Story
Long, long ago, the Emperor of an
ancient land was old and dying. He loved children but had none of his own. So
the Emperor decided to choose one of the children of his land to be the next
Emperor.
The Emperor also loved plants, and
of these, he had many. So nobody was surprised by the test he offered the
children of the land.
The Emperor called all the children
to his palace. He said, “I will give one seed to each of you. Come back in one
year. When I see what you have grown from your seeds, I will choose the next
Emperor.”
The children ran from the palace
smiling. All they had to do was grow a seed and they would be Emperor. But a
year is a long time. Most of the children decided to wait a while to do their
planting, and as the year went by, many children forgot their seeds.
But one child, a girl named Chen,
took care of her seed right away. Just like the Emperor himself, Chen loved
plants. Chen carefully carried the Emperor's seed home, sealing it securely in
her hands so it wouldn't fall, but not so tightly that it might crush
As soon as she got home, Chen found
a clay pot made by her Grandmother. She thought that pot would be just right to
grow her seed. She washed the pot and dried it carefully. Next Chen found rich,
black soil that had many worms in it to make it nourishing. Chen filled the pot
with the soil. Then she planted her seed, carefully covering it with the soil.
Chen set the pot in the sun. Each
day, she lightly sprinkled water on the seed. But nothing grew from the seed.
Nothing at all.
Some weeks went by. The other
children boasted to each other of the wonderful large plants they had grown,
but Chen’s seed did not grow. She tried moving the pot to another window. She
tried watering her plant more, and even singing to her plant. But no matter
what Chen did, her seed did not grow.
Then, a year had passed. It was
time to return to the Emperor. Chen was ashamed that her seed had not grown.
Her wise Grandmother said, “You did
your best, Chen. You were caring and patient. Be honest with the Emperor and
explain that you did your best. It will be enough.”
So Chen returned to the palace with
her empty pot held carefully in her arms. The children lined up to present
their plants. The first child had a large plant with thick leaves, a ginseng
plant that could be used to make paper and medicine. The next child had a
eucalyptus plant, a healthy, strong plant that soon would become a tree big
enough to produce food for many animals. By the time Chen’s turn came, she was
so sad about her empty pot.
Feeling very embarrassed, Chen held
her empty pot up for the Emperor to see. Chen explained how she had lovingly
cared for her seed. Chen talked about her love for her Grandmother who had made
the pot. She told the Emperor everything she had done to care for the seed, and
how sad she felt that the seed would not grow.
The Emperor smiled and spoke.
“There is only one among you who is honest enough to be the Emperor. It is Chen,” he said. “The seeds that I gave
you had been boiled so they would never grow. These wonderful plants some
children have shown me did not come from the seeds I gave them."
Sermon
On Thursday, I attended an
Interfaith Clergy Dialogue group called MCCJ.
Before the meeting, I was talking with Jeanette Smith, one of the
co-chairs of the group. She is a Quaker
and a teacher at Florida International University—she teaches World Religions
and a course in Social Justice Dialogue.
Recently, she was between classes and noticed a gathering of
students. She went over and noticed a
man holding a sign that essentially said “believe in Jesus or go to hell.” He
was aggressively yelling at the students.
He seemed to be picking on some of the people around him. He saw someone
with a rainbow ribbon and he began yelling at them about love was only right
when it was between a man and a woman.
He yelled at some of the women that they should be submissive and listen
to men for direction. He yelled at some
of the men that women were taking away men’s masculinity.
Jeanette walked up. She noticed that many of the students were
very tense and as this man verbally attacked basically anything that moved, the
tension only increased. Jeanette engaged
with the man, trying to ratchet down the tension. She wanted to understand his purpose for
being on campus. When she did so, he
asked her if she was a Christian. She said she was a Quaker. The man responded to her that she should be
preaching the gospel.
She moved two steps toward him and he
stepped ten steps back from her.
Realizing that she wasn’t going to have any impact on this man, she
addressed the young adults that had gathered, telling them that if they wanted
to discuss some of the issues this man was bringing up in a safe and open
place, they could join her in her Social Justice discussion class. The tension ratcheted down a little and some
students asked who she was and where her class was. The crowd slowly dispersed and Jeanette went
back to her classroom.
