When All Have Enough We re hearing a lot about income inequality lately. We hear condemnation of the rich for hoarding wealth, owning several houses

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1 When All Have Enough We re hearing a lot about income inequality lately. We hear condemnation of the rich for hoarding wealth, owning several houses while others go homeless, eating sumptuous meals while others go hungry, using jet fuel to travel to exotic places, while the poor spend many hours on public transportation. It would be easy to climb on our high horses, stake claim to the high moral ground, and join in the chorus of condemnation. But is it that simple? We live by myths, stories we tell ourselves about how the world works. In a capitalist economy, our myth goes something like this. We should all be free to earn and amass as much wealth as we like, so long as we come by it honestly. We have to concern ourselves about the effect of our actions on others only if we want to. That s optional. The market is in charge. It determines what we pay for our labor and our goods. There is very little we can do about it. We have to pay our workers, especially our executives, a little better than our competitors in order to get the best and brightest to work for us. This competition has resulted in our executives being paid 200 times more than the median wage. Our wage gap is the highest in the world. We have to pay the lowest-paid workers as little as possible, in order to maximize our profits, in order to grow our businesses. After all, that s how more jobs are created. It s too bad that workers on the bottom don t make a living wage, but well, it s kind of their own fault. They should have gone to college and gone into a more lucrative field. It s their choice. Maybe if people are disabled in some way, we should, through the government, provide them with some income. But otherwise, everyone should work, doing what they can. If flipping burgers is all they can do, well, whose fault is that? This is the myth of capitalism. 1

2 Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter, was an accountant, a counter of money. In his retirement, he took up gambling as his life s work. I wonder what myth he told himself about money. We have yet to know any motive for this shooting. Did the big wins give him a sense of worth, a sense of power? And did big losses mean that he was a loser in the core of his being? So far, it seems he acted alone. Surely he felt cut off, estranged from his fellow countrymen and women. Underneath the world view that needs to amass great wealth is a lot of fear. Fear that we will not have enough. Fear that we will not be taken care of as we grow older, or if we become disabled or have some dread disease, or some hurricane or earthquake destroys our homes and perhaps our lives. Conversely, some of us fear that money itself is evil, and that we will be contaminated by that evil if we have money. That s the myth I grew up with-- that we were poor, because we were exploited by the rich. The Biblical declaration, The LOVE of money is the root of all evil, (1 st Timothy 6:10) is often misquoted as Money is the root of all evil. And some of the fear of wealth may be well founded. Social Scientists are now finding that the wealthier you are, the less empathic you are likely to be. (as reported in Ornish Living, Why Empathy is Declining and How to Inspire More, ) The problem isn t with capitalism. The problem comes when we try to use capitalism as the sole foundation for our world view. There are many great and wonderful things about capitalism. It brings us an abundant diversity of material goods. But it doesn t provide a very good purpose for living. It s not enough on which to base a life. It values competition over cooperation, self-interest over connection, profit over compassion. Having lots of money and no friends can feel like a lonely, empty life. It is insufficient as a foundation for living. There needs to be something which counter-balances the self-interest, 2

3 something other than the exchange of money for goods or labor to connect us, something which encourages care for one another. Traditionally, myths about the meaning of life have been provided by religion. One of the things that frightens me about the decline of religion is that I wonder where this counterbalancing of the self-interest and greed of capitalism will come from? I m not optimistic that government will or can do it well. Religion s role traditionally has been to bind it all together, to look at life as a whole, to ask and answer the big questions, what is the purpose and meaning of life? What is a good life? How shall I live? How am I connected to those around me? Religion can be used to divide people. Some religions bind together only people of a particular ethnicity, or only people who share the same beliefs. But, it can be a powerful means of binding us together. And traditionally, religion has put the brakes on self-interest, saying that it must be balanced with care of others. For example, from the wisdom of the East, we have this advice from Confucious: Virtue is the root; wealth is the result. If he (or she) makes the root his secondary object and the result his primary, he will only wrangle with his people, and teach them, rapine. (pillage, plunder) Hence, the accumulation of wealth is the way to scatter the people; and the letting it be scattered among them is the way to collect people. (World Scripture, An Anthology of Sacred Texts, p667). Buddhism teaches that we are not just connected, we are each other. That there is no separate self, and that we can awaken to this through the practice of meditation and the practice of compassion. 3

