Sermon preached 3 July 2005 by Deacon Perry King
What a privilege to stand here in our beautiful cathedral given to us by our Universalist ancestors. We connect with the faith they held when reciting our 1899 declaration of faith that defines our understanding of Christianity as leading to the final harmony of all souls with God. In the 19th century, this was a radical, unorthodox faith that set them apart from those who would separate the human family into the eternally damned and the saved who inherit eternal life. We may have some different ideas today about what this statement means to us but we still can’t make such a statement without seeing all humans as going somewhere, as headed towards something good, towards wholeness or what we have traditionally called God. I’d like to preach on the subject of this moving toward God or wholeness from the point of view of two great thinkers, Abraham Maslow and Paul of Tarsus. Maslow known as one of the founders of humanistic psychology stated that all people yearn toward self-actualization or tend toward it. Paul who spent much of his time as a behavioral consultant to the early church shows us some fruits of what we might become if we follow the path of faith.
Let me say a little about each of these thinkers. Both were born into Jewish families and were influenced by strong parents. We can only speculate about Paul but he does tell us in Philippians: “I was born from the people of Israel and circumcised on the eight day. I was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.” (3:5-6) Maslow was born to poor Russian Jewish parents in 1908 in Brooklyn NY who pushed him hard for academic success and who encouraged him to go to law school to escape poverty. Both of the men seemed driven by a strong sense of purpose to reveal new truths to humankind. I must admit as a liberal Christian that I have had mixed feelings about Paul. Some of his writings have been used to justify questionable social norms such as intolerance of gays and lesbians, inequality between men and women, and conformity to unjust systems such as slavery. Our Unitarian Universalist denomination has historically stood against these. He was certainly conditioned by his time and writing in a period of dangerous political repression that influenced what he could safely write in a public letter. I have been on a personal journey recently of rediscovering Paul. I look at most of his letters as an effort of a relatively mature person to confront immaturity and provoke the early Christian community towards growth. Like a modern organizational consultant he is encouraging teamwork, cooperation, or to use a more current term which you’ve probably heard your boss say: “buy in”. His letters are full of naming particular dysfunctions and giving prescriptions for healthier behavior. His letters often follow a pattern of naming a list of grievances then towards the end he will have a flash of insight that seems to transcend his efforts or even his times. The 1st letter to the Corinthians follows this pattern and leaves us with some of the most beautiful words ever written when he says now abidith faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. The letter to the Galatians follows the same pattern. This I think is Paul’s main strength for our time. Certainly the fruits of the spirit just named, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance, and self-control, are qualities we long to see in ourselves and others today.
Abraham Maslow is best known for his theory of the hierarchy of needs. A lot of you have studied this idea which uses a triangle at the bottom of which are bodily needs such as air, water, food, sex, and shelter. Going up the triangle are the safety needs and need for some stability and security. Then comes the need for belonging, love, and acceptance. At the top of the triangle is the need for self-actualization or the need to become all one is capable of becoming. Self actualizalizing people are the ideal type of healthy humans but this is only possible if the basic needs are met. The qualities of this state were described in the readings earlier. So Maslow saw people as striving for growth and wholeness but with a lot of barriers to overcome because of unmet needs. This was a radical departure from Freud, who saw behavior as shaped by frustrated primitive drives, and the behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner, who saw every thing that humans did as shaped by punishment and reward or other external forces. Maslow is associated with the 3rd force psychologists who believe that humans are motivated by positive strivings towards growth and wholeness. In the eternal debate about human nature, Maslow came down on the positive side and stated: “Human nature has been not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.” What an optimist!
I’m not sure where Paul comes down in this equation. I guess it depended on who he was writing too and in what degree of frustration with what he thought was immature behavior. He does make a strong plea for equality in need when he states in Romans (3:23) that “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” I like the emphasis of the Phillips Modern English translation which reads: “Everyone has sinned; everyone falls short of the beauty of God’s plan.” So Paul puts all of us at the bottom of the triangle in our need. Some of his best thoughts come after complete exasperation such as the passage read earlier where he is completely frustrated with the Galatians over their emphasis on circumcision to the point where he suggests that he wishes they would just go all the way and cut themselves off and make eunuchs of themselves. This was his way of being sarcastic. But soon afterwards he writes one of the more inspired New Testament passages about the fruits of the spirit. To be fair to Paul he was in no position to develop a systematic body of thought as most of his writings were probably penned quickly under conditions of great urgency and danger. Let’s just agree that Paul’s writings are full of the possibilities for becoming much more than we are now. Paul proposes a revolutionary new way of becoming that does not depend on keeping the precepts of law but is dependant on faith, freedom, and forgiveness for past wrongs.
If we look at Maslow’s description of the self-actualized person, we find a striking similarity with Paul’s description of the fruits of the spirit. Although Maslow doesn’t dwell on sin and wrongdoing as much as Paul he is interested in the same outcome or “fruits” as he likes to call it. Maslow sees unmet needs or frustrated attempts at self actualization as preventing this desired outcome.