What does
this story have to do with lying? I have
been thinking a lot about certain leaders in government, business, and religion
who stretch the truth, spin the facts, espouse conspiracy theories, in general
lie to get others to do what they want or believe the way they believe. I see some people in government, business,
and religion trying to manipulate others to follow their lead, to radicalize
others to act in destructive ways, or seemingly give others permission to hurt
or abuse people different from themselves.
And media of all kinds just exacerbates the situation by giving the
destructive messages airtime.
When I
heard Jeanette tell her story, my immediate response was that this radical
Christian was aggressively trying to shove ideas, powerful, emotional,
destructive ideas in the minds of these young people. Ideas that were lies. Ideas designed to destabilize, radicalize,
and manipulate the people listening. Why
do I think that these ideas are lies? I
believe the purpose of religion--when it is healthy and life-affirming--is to
build community, to affirm ways to care for our fellow beings, as well as
affirm values and principles, ethics and morals to live by, and to foster some
self-awareness, in other words to create an internal structure that helps
people think before reacting. In support of this belief, I offer you this
objective verifiable truth: the Golden rule exists in all major religions.
Let me tell you about two
first-century-BCE rabbinic sages, Hillel and Shammai, contemporaries paired
together by Jewish tradition as archetypal opposites: Hillel the tolerant and
liberal “loose constructionist” of the Law, Shammai the exacting and inflexible
“strict constructionist.” In one story about them, a gentile comes to both and
asks, with the obvious intention of provoking them, to be taught the whole
Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai is indeed provoked and gives the man
an angry whack with a measuring rod. Hillel replies, “That which is hateful to
you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary —
[and now] go study.” The same idea is spoken by Jesus in the Christian Gospel
of Matthew. He says “do to others what
you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” And Buddha said, “Do not offend others as you
would not want to be offended.” And in
Islam, “None of you shall be true believers unless you wish for your brother
the same you wish for yourself.”
The Golden Rule also affirms
another role of the church/religion to remind people to be their best selves,
not to threaten them or manipulate them to get them to act morally or
ethically. And I do not believe that one
has to believe in a divine being to have morals or have an ethical grounding
for their lives. But I do think it is
useful to be reminded to be our best selves. Religious belief is not based on
facts. Religious belief is, at its best,
based on affirming ideas that aid you in living a loving, ethical, caring,
healthy life, in other words affirming how to live in a world that has many
different, often conflicting, views of right and wrong, or what is a truth and
what is a lie.
Let’s look
at the story of the emperor and the seeds as an example. The emperor set up all these children by
giving them boiled seeds that would not grow.
Right there, this story starts with a lie. But we could rationalize the
lie serves a good purpose. Almost all the children brought to the emperor
beautiful and productive plants. Did the
children or their parents worry about the consequences if they got caught lying
to the emperor? Not enough to stop them.
These children and their families considered the benefits of lying. Personal gain--a child who would be chosen as
emperor—that factored heavily into the decision-making process. It wasn’t the fear of consequences, but the
expectation of gain that drove their decision whether to lie.
Professor
of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University Dan Ariely, who I
mentioned earlier, has done extensive research on lying. He asked students to complete 20 simple math
problems in five minutes. Then the students shredded the completed test papers,
and he asked them to tell him how they did on the test. He paid the students a
dollar for each problem they reported that they got right. Most students reported getting 6 answers
right. And they got six dollars. What Ariely didn’t tell the students was that
he rigged the shredder so it only shredded the sides of the paper, leaving the
problems and answers intact. How many
answers do you think the students who answered that they got 6 right actually
go right? 4. Now there were a few honest people, a few who
didn’t lie as much, and there were a few big liars and a few lied more than
average. Most of the students, and most
of us, lie for our benefit.
There are no good people who do
exclusively good things or bad people who do exclusively bad things. We are all capable of doing both good and
bad, as we are all capable of telling the truth and lying. Visualize an internal see-saw, with absolute
truth on one end and absolute lie on the other.
