Sermon “The Common Good vs. The Greater Good”

The Rev. Rali Weaver

January 17, 2010

First Church and Parish in Dedham

If we define the Common Good in Richard Gilbert’s words “as a value embodied by a group of people who share in one another’s fates and commit themselves to bettering the fate of each individual” and define the Greater Good as the grounded in some moral principle that determines the more utilitarian good for the greatest number of people then we know from experience that over the past several years, decades, and perhaps millennia these two principals have been duking it out.

This conflict of interest between the Greater Good and the Common Good is represented in the ideology behind all wars, it is illustrated in the worldwide response to a natural disaster, and it affects lawmaking from healthcare and welfare to campaign finance reform.

As we go to the polls this week it seems to me that it is the plight of the Common Good we must yet again ponder and this is a significantly important concern for us to consider at the beginning of this new decade.

To attack this problem we need to go no further than the founding principals of our country, those promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In America we have been encouraged to believe in the concept of pursuing happiness at all costs and this has sometimes been to the detriment of the common good.

I believe that it is our rarely explored sense of Liberty that is the culprit when it comes to whose good we are talking about. Liberty: the condition in which an individual has the right to do his or her own will.

If my will impedes your will do I have true liberty? If we are focused on the “Greater Good: a thing defined by an external moral principal, some might say yes. If we defined our liberty only in the context of the Common Good some would say not. From the vantage point of the Common Good if what it takes for me to be free limits another’s freedom than neither of us is free.

As we move closer and closer to a global world and as we explore how we as individuals and communities and nation respond to everything from last week’s Earthquake in Haiti to our own Dedham Food Pantry’s move today, I think it is vital that we ask ourselves whose good it is we are serving.

It might help us to see clearer if we reflect upon how our liberty is affected by our worldview in something as simple and non-controversial as the clothing trade.

Everyone needs clothes. From the beginning of time clothing has represented protection and warmth but clothes have also set us apart. Early tribal leaders from every culture wore clothes that demonstrated their authority. Young women have decorated themselves to attract attention.

So we know that clothing is also used for style. “The clothes make the man” and having certain types of clothes to wear sets up a status in every society where some are set apart simply because of the clothes they wear.

I stand here in a robe. It sets me a part from you. In some ways it marks the liberty with which you have bestowed upon me the liberty with which to speak my mind.

Clothes can do that for a person.

Caps and gowns, Judicial Robes, Choir Gowns, and Clerical robes and business Suits and Black ties in our society all have the capacity to set the stage. Having the right thing to wear can make you fit in or it can set you apart. Not having the right thing to wear can set you back and keep you down.

The truth is that I might be more comfortable dressing each day in Jeans and a T-shirt, but what liberates me to speak freely is the anonymity and authority that comes from wearing a robe. This robe both covers my individuality and accentuates my role. In some very simplistic ways this robe liberates me to do my job. All types of uniforms do this. Unconsciously we all feel much better about a plane that is flown by a uniformed pilot or a bandage applied by a uniformed nurse. It is only with time that we see beyond what a person is wearing to who they are and what they are truly capable of.

In every society since the beginning of time clothing has also been a representation of cultural identity.

Now lets look at Haiti. Haiti has been considered one of the poorest countries in the world since early America’s visited it with its bartering for slaves and rum. And over time charity groups have responded to the perceived crisis of poverty by attempting to meet basic needs such as clothing and shelter and education.

And so in Haiti generations of donated clothing from abroad has been handed out freely as a gesture of charity completely destroying the local clothing industry. Many critics of the charity trade have pointed out that there is little market for clothing you pay for if the clothes you get are free. And so despite the good intensions of the giver the problem with this clothing is that while it covers and protects the body it has not reflected in any way the local culture. Clothing with slogans written in a language other than the native one, reflecting values different than traditional ones has waged a subliminal campaign on Haitian citizens making them to desire the brands and fashions of a world that is not their own, conditioning an economy that must seek handouts and look for hope and significance outside its own native beliefs, instead of discovering the local possibilities. Many critics of the situation in Haiti before the earthquake have pointed out that it is in fact clothing that leads you to devalue what is local in favor of what comes from abroad.

Now let us substitute the word "education" for "clothing" and you'll get a coherent picture of the effects most Haitian reformers feel formal education has had on the minds of those Haitian Citizens who have received it. Missionary Schools are generally founded in a Christian Ideal of a foreign God who did not spring naturally from Haitian ground. There is a disconnect between the culture that is taught and the one that is lived. Where does the perceived subhuman development of Haitian Life come from if not in some comparison to an outside world?

What do we see? Poverty, and that's bad. Voodoo, and that's bad. Superstitions, and that's bad. Dark skin and "kinky hair", when the literature you've been exposed to speaks plainly of beauty as that of fair skin, blue eyes, and flowing silky blonde hair; when you've been thoroughly indoctrinated into another way of thinking you naturally believe your own to be inferior.

