Sermon by the Rev. Charles J. Stephens
September 29, 2013
Matthew 25:35-40 New International Version (NIV)
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
READING June 28, 2012
BOSTON – In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), UUA President the Rev. Peter Morales has released a statement:
“As president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For more than 50 years, the UUA has called for health care reform, as it speaks to the protection and inclusion of some of our most vulnerable populations, including women, children, elders, and those with chronic illnesses.
“To take steps toward providing basic care for all is a moral and spiritual imperative, and it is encouraging to see our Supreme Court justices consider the better health of the millions of Americans who benefit from the provisions of the ACA. We are thankful for their thoughtful work.
“Unitarian Universalists hold among our principles the affirmation of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. As people of faith, our principles call us to speak up for those who have been silenced, forgotten, or pushed aside in our society. Today, I am proud to say that we and our allies in social justice have been heard. Health care is not a luxury; it is a fundamental human right. And while we celebrate today’s decision, we also will continue to advocate for this fundamental human right until it is available to all who seek it.”
STORY FOR ALL AGES:
A young man, a student in one of the universities, was one day taking a walk with a professor, who was commonly called the student’s friend, from his kindness to those who waited on his instructions.
As they went along, they saw lying in the path a pair of old shoes, which they supposed to belong to a poor man who was employed in a field close by, and who had nearly finished his day’s work.
The student turned to the professor, saying: “Let us play the man a trick: we will hide his shoes, and conceal ourselves behind those bushes, and wait to see his perplexity when he cannot find them.”
“My young friend,” answered the professor, “we should never amuse ourselves at the expense of the poor. But you are rich, and may give yourself a much greater pleasure by means of this poor man. Put a coin in each shoe, and then we will hide ourselves and watch how this affects him.”
The student did so and they both placed themselves behind the bushes close by. The poor man soon finished his work, and came across the field to the path where he had left his coat and shoes.
While putting on his coat he slipped his foot into one of his shoes, but feeling something hard, he stooped down to feel what it was, and found the coin. Astonishment and wonder were seen upon his countenance. He gazed upon the coin, turned it around, and looked at it again and again.
He then looked around him on all sides, but no person was to be seen. He now put the money into his pocket, and proceeded to put on the other shoe; but his surprise was doubled on finding the other coin.
His feelings overcame him; he fell upon his knees, looked up to the heavens and uttered aloud a fervent thanksgiving in which he spoke of his wife who was sick and helpless, and his children without bread, whom this timely bounty, from some unknown hand, would save from perishing.
The student stood there deeply affected, and his eyes filled with tears. “Now,” said the professor, are you not much better pleased than if you had played your intended trick?”
The youth replied, “You have taught me a lesson which I will never forget. I feel now the truth of these words, which I never understood before: “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.”
Abdullah bin Abbas (radi Allahu anhu) reported that the Prophet (sallAllahu alaiyhi wassallam) said that encouraging good, prohibiting evil, lifting the burden of the weak person and removing an offensive thing from a path are all acceptable prayers to Allah. [ibn Majah]
OPENING WORDS:
An old Rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun.
“Could it be,” asked one of the students, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog?”
“No,” answered the Rabbi.
Another asked, “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it’s a fig tree or a peach tree?”
“No,” answered the Rabbi.
“Then what is it?” the pupils demanded.
“It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night.”
— Hasidic tale quoted in Spiritual Literacy by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Opening Words: “Amid all the noise in our lives” Tim Haley
Amid all the noise in our lives,
we take this moment to sit in silence—
to give thanks for another day;
to give thanks for all those in our lives
who have brought us warmth and love;
to give thanks for the gift of life.
We know we are on our pilgrimage here but a brief moment in time.
Let us open ourselves, here, now,
to the process of becoming more whole—
of living more fully;
of giving and forgiving more freely;
of understanding more completely
the meaning of our lives here on this earth.
1997 UUMA Worship Materials Collection
“The Obamacare Wars Have Gone Holy and Unholy.”
As October 1st fast approaches, there seems to be a holy or unholy war going on about the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare,” as it is more often called.
The president of the Charlotte, N.C. Southern Evangelical Seminary, Richard Land, said “I, personally, as a pro-life evangelical Christian believe it would be the height of irresponsibility to encourage anyone in my congregation to do anything other than … oppose this (Obamacare).” http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/obamacare-faith-leaders-95851.html#ixzz2g7wimAsB
While on the other side of the Christian sphere, the Rev. Susan McCann, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Liberty, MO, a state that is largely hostile territory for the health law, said, “Medicaid expansion is part of what people of faith consider to be respecting the worth and dignity of human beings, … We believe in the worth and dignity of all human beings as created in the image of God.” http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/obamacare-faith-leaders-95851.html#ixzz2g7wqriXv which is in line with what our own UUA President has said.
