.' So he set off for his father's house. But while he was still a long way off his father saw him, flung his arms round him and kissed him ... [and] said to his servants, "Quick! fetch a robe, my best one, and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us have a feast to celebrate the day. For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found."

This is the time of the Jewish High Holidays. Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the time of New Year, new beginnings. Our Canadian Thanksgiving Day this year, October 9, is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Do you know that the English word atonement is not derived from Latin or Greek or any obscure origin? It's a compound word made up of two others; it's at- one-ment. The Samaritan recognized his at-oneness with the robbery victim in their common humanity, their inherent worth and dignity. The prodigal son, living like a pig, became at-one with his father simply by coming home to him, and was immediately treated as the worthiest and most dignified of human beings. May we, too, become one with our fellow humans by according each other the worth and dignity inherent in us all, for this is the first principle of our faith.