4 In the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, the rich are often condemned for their neglect of the poor. In ancient Israel, the welfare system worked in two ways. First, some of the harvest was left for the poor. Leviticus (19:9,10) mandates: When you harvest your land, do not reap the corners of your field, not gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard. You shall not gather every grape of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and stranger. The other way the poor were cared for was through the temple. There was not separation of church and state. The first fruits of the harvest were brought to the temple, both to feed the priests and to be distributed to the poor. There were also communal meals, when every one was fed. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the prophets rail against the rich for hoarding wealth and neglecting the poor. One of the most colorful is the sarcasm of the prophet Amos, who rails against the wives of wealthy men: Hear this, you cows of Bashan, On the hills of Samaria Who defraud the poor, who rob the needy, Who say to your husbands, Bring, and Let s carouse. My Lord God swears by his holiness: Behold, days are coming upon you, When you will be carried off in baskets, and taken out of the city and flung on the refuse heap. (4:1-3) That s a pretty strong God ll get you for this. : - ) And there s that question posed by Micah Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 4

5 He has shewed you what is good; and what doth the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (6:7.8) Jesus spoke much of the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God. I don t think he was talking about the afterlife. I think he was talking about something which we are to bring into being on earth. The kingdom of heaven is within us. It is a vision of a beloved community where all have enough. Not because it is bestowed by God, but because we bring it about through sharing what we have. He describes it in Matthew 25:... inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. His listeners don t really get it. They say, Who me? When did I do those things? And Jesus says, When you did them for the poorest of people, you did them to me. There s a parallel to Buddhism. No separate selves. We are all one. When a rich a man asks, How can I have eternal life? Jesus tells him to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor. But the rich man cannot bring himself to do so and goes away sorrowful. Jesus turns to the crowd and says, It s more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. One of the fascinating contrasts between Jesus and Buddha is that they grew up at opposite ends of the economic spectrum. Buddha grew up in the castle, the son of the king, living in great wealth. His 5

6 parents carefully protected him from the knowledge of poverty and suffering. Jesus grew up poor, the son of a carpenter, probably ostracized as an illegitmate child. So we get from them rather different views of wealth and poverty. In The Gospel According to Jesus, Stephen Mitchell says Jesus teaching about wealth is incomplete. Similar to 1 st Timothy s reminder that it is the LOVE of money, that causes the problems, the Buddha taught that it isn t wealth itself that is the problem. Mitchell says, it s difficult to enter the Kingdom of God, at both extremes of wealth and involuntary poverty. (p 237 in The Gospel According to Jesus) Mitchell tells this story: A Buddhist friend of mine had entered adulthood with a strongly rooted prejudice against money. He refused to have anything to do with it, except for the bare minimum, and lived on three thousand dollars a year. Then he met a woman of rare insight, who was later to become his wife. Shortly after they met, she began reminding him that aversion is as much of an attachment as desire is, and that in rejecting money he was repressing his own energy, both physical and spiritual. This went on for several years. My friend, who is alert enough to hear the truth when it is said for the seventy-time-seventh time, finally understood, and proceeded to do the painful and, for him, necessary inner work of tracing his aversion to its root. The years came and went, everything grew clear; nothing changed. And then, after seven years, all at once, his work blossomed and money came pouring in, an outer and visible sign of an inner and spiritual abundance. (page 240, The Gospel According to Jesus.) 6

7 Wealth itself is not the problem. To be in right relationship to money, as the Buddhists say, and as the rabbis of later Judaism also taught, is to see it as a resource, as a form of energy, which can be used for good or for ill. A religious world view acknowledges that everything comes to us from beyond ourselves, from our parents, from the earth, from whoever or whatever sustains this whirling world. Once we realize this, we want to participate in this great dance, this energy, this exchange of life and love by sharing what we have. And there is no question that all are worthy and deserving of a life of enough shelter, food, medical care, education, and most of all love. In all the versions of heaven, there is abundance. What is heaven, but enough, or more than enough, of everything good, of food, of beauty, of love, even of satisfying work? So, if we have this view of wealth, as a resource, what s wrong with income inequality? When wealth is hoarded and used beyond our needs, it impedes that kingdom of heaven on earth. It separates humans from one another, leaving some without enough. It lacks compassion and empathy. It fails to balance the needs of the individuals with the community as a whole. It lacks love. And it creates of society of desperate people. In a book, The Spirit Level, scholars Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett looked at income inequality across 25 of the world s richest countries, and all 50 U.S. states. They find an astounding and illuminating high correlation between income inequality and most of the important health and social problems of the rich world. The more unequal your society, the more social problems you will have. I quote: 7