Earlier I read the words that Jesus is recorded as saying: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ I do wonder how anyone can read that and as a Christian oppose the Affordable Care Act.
But it is not just Christian writings that support some sort of universal health care. Mohamed, the founder of Islam, said something very similar to Jesus, “The servant does not reach the reality of faith until he loves for the people what he loves for himself of goodness.”[Sahih Ibn Hibban, Book of Faith, # 238, Sahih]
Likewise in Buddhism, the ideal is to act selflessly to alleviate suffering wherever it appears. Buddhism advises that you may argue that it is impossible to eliminate suffering, and Buddhist teachers agree that maybe it is impossible to eliminate suffering, yet we’re to work to alleviate suffering anyway.
And the anchor of Jewish teaching provides a very similar response. Compassion is among the highest of Jewish virtues, as its opposite, cruelty, is among the worst of vices. I believe that I have told the story here about the great Jewish scholar, Hillel, who was asked by a Roman soldier to summarize Judaism “while standing on one foot”–in other words, to put all of Jewish theology in a nutshell. It is said that Hillel’s response was to stand on one leg and then repeat Judaism’s original “Golden Rule”: “That which is hateful to yourself, do not do unto others.” That, he said, is the heart of the Torah; all the rest is commentary. Now go and study it!
I remember our 1994 UUA General Assembly. It was in Fort Worth, Texas and we passed a resolution that among other things resolved that Unitarian Universalist congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists in the United States be urged to support the adoption of a national, comprehensive system of universal health care. Note, that was 19 years ago. And this year the Rev. Peter Morales, our UUA President, reminded us that “For over 50 years the UUA has called for health care reform…”
So, why have we Unitarian Universalists supported some form of comprehensive universal health care coverage for all Americans for so many years?
I think we can find the kernel of why we do this from a fascinating article by Thomas Bodenheimer, a Harvard Medical School trained MD. His article looked at liberal and conservative thought in reference to health care.
He pointed out that classical seventeenth-century liberalism stressed the freedom of the individual. During the next century equality and the rule of law were added to classical liberalism. This is the movement that brought the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in our U.S. government. It also helped form our Unitarian and Universalist religions. Bodenheimer pointed out that this liberalism “… advocated a universal humanitarian morality: “It is the goal of (this) morality to substitute peaceful behavior for violence, good faith for fraud and overreaching, considerateness for malice, cooperation for the dog-eat-dog attitude.”
Then in the nineteenth century an interesting addition was made to liberalism. John Stuart Mill added utilitarianism (the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people) to liberalism. Utilitarianism required the government not only to protect individual liberties but also to regulate business and help the poor. This added a whole new ethical element to liberalism.
Bodenheimer points out that John Stuart Mill’s addition caused “liberalism and conservatism to go in separate ways. Most conservatives advocate that government restrict itself to ensuring individual liberties.” This has developed into the conservative belief today that claims that the economic health of a country comes from wealthy individuals and corporations having sufficient money to invest in job creation.
The motivation for the Affordable Care Act comes from the liberal belief that health care like basic public education (i.e. public school) is a right that all people are entitled to have. This requires the government to guarantee and provide a mechanism like the Affordable Care Act that makes health care economically available to everyone.
Those who oppose the ACA believe that it is the chief responsibility of the government to guarantee individual freedoms to everyone–not health care and maybe not public education. They see the move to having the government guarantee health care insurance to everyone as a direct conflict to individual freedoms. Mandates that require everyone to have health insurance or pay a fee for not doing so is contrary to their sense of what government should do.
Dr. Uwe E. Reinhardt is a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He was asked how experts in other countries view our U.S. health care system. He responded that there really are two ways they see our health care system. First he said “They admire our medical clinical care, because we’re advanced. … and (secondly, he added) they abhor our insurance system. They call it “asocial”, “inhumane”, “inegalitarian”. They really think it’s a horror show.”
Dr. Reinhardt said that when speaking to a large group of U.S. governors, he described how in his view the devil systematically built our health insurance system that has the feature that when you’re down on your luck, you’re unemployed, you lose your insurance. He said only the devil could ever have invented such a system. Humans of goodwill would never do this. So he believed it to be the devil’s work, and still does.
When it comes to health care insurance, one of the really vulnerable groups in our country are those in their 50s and early 60s. This became especially true after the economic crash of 2008 and the resulting layoffs of so many in that age group. This was followed by their inability to find employment that provided health insurance, let alone a similar pay scale.
