Rev. Ann C. Fox
(508) 992-7081
RevAnnFox@aol.com

Unitarian Universalist
Society of Fairhaven

Trust

a sermon by Rev. Ann C. Fox

March 15, 2009

Note: A reading is attached, which you might like to read first

“In God we trust.” This is our national motto that was officially adopted in 1956. This is what it says on all our “greenbacks”, regardless of the amount. (I know this because I checked yesterday—and also found that the government building on the back of each denomination is different. It’s not all the White House as I thought—for example, the Lincoln Memorial is on the back of the $5 and Lincoln himself on the front! (Forgive the ignorance of a foreigner! You probably grew up with this knowledge. This is exciting new knowledge for me.) It is likely that “In God we trust” was not on bills before 1956.

“In God we trust.” It is prominent somewhere on all the Federal buildings. We are so used to seeing it that we probably don’t notice it any more.

“In God we trust!” Do you? To answer that question, a typical Unitarian Universalist is going to respond with another question: “Well, um, what do you mean by God?” The people in our two Genesis groups who are pondering the chapters in the Book of Genesis and thus are reading the history of God in the Jewish and Christian tradition may say, “Let’s see, in Genesis 1 through 9, God: 1) sets a trap for Adam and Eve, curses them, and turns them out of the Garden of Eden; 2) favors Abel over Cain and drives him to murder; and 3) favors Noah over all others and drowns in a flood every living innocent creature on the face of the earth. However, God then promises never, ever to do such a thing again. In the story of God, this promise is kept. And this is the point.

The Bible is full of statements of trust, especially in the Psalms and the Prophets. Here are just a few statements:

“Trust in God forever, for in him we have an everlasting rock.” (Is. 26:4)

“In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.” (Ps. 56:3)

“It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” (Ps. 118:8)

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;” (Ps. 28:7)

As I said, the Bible is replete with such sayings and this is why people find it comforting in times of great distress. But what does it mean to trust in God? The answer depends on your interpretation. If we think that God is a superman who swoops down and puts everything right, we can be disappointed. If we think that opening our hearts to the universe for courage and strength to handle the challenges of life, many of us won’t be disappointed.

The trust we might be encouraged to place in God is also bolstered by all the laws that came along with the evolving scripture. These biblical laws are the basis of the laws of most governments today. These laws—especially those in the 10 commandments—help to build trust amongst us.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story from the Jewish website of how God came to give the Jews the Ten Commandments. God first went to the Egyptians and asked them if they would like a commandment. “What’s a commandment?” they asked. “Well, it’s like, THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY,” replied God. The Egyptians thought about it and said, “No way, that would ruin our weekends.”

Then God went to the Assyrians (these are modern-day Iraqis) and asked them if they would like a commandment. They also asked, “What’s a commandment?” “Well,” said God, “It’s like, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.” The Assyrians immediately reply, “No way. That would ruin our economy!”

So finally God went to the Jews and asked them if they wanted a commandment. They asked, “How much?” God said, “They’re free.”

The Jews said, “Great! We’ll take TEN!”

How do we develop trust in the first place? Many of you know that I was recently a grandmother for the first time. I was so impressed by how my son and his partner’s every thought and action was for the welfare of the child. I’m sure * I * did this as well, but witnessing at this age this unconditional love expressed in action touched me deeply. They were naturally engendering trust in this child from birth.

The psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson wrote, “Basic trust is a state of relationship in which a child has learned to rely on the sameness and continuity of the outside provider.” He felt that over time the child comes to feel that the world is a safe and happy place and that he is a valued part of it….and that this bodes well for good mental health.” (Greer, p.13)

My grandson may grow up to be a happy and trusting child but will he enter a trusting and trustworthy world? “Americans still rank trust high on their list of virtues…citing it as the most important quality they seek in a relationship—personal or professional.” (Greer, pp 3-4) Sociologists say that trust is the glue that binds relationships together. It is also the glue that binds a congregation together.

In the reading, we heard the depth of intimacy and love that trust engenders. One person completely opens his or her heart to another, entrusting inmost thoughts. Truthfulness, dependability, faithfulness, and respect will be required to sustain that trusting relationship. In such a relationship, whether lovers or friends, we live out our first two principles: worth and dignity and justice and compassion in human relationship. When such a trust is broken, it can be devastating. How can we regain trust again? That is where psychology and religion can be helpful and also philosophy.

Life would be brutish without trust. As I look across the world at the many countries where violence reigns, there is a breakdown of society into gross lack of trust and safety and disregard for the dignity of human life. In these places, the social contract, if it existed before, no longer operates.

As we look at western philosophy, we see that the 18^th century philosopher and theologian, Emmanuel Kant, offers us a simple and profound way of how to create a state of trust that honors human beings. It is essentially a version of the Golden Rule (some of you know it as the “categorical imperative”). He bids us to “Act towards others as we would have done to us.” His exact words were: “do as you would be done by.” And he added: Treat others with dignity. He adds: do not make a promise you cannot keep.

