-- Charles Caleb Colton
Opening Words:
Let us gather for worship this morning, mindful of the words of the Taoist sage Lao Tzu, who said,
“If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.”
Mindful of such peace, let us worship
Reading: a conversation between a young clergyman and Francis de Sales, who was the Bishop of Geneva in the early 1600s, renowned for his spiritual insights, and later sainted by the Catholic Church (The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, p. 81)
I once asked the Bishop of Geneva what one must do to attain perfection. “You must love God with all your heart,” he answered, “and your neighbor as yourself.”
“I did not ask wherein perfection lies,” I rejoined, “but how to attain it.” “Charity,” he said again, “that is both the means and the end, the only way by which we can reach that perfection which is, after all, but Charity itself… Just as the soul is the life of the body, so charity is the life of the soul.”
“I know all that,” I said. “But I want to know how one is to love God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbor as oneself.”
… At last… the Bishop said, “There are many besides you who want me to tell them of methods and systems and secret ways of becoming perfect, and I can only tell them that the sole secret is a hearty love of God, and the only way of attaining that is by loving. You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and [neighbor] by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves. … Those who have made the most progress will continually press on, never believing themselves to have reached their end; for charity should go on increasing until we draw our last breath.”
Reading: by the neuroscientist Donald Pfaff from The Altruistic Brain: How We Are Naturally Good (p. 4)
For too long, it has been common wisdom that human nature is essentially selfish. We are taught that our instincts are somehow designed by nature to promote ourselves, and that these “animal” selves must be tamed to fit “civilization.” …This view [roughly] reflects Christian doctrine, with … a type of unforgiving, “total depravity” as the result of Original Sin…
Indeed, neurobiologists like me have spent lifetimes studying cells in a primitive part of the brain called the hypothalamus… demonstrating how those hypothalamic cells regulate eating, drinking, and even fighting… all behaviors that are essentially “selfish.”
…The average person no doubt would say that there is … a perpetual struggle between good and evil, that is, a 50-50-ness somehow wired into the nature of things. Thus for every 9/11 – full of fanaticism, brutality, and hate – there are stories of first responders, willing to give up their lives to pull strangers from the rubble…. The question is: where do we find the raw materials that make up a more benign version of human nature?
It turns out the raw materials are in our brains. ... The innate biology of the human brain compels us to be kind. That is, we are wired for goodwill.
Reading: one of Aesop’s fables, entitled “The Wolf And The Goat” (americanliterature.com)
A hungry Wolf spied a Goat browsing at the top of a steep cliff where he could not possibly get at her.
"That is a very dangerous place for you," he called out, pretending to be very anxious about the Goat's safety. "What if you should fall! Please listen to me and come down! Here you can get all you want of the finest, tenderest grass in the country."
The Goat looked over the edge of the cliff.
"How very, very anxious you are about me," she said, "and how generous you are with your grass! But I know you! It's your own appetite you are thinking of, not mine!"
An invitation prompted by selfishness is not to be accepted.
Where Charity Begins
A Sermon Delivered on February 22, 2015
By
The Reverend Axel H Gehrmann
Charity begins at home, the saying goes. You’ve heard it before, haven’t you? It’s a familiar figure of speech. But what does it mean?
Does it mean that, if we want to engage in charitable activities, we should begin by taking care of those closest to us? If we want to be generous and kind, we should attend to family and friends, our next of kin with whom we share a home.
Or does it mean that whatever spirit of charity we have learned to cultivate in the course of our lives, odds are we learned the basics of kindness from our family, from mother and father, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers. All those who helped raise us, and taught us what it means to be a good person.
* * *
When I think of charity, what comes to mind is the work done by social service agencies to help the poor, the homeless, or the hungry. Locally, I think of the Salvation Army and Goodwill, and shelters for women and men. I think of the work of the refugee center right here in the church, and Francis Nelson Health Center. This is the way the word charity is used most often today.
But long ago charity was simply another word for love, the love that is expressed in selfless acts of service.