8 There is a tendency for some countries to do well on just about everything and others to do badly. You can predict a country s performance on one outcome from a knowledge of others. If for instance a country does badly on health, you can predict with some confidence that it will also imprison a larger proportion of its population, have more teenage pregnancies, lower literacy scores, more obesity, worse mental health, and so on. Inequality seems to make countries socially dysfunctional across a wide range of outcomes. Pages 173-4) Although our country rates very high on average personal income, in relationship to other countries, we also rate very high in inequality, and very high on the index of health and social problems. And we have a low level of trust. In recent decades, we have been killing one another at an alarming rate. What shall we do about it? It doesn t seem to matter whether a country achieves greater equality through re-distribution of wealth, or through smaller differences in wages. Japan, a country with high equality and fewer social problems, achieves equality before taxes and benefits, rather than through government programs. The authors did a thorough job of looking for factors other than inequality to account for social dysfunction. But they couldn t find them. Their conclusion is that reducing inequality increases trust in a society and reduces social problems. How will we get to greater equality? Some of the answer is through political process. But underlying politics is political will, and underneath that is our story of the world and how it works and should work. That comes more from ideology or religion. Huston Smith, the scholar of comparative religions, says that ethics grows out of world view, that world view comes first. 8

9 So what is the story that Unitarian Universalism tells? What is our myth, our story about the world. First, our story is grounded in the use of reason and the scientific method to ascertain truth about the material world, and to some degree about the social world, as social science gives us knowledge about that. In the social world, we UU s declare the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Why is worth and dignity inherent? I believe that comes from our Universalist Heritage, which declares God to be Universal Love, and we are children of that great love. Judaism and Christianity would say, because we are all children of God. Humanists might say because we are all children of the Universe. It s the same conclusion, though we might ground it differently. This principle puts restraint on the self-interest of capitalism, calling us to balance greed and generosity. We also aspire to justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Thus we don t mindlessly ignore the exploitation of labor in the making of the goods we buy. We don t discriminate against people of color, or different sexual orientation, or religious belief. We are called by Jewish and Christian teachings to respond to God s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. And our neighbor is all of humanity. We are counseled by Humanist teachings to heed the guidance of reason and not be controlled by idolatries of the mind and spirit. We may not make of one value, or one religion or one ideology, or one political view a god, not give it ultimate worth. We must love one another, do justice, and love kindness. We share our carrots and our wealth. How shall we translate that into everyday life? What can we do as individuals to contribute to greater equality? Not many of us are in the position of Chuck Collins, a UU who inherited half-a-million dollars as an heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune. 9

10 At 26, Chuck gave away that trust fund. You can read about it in his book, Born On Third Base. But each of us can do some small things. If we are employers, we can pay a living wage, and put some restraints on executive salaries. If we have been blessed with wealth, we can be good stewards of that wealth, giving away excess to help create that kingdom of heaven on earth. Regardless of our levels of wealth, we can ask ourselves, how much is enough? Ascertain, how many carrots do I really need? And give way the excess. We can live simply, so that others may simply live. We can also cultivate in ourselves that deep sense of trust that says with Julian of Norwich, All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Our religious wisdom has always encouraged this. Be not attached to the way things are, says Buddhism. For they will surely change. Trust that the universe is unfolding as it should. Let death be your great teacher. Trust even unto and beyond death. We can develop greater empathy by putting ourselves in situations which bring us into contact with the poor. One of the things I admire about Roman Catholicism is that engagement with the poor is one of its pillars. It s not enough to simply write checks. Instead, we are encouraged to incarnate the God who is Love, by loving all of our neighbors as ourselves. Love has no meaning by itself, said Mother Teresa. It s hard to love your neighbor if you are walled off in a gated community. Find a way to interact with the poor. It can be as simple as working at a local food pantry or an inner-city school. As simple as resisting the urge to classify people by how they are dressed, or how 10

11 they speak, or how educated they are. Our Universalism proclaims a radical love for all. Lastly, we can be generous in our everyday economic exchanges. Every haircut, every meal in a restaurant, every shoe shine, every payment of a newspaper delivery person is an opportunity to reduce income inequality in a small way. Don t tip just 15 %. Tip 25 %. The other day I was in a Starbucks inside a Target store in Albany. It was mid afternoon and the restaurant was busy. Five people were in line behind me. The young African American woman behind the counter was working alone. She seemed harried. As I paid, I looked around for a tip jar. There was none. She never made eye contact with me. When I picked up my iced decaf, I said to her, No tip jar? I held out a dollar. She looked up at me, surprised, looked me in the eye for the first time, and said, Thank you. You have a nice day. I smiled, and said, You too. It was a small moment, but it felt great. We had somehow acknowledged each other s humanity. And that, after all, is what it s all about. What is required of us, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with one another. Rev. Linda Hoddy MUUS October 8,

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A Camel Through the Eye of a Needle

A Camel Through the Eye of a Needle Matthew 19.23-30 wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me." That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He