Even though his philosophy is idealistic, it seems to me that he surely influenced the finest governing principles that we have today in the Bill of Rights. I couldn’t help thinking about this when I went for my annual checkup and noticed the Patient’s Bill of Rights. In the corporation where I once worked, there was the Customer’s Bill of Rights. It is as if we have to keep reminding ourselves to be trustworthy; and that is just fine!

We place our trust in many institutions: the church, the police, the fire department, the employer, the bank, other financial institutions, our government representatives, health professionals, and so on. Today we have a crisis of trust in many of our institutions. I won’t bore or distress you with a tirade against banks and investment companies. Although, reminding them about THOU SHALT NOT STEAL and of the deadly sin of AVARICE (OR GREED!) would give me a bit of satisfaction! I notice that one of our representatives said to the banking executives, “America doesn’t trust you anymore.” (Rep. Michael Capuano, D., Mass.) What about Congress? Have we lost trust in them as well? What about how they removed regulations that protected us? However, perhaps we have all needed to be shaken up to review our own true values, even our own greed. When I lived in Houston, Texas, the conservative Christian church up the street from Emerson Unitarian Church had a sign outside that said, “The 10 Commandments, not the 10 Suggestions! Congress, take note!

We have seen that Jews and Christians (and probably Muslims) put their trust in God to see them through when trust in humankind is broken. Buddhists look at it differently and I offer you this perspective from an article called “In Trust We Trust” by Phillip Moffitt. Buddhists call the kind of relationship trust we use that relies on truthfulness, dependability, faithfulness and respect transactional trust. They say that although human beings have a core of goodness, we are nevertheless imperfect. Therefore, when truthfulness, dependability, faithfulness or respect falls short, instead of being devastated, we should turn to seeking clarity and honesty in the event, acknowledge the unpleasantness and failure of human beings and focus on our own present-mindedness to come from our own lived values.

Moffitt says, “While you certainly don’t want to be betrayed by a lover or friend or let down by a boss, what really matters is how you are inside…. It is not that you trust your loved ones never to hurt you, for hurt and disappointment are part of the human experience…..You don’t have to abandon common sense or [become a victim of another’s abuses. …but]You identify the values with which you want to experience life…[and] apply those values through the practice of intention. In doing so, you are trusting life, trusting yourself, and trusting in trust.” (Moffitt)

People will let us down, but often we need to give them the chance to regain our trust. We do this for our children all the time, why shouldn’t we also do it for adults.

I well remember when a dear friend of mine had lunch with another friend, who happened to be my boss. She told her friend (my boss) that I was planning to go into the ministry. She almost immediately realized that she’d betrayed a confidence and she felt terrible. I had no trouble at all letting this go for she was so very good in other ways.

Is the world trustworthy? It depends where we live. In violence-torn areas, or where poverty reigns and crime is high it is surely harder to trust. It is also hard to trust when corruption becomes the normal practice of the day, such as we have seen on the national stage in our large financial institutions at the highest level and in our smaller institutions where mortgage fraud was perpetrated upon ordinary people. It is good that there is outrage for outrage often restores balance. It is in times like these that we can see evolution (and devolution) starkly. Where there is outrage and appropriate response, we are holding one another to account. This is what our religions are all about. The Ten Commandments were about holding one another to account around the very basic foibles of human nature: lying, cheating, stealing, and so on. It is about creating safe and trusting communities by following simple rules of trust.

If we don’t have trust in our lives, we don’t have much at all. I’m with the Buddhists when it comes to having trust in the self so that we can recover when we suffer a breach of trust. I do trust that most people will be honest and reliable and I think most of you will as well. We will all come out of this whole debacle of loss of trust in institutions a lot better off when we are reminded of the things that really matter, beginning with the trust in our personal relationships and in our communities.

I know that we have trust in our church community when our teenagers stand before us and tell us what they believe religiously. Their confidence in our acceptance of them is so great that they open their hearts and tell us what is in it. I like to think that this is so for all of you adults as well. Liberal religionists generally have trust in human nature and in life itself. We are “good” for goodness’ sake not for any belief in either heaven or hell. And we trust for trusts sake.

In our church community, we can practice the trust we’d like to take into the world and we can BE a deep well of trust for one another in our beloved community. May we ever be the beloved trusting and trustworthy community.

References

Greer, Jane, Dr. How Could You Do This to Me? New York, N.Y.: Doubleday Publishing Group, Inc., 1997.

Moffitt, Philip. “In Trust We Trust” from The Yoga Journal, February, 2009.

A United Kingdom Philosophy Website.

A Reading from a

Book of Meditations by Raymond John Baughan

I like to talk with you.

I like
The way I feel
when you are listening
as if we were exploring
something in ourselves:

The plunge into a silence
and how you come up with words
I tried to find:

The otherness about us which makes
conversation possible.

When I talk with you,
the give turns into take
and borrow into lend.

Now and then, a phrase from you
will kindle like a shooting star;
the mornings in you rouse me from a sleep.

I like
the babble and the banter when I greet you
at the door,
and when the room is filled with guests,
your quiet look,
as if there were a secret between us
of which nobody knows.