Alison and I experienced our own personal insight into this predicament. I retired from the ministry at the age of 63. We were used to having health insurance as part of a large group. When we arrived in Downeast Maine and searched for health insurance in this area we were totally unprepared for the high cost of a plan with a huge deductible that merely covered the basics for a couple in their 50s and 60s. And within six months the premium went up by one third. Very soon Alison started working, but it was part time and that didn’t provide any benefits, let alone health insurance. As a result we didn’t go to a doctor for over a year. Now, we were the lucky ones because we could pay for it. In talking with the carpenters who built our house, I learned that they didn’t have a group health insurance plan and their individual health insurance plans for those who had one, was even worse than ours.
The reality is that the majority of uninsured Americans are actually employed. They work but cannot afford to buy food and pay for their housing expenses and then be able to afford health insurance. They are the people who get up and go to work. They build and repair our homes. They serve us in restaurants and stores. They repair our cars and computers and do all sorts of other tasks that make us and others comfortable. Most of these people don’t like to ask for anything or beg for help when they get sick. But a vast number of hard working people are just one illness away from poverty. In 2012, more than one in five children in the United States (15.75 million) lived in poverty.
We in the U.S. may like to think that we live by the Golden Rule. The reality is that here in the U.S. the Golden Rule means that Gold Rules. We may talk about the importance of the community and yet in reality the economy of our society as well as our health care system is built around the individual.
In sharp contrast, the European health care system is built around a very different social ethic, called the principle of solidarity. Because of the principle of solidarity, their society refuses to operate simply around what makes economic sense for the individual.
Suddenly, here in the U.S., with the Affordable Care Act, we are openly discussing the ethics of health care. The debate is all about what the social ethic is that drives our health care system. The more you understand our health system it becomes clear that corporate and organizational profit drives it rather than compassion or the principle of solidarity.
Our health care structure is based on an ethic that says health care should be rationed based on income. It really is the truth. The result is that many single mothers working full time (another major group suffering under our present health care system) cannot afford health insurance. Some of these single mothers go without health care. But then when her child has an ear infection (or something worse) she can’t afford to take time off even to be with her child let alone take the child to a doctor. The infection gets worse and ultimately if the child is lucky s/he gets over it. If not lucky s/he eventually goes to the emergency room but there may already have been physical damage. In both cases the child suffers physical pain because of delayed or avoided treatment. Plus there can even be long-term physical damage because of it.
Our UU General Assembly Resolution is an affirmation that the U.S. health care system should be based on an ethical standard like the Golden Rule. Today we in the U.S. are as close as we have ever come to openly debating our health care system in respect to the “principle of solidarity.”
It is very important for all of us to know and help others understand that: there are 17 million children who could not get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions who now will have insurance.
- Insurance companies no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women more than men.
- Soon, no American will ever again be denied care or charged more due to a pre-existing condition, like the cancer I had in 1999 or something like asthma.
- Preventive care will still be covered free of charge by insurance companies–including mammograms for women and wellness visits for seniors.
- 5.3 million seniors will continue to save $600 a year on their prescription drugs.
- Efforts to strengthen and protect Medicare by cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse will remain in place.
- 6.6 million young adults will be able to stay on their family’s plan until they’re 26.
The Affordable Care Act and the subsequent Supreme Court decision is having an impact on 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions by bringing security to their lives and comfort in knowing that they will not be left out in the cold. These families will be saved from having to liquidate their life savings, sell their homes or go bankrupt in order to get the care they need.
There are many religious leaders decrying the Affordable Care Act primarily because health care plans will cover the cost of contraception. But there are many other religious leaders working hard to make sure every U.S. citizen is covered by a health care plan. Our UUA and many of our congregations are working toward this end. But so is the policy arm of the United Methodist Church, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ and a wide range of Catholic groups like the Benedictine Sisters, Boerne, Texas; Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Texas; Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, New York; Dominican Sisters of Hope; Justice and Peace Committee of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, Massachusetts; and the list goes on and on with other Catholic groups.
They are following Psalm 82, the command to “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; [and] deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
Dr. Uwe E. Reinhardt, who I quoted earlier, said that he asked a U.S. senator, “If Jesus came to your office and asked, ‘How do you explain that you make health care cheaper for a rich man than a poor man?’ After all I said, what would you tell Jesus?” This was a nice born-again Christian Senator. “What would you tell Jesus?” And he was speechless, and I said, “That is probably the most you could tell Jesus.”
Let us agree that the Golden Rule contradicts the common practice that health care is a luxury and the possession of the privileged few.
BE IT RESOLVED that the Unitarian Universalist Association affirm that comprehensive health care is a basic human right, and that we Unitarian Universalist Congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists call for the development of a more just and compassionate system of health care delivery in the United States.
CLOSING WORDS: Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