So, for instance, the familiar passage from the Christian scriptures in Corinthians, when translated for King James in the early 1600s, said: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angles, and have not charity, I am… as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge…. and have not charity, I am nothing… Charity [suffers] long, and is kind…. Charity never [fails]. … And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of theses is charity.”
* * *
I was thinking about charity and selfless acts of love yesterday morning, as I put on my boots, my winter coat, my warm gloves, and headed out into the icy cold to shovel the thick blanket of new-fallen snow from the sidewalk. I was thinking about selfless acts of love, as I assured Elaine, my beloved wife, who was sitting on the sofa, tucked snugly under a warm blank, working on her Sunday sermon, and who offered to shovel, “No, no, I’m happy to do it.”
As I was shoveling snow, I realized it was deeper than I had thought, and clearing a path was more of a chore than I had anticipated. And every time I took a break to catch my breath, and noticed a twinge in my lower back, and an ache in my shoulder, I was reminded not only that I am out of shape, but that my body is getting older. I thought wistfully of the good old days, when our kids were still at home, and when snow shoveling was one of the household duties assigned to the younger generation.
As a parent my selflessness took a different shape. So, for instance, concerned for the health and interests of my son, who liked to lift weights on a bench press in the basement, on winter days when there was snow that needed shoveling, I might strike up a casual conversation, “Noah, wouldn’t you like an opportunity to get some exercise?” That’s the kind of father I am – always looking out for the best interests of my children.
Sort of like the hungry wolf, who was concerned for the safety of the goat standing on a high mountain ledge, peacefully enjoying the grass there. “Goat, wouldn’t you like an opportunity to snack on the much lusher green grass down here?”
Most of Aesop’s fables are about animals: cunning foxes, proud lions, hard-working horses, and greedy dogs. But the moral of every story tells us something about human nature. For instance, that we should be wary of selfishness disguised as kindness.
* * *
The path to perfection involves practicing a selfless love – this is the greatest commandment of the Christian scriptures, which in turn is based on the Jewish teaching found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, that tell us: “You should love God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”
And this has always been easier said than done. We may want to selflessly serve others, but experience shows that we often do just the opposite.
The Jewish prophet Isaiah had a vivid sense of the human struggle between good and evil, between justice and injustice. Isaiah saw himself as a messenger of God, charged to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to free the captives, and to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah said our task is to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into our houses, and to satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Then we will create a world of peace and justice. A world, in which the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. And yet, again and again, the faithful failed to do as God had instructed.
We want to be good, and yet there is something that leads us to do evil. In Christian theology, early church fathers understood our struggles with good and evil as part and parcel of the whole scheme of salvation. Think about it: if Adam had not fallen, if humanity were not marked by original sin, Christ would not have come to the world to save us and usher in the kingdom of God. Somehow our sinfulness is a necessary aspect of our salvation.
Are we essentially sinful and selfish, driven by our basest animal instincts? What do you think? Or are we basically good, driven by a desire to be caring and kind, and practice selfless love?
These questions have long confounded scientists and scholars. And over the years we have found different answers.
Historians say a significant philosophical shift took place during the European Renaissance. At that point, rather than condemning our baser human impulses of greed and pride as wicked, our selfish desires were reinterpreted as potent forces that could be used to govern a successful society.
So, for instance, in the early 1500s Machiavelli offered the following advice. He said a wise prince treats people as they are, not as they should be. A wise ruler shrewdly exploits the fickleness, hypocrisy and greed of his subjects to attain his own ends. The goal of politics, Machiavelli said, is not virtue, but success.
In the 1700s Adam Smith built on this idea, when he framed the rules that would govern modern economics. Human beings are driven by a natural desire for self-improvement, he said. And our private self-interest - our selfishness and greed - through free competition and the wonders of the free market, will promote public well-being and serve a greater good, as if guided by an “invisible hand.”
To this day these ideas are found in political platforms and economic theories that guide the workings of Wall Street, the limits of welfare, and a foreign policy always ready to go to war whenever our own national interests at stake.