Perhaps at this point we can affirm that humanism is a faith and that humanism, like liberal Christianity as we understand it affirms a strong faith in the ability of the person to transcend limitation and move toward wholeness. In the similarities between self-actualization as the humanist sees it and salvation as the liberal Christian sees it, there is a lot of commonality. We don’t see salvation as something that separates us from others but with our Universalist faith salvation leads us toward belonging to all others as they move forward on their journey towards God, or towards greater becoming. In our Christian language we are saved from sin but in Maslow’s language we are saved from barriers to becoming whole. But in our liberal Christian Universalist understanding we clearly see sin as a block to harmony with God and not as a final state or condition. Thus we are on the same page as Maslow.
Maslow places a lot of emphasis on peak experiences which include the happiest, most thrilling, and moments of great identity and maturity, in the life of persons. Maslow didn’t see self-actualization as a static condition to be attained as an all or nothing proposition but redefined the concept as episodic and attainable by most persons at least some of the time. Earlier in his career he was criticized for an elitist in view of self-actualization that was only achievable for a few people. Later in his career he moved away from an elitist view that self-actualization was a rare thing towards a more inclusive view. “We need no longer to be searching for those rare subjects who may be said to be fulfilling themselves most of the time. In theory at least we may also search any life history for episodes of self-actualization, especially those of artists, intellectuals, and other especially creative people, of profoundly religious people, and of people experiencing great insights in psychotherapy, or in other important growth experiences. The self-actualized person has more intense peak experiences with more frequency. This is very much the promise of the religious life. We can expect more frequency of peak experience as an outcome of our practice not just for ourselves but to move us towards orientation to service and connection to others. The great thing about our Unitarian-Universalist faith is that we can practice our spirituality honestly, with different degrees of belief, including no particular belief and still be accepted in our community. This is very much the radical acceptance that I think Jesus taught especially when he answered those who asked when they had known him with: “when I was hungry you fed me, thirsty you gave me drink, in prison you visited me, naked you clothed me.” (Matthew 25: 34-40) Like Paul and Maslow, he was more interested in humane outcomes rather than formulas or adherence to any particular doctrine.
I apply this inclusive view of self actualization when I think of some of the people who are considered outcasts from our society like Marcos, a former client now deceased. I was fortunate to know Marcos for almost 15 years as a DC social worker and a neighbor. He was a well known fixture on the streets of Mt. Pleasant and Adams Morgan. He had been in most all the rehab programs in DC and probably had a personal relationship with several dozen helping professionals. He was what we call in the trade a chronic relapser. He would follow the pattern of getting clean from his addictions for six months then going back to using for six months. Those of us who knew him would wait for him to relapse. Did he experience self actualization? I think so. During his recovery time he became something of a street social worker and would often round up people in need to bring to his various connections. He was a pleasure to be around during this time and would even talk about his favorite poet Pablo Neruda and was proud of his work in helping others. I had the honor of holding his passport for him in my files. To many he was just a street drunk, a nuisance, who died without anyone holding a funeral service for him, yet I saw that he had moments of what we could call peak experience. It is this democratic view of salvation and self actualization that we proclaim. As Jeniffer Sandburg from our congregation reminds us: “The most important teaching of Jesus is that the realm of God is assessable to all.” This parallels closely Maslow’s later understanding of self-actualization as attainable by all.
What is the real possibility for living the fruits of the spirit or of finding self actualization today? After all we live in a thoroughly antihumanistic world. What does this call to faith in the human project have to say to our newspaper stories this morning of suicide bombings, acceptance of torture as a means to an end, serial killers, murder of children, more people imprisoned in the US, some for profit, making killing machines and encouraging conflict for financial gain, or even gentrification where people are disposable and money determines value? Where we throw away the future of our world for a few disposable resources with very short term gains. Oscar Romero, martyred priest from El Salvador sums it up when he says: “Death is the sure sign of sin, and sin produces it so directly among us: violence, murder, torture …..throwing into the sea--people discarded! All this is the reign of hell.”
Humanist, Christian, Jewish, all persons of faith. The world needs you to believe in the first principle of our Unitarian Universalist Association, in the inherent worth and dignity of all persons, or the final harmony of all souls with God and a world where all humans will have a chance to self-actualize.
Let us keep the humanist faith and rise above cynicism and the disposal of persons.
Let us keep the Christian faith and always believe that we are not now what we shall be.
Let us keep our Universalist faith and say that self actualization and salvation is for all.
Let us keep our Unitarian faith and validate different paths to the finding of the fruits of the spirit.
And finally, Let us keep our faith in the mystery of life that transcends words and “isms.”
May you still find that spirit that produces in human life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance, and self-control, for no law can ever exist against any of these. Amen.
Readings:
Galatians 5:16-26
Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow, 1968, Litton Educational Publishing, Inc. p.97-98
Other reference:
The Violence of Love: The Pastoral Wisdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, 1988, Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus. p. 171
Posted by Sue Mosher at July 18, 2005 01:10 PM