Let’s say for argument sake they are of virtually equal weight. Now, let’s put you at the fulcrum of the
sea-saw, a foot on either side of the mid-point, trying to keep you
balanced. Not only are you balancing truth
and lying, but you are also balancing seeing yourself in a positive way (I am a
good person because I tell the truth) and the benefits of lying (I will tell my
friend that I cannot go out with them because I am sick, so I can go out a
friend I really want to spend time with).
You might ask, Reverend Tom, isn’t the point not to lie. At all?
Not to balance someplace between truth and lie or balance ourselves
somewhere between positive self-image and self-gratification.
Friends,
welcome to the real world we live in: the world of relativism. The truth is—see what I did there?—the truth
is all of us lie in some measure as part of keeping our balance in this real,
messy, multi-faceted, complex and confusing world we inhabit, a real-life world
where shiny absolutes are more often than not as distant poles far removed from
our decision-making process. There’s
gonna be—there is—give and take. That’s
where rationalization can begin to creep in.
Ariely does suggest the more we rationalize the benefits of lying, the
more dishonest we can be.
Let’s go back to the students and
the math problems. Ariely wanted to see
the impact on lying if a student, someone Ariely planted in the classroom,
blatantly lied. This student got up
shortly after receiving the test, shredded his paper, and told Ariely that he
answered all the problems correctly, was paid and left. There was no question in the minds of the
other students that the planted student cheated. The other students in the room watched this
and many of them got up early, and lied that they got all the answers correct
as well, and got paid. Thus when someone
models or is given license to lie, others will do so also.
I wonder if any of us can think of
someone who has been modeling lying, thereby giving license to others to
lie. But I will say over the past few
years or so, I know I have heard the word lies and liar more often than I have
in decades before that. And the lies I
have identified coming from people in government, business, and religion have
piled one on top of another on top of another.
There has been an increase in conspiracy theories, active manipulation
of facts, and an increase in hate speech and hateful actions. When a person in power lies, uses hateful
speech and treats marginalized as “the other” all of us are impacted. When we hear something like “There is no such
thing as a climate crisis” or “All Immigrants are rapists, killers, and drug
runners,” what are we supposed to take away from that? How do we make sense of so many lies. What ideas are put in our minds after hearing
lies, observing destructive behavior and paradoxical actions, from people in
power time after time after time. How is
this affecting our country as a whole.
How is this changing you? Your
behaviors?
Ariely tried one more thing. He asked some of the students about the ten
commandments before going into the room to do the math problems. Not all of them knew the ten commandments and
some had some very unusual ideas what the ten commandments were, but the
students he asked about the ten commandments, didn’t lie. Regardless of their spiritual beliefs or lack
of beliefs. Something about being
reminded of morals or even religious beliefs, resulted in people lying
less.
After
thinking all this through, wondering how I will respond to all the lying, hate
speech, general destructive behavior that I am exposed to day in and day
out. Reflecting on how it’s affecting
me, and how it’s influencing my behaviors. I decided I needed to make some
intentional changes. I am going to lean
on my internal seesaw toward truth and I am going to be more aware of my
rationalization, knowing I am not going to be perfect. More specifically I am not only going preach
here about Unitarian Universalist Principles,
We live in
a country where people are struggling with how to balance the benefits of lying
and destructive behavior with how they see themselves, as good, ethical,
honest, and spiritual people. I invite
you to consider how you will respond to this challenge, and to formulate an
action plan before you are in a situation where you are called upon to
respond. With open ears and hearts,
intentionally listen to those spiritual and ethical messages that remind you of
who you want to be and how you want to act.
And with courage in your hearts, when you see people being exposed to
lying or manipulation or hateful speech or destructive behavior, maybe you
could go to them and give them hope that there are other choices besides lying
and hate. Be a reminder that there are
people in this world who value and respect them, who value and respect our
planet, who value compassion, equity, and justice. Who live a life based on love and treating
others as they want to be treated. You
are needed in this world my friends. Who you are and what you stand for—our
values and principles—can be a beacon of hope in a dark and confusing
world. Go be the change you wish to see
in the world. So may it be.