* * *
Are we essentially selfish? Does social justice and social order depend on our ability to shrewdly manipulate and re-direct our basest animal instincts?
Most people would say we are neither essentially selfish nor selfless, neither completely evil nor good, but somewhere in the middle. And for every horrific 9/11 – full of fanaticism, brutality, and hate – we find comfort in stories of first responders, willing to give up their lives to pull strangers from the rubble.
But Donald Pfaff disagrees. He says, our interests are not evenly divided between virtue and vice. Latest scientific research shows clearly that in the deepest regions of our being we are designed to be good. The innate biology of our brain compels us to be kind.
He cites a slew of studies that show we are hardwired for empathy and compassion, that we are happiest when we help others, and that we find deep joy in being generous.
It makes perfect sense that our brains have evolved toward empathy and altruism. Evolutionary theories say that since the earliest days of humanity, our survival depended on our ability to create strong social bonds. As one author writes, early humans were “a small, slow, weak species on a planet filled with large, fast, and strong predators.” (Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites) We had to band together to defend ourselves. Our social instincts were key to our survival and success, and to this day are hard-wired in the deepest and most ancient regions of our brain.
The fact that our society is nevertheless beset by violence and injustice is not evidence that we are essentially evil, but rather that we struggle with competing altruist impulses.
Examining the anti-social dynamics of gangs and warfare, Donald Pfaff explains, part of what makes gangs attractive for young men, is that this close-knit group of peers provides support and affirmation. Reciprocal altruism sustains gangs. The motto is: “You take care of me, and I’ll watch your back.”
He writes,
“The fact that types of gang warfare can persist for centuries, and that as a phenomenon such hostility reveals an ancient lineage, demonstrates the perverse internal dynamics of gangs, where each member “sticks up” for the other on account of Altruistic Brain imperatives. Think, for example, of the thuggish retaliation among Shiite and Sunni gangs, which has lasted for centuries since each sect split off from the other. Or how about the Montagues and the Capulets in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julia? The families were already sworn enemies as the play opens with a street brawl between them.” (p. 235)
* * *
It is a tragic fact, that the depth of care and concern we feel for those who are a part of our social circle, or the loyalty and solidarity we feel toward fellow citizens of our nation, are directly related to the hostility we direct toward those outside our community of concern.
The first and perhaps most profound social bonds we build are among members of our families: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers – the people who raised us, fed and clothed us, who loved and cared for us, and taught us the meaning of charity.
The psychologist Steven Pinker writes, the most obvious human tragedy comes from the difference between our feelings toward family and non-family.
“Love and solidarity are relative. To say that people are more caring toward their relatives is to say that they are more callous toward their non-relatives… Family love… subverts the ideal of what we should feel for every soul in the world. Moral philosophers play with a hypothetical dilemma in which people can run through the left door of a burning building to save some number of children or through the right door to save their own child. If you are a parent, ponder this question: Is there any number of children that would lead you to pick the left door? Indeed, all of us reveal our preference with our pocketbooks when we spend money on trifles for our own children (a bicycle, orthodontics, an education at a private school or university) instead of saving the lives of unrelated children in the developing world by donating the money to charity.” (The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, p. 245)
* * *
Charity begins at home. What does that mean for us? Does it mean we reserve all our love and loyalty for those closest to us? Or does it mean we are firmly committed to carry the love we have known far beyond our small circles?
I like the way the seventeenth century historian and preacher Thomas Fuller put it. He said, “Charity begins at home, but should not end there.”
I like the way Francis de Sales put it: “Just as the soul is the life of the body, so charity is the life of the soul.” The sole secret of a perfect life is love. “You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love… by loving.” We are called to continually press on, our charity increasing until we draw our last breath.
May we remember that even if charity begins at home,
it need not end there.
May we keep pressing on, until our acts of love clearly show that
all humanity is our family,
and the whole world is our home.
Amen.
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