This situation in Haiti is a classic example of how the Greater Good and common Good have been at odds. How does it serve the Haitians to leave their own customs and understanding of the world behind for some “Higher Truth” or “Greater Good” that does not in any way reflect their common understanding or lived experience?

But this is not the end of what our clothing and liberty have to do with each other.

The first clothes that were made and worn by all early Hominoids were naturally made out of fur. No matter how we might each individually feel about wearing fur today it should make sense to us why fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing.

Badger, raccoon, beaver were of the first in North America animals to find their lives being sacrificed for the care and feeding and warmth and security of the first peoples. Beavers in particular have been trapped for over a thousand years. Beaver pelts were bartered between Native Americans and the Europeans in the 17th century. Beaver pelts were shipped to Great Britain and France where they were made into clothing items. And of course we all know the story that widespread hunting and trapping of beavers led to their eventual endangerment.

The problem is that the unregulated hunting of the beaver and the badger in particular, quickly overpowered the supply.

The North American beaver population that was once more than 60 million had in 1988 shrunk to 6–12 million. This population decline is due to extensive hunting for fur, for glands used as medicine and perfume, and because their harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other commercial land uses. The needs of the beaver and the needs of humans were eventually at odds and humans won out.

This struggle between the needs of the individual and that of limited resources is a problem defined all through history and in our world today. How we make sense of this tension in a global economy and whose good is considered when decisions are made will define our generation.

At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. uttered his famous, “I have a dream,” speech which outlined the importance of Jobs in defining liberty and justice for all.

In 2010, our current economic crisis continues to fall short of Dr. King’s dream.

The current recession or depression in which we all find ourselves has drained jobs and homes at alarming rates while exacerbating the inequalities of wealth and income that fueled Dr. King’s speech 47 years ago.

According to the United for a Fair Economy: 2010 State of the Dream Report:

From December 2008 to December 2009, the unemployment rate among Blacks increased by 4.3%, and it increased among Latinos by 3.7%. Whites saw a much lower increase of 2.4% during this same period. Unemployment among Blacks now stands at 16.2%, higher than any annual rate in the past 27 years. Unemployment among Latinos is 12.9%. Both rates far exceed the 9% unemployment rate in white communities.

In a world where individual prosperity and abundance is preached from every street corner, and the greater good has been held out like a beacon of righteousness the common good has apparently been lost and forgotten.

Where in our current story do the needs of the group rise above the needs of any individual? And where do the needs of various groups’ conflict?

Our intergenerational message today about Granny D offers a dramatic example of the perception shift that needs to take place if we are to overcome the oppressive individualism and right and wrong morality that conflicts with our common good.

What Granny D at 90 years old did was not set out to walk the painstaking 3,000 miles as a vacation for herself, nor to walk that 3,000 miles to reform politics for her own sake. At 90 years old Granny D was doing it for the next generation and this is the type of sacrifice I believe we will all be called upon to make within our lifetimes. I don’t expect that each of us at 90 years old to walk 3,000 miles for campaign finance reform I only mean to suggest that if we are ever going to return the American Dream to the track of the Common Good for which it was originally intended, then we will each need to make a similar commitment.

All of our individual choices affect the common good in countless immeasurable ways. And we must in our time find our journey or cross the river that will connect us to that wider vision of a world community.

Rev. King wrote from the Birmingham Jail in 1963 “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” and this is the river of common understanding we must all cross. How can we respond with the true intension to a world that is suffering?

Today we do the simple thing of giving our offering to Haitian Relief efforts. We send our money to the UUA because we can trust that 100% of that money will go to aid Haiti. And we give that money to the USC because we know that it is not tied to any particular worldview. Money is all well and good but it will only be through the true commitment, and ongoing interest in the well being of those afflicted Haitians that anything will change.

In a more local way our church has supported the Dedham Food Pantry with its time and money and service for decades. Today the food pantry moves into a new home and I hope some of you will sacrifice your time and energies toward that effort today. Our true commitment to the food pantry will come when we stop seeing it as serving some “other” group but recognize the efforts of the food pantry as being ours to do.

Today we get to practice not only with the food pantry but also in our own more personal conversation about fundraising for our operating budget. Fundraising to meet an operating budget in a difficult economy when there is so much need may seem frivolous. How we live in right relationship to our budget and how we creatively develop fundraisers such as the upcoming Comfort Food Dinner that will not only help us to meet our fiscal needs but nourish the wider community will connect us to our values or lead us astray.

As Unitarian Universalists who affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, we are uniquely poised to address the concerns of the commons.

So let us take the words of Steven Biko (the martyred South African anti-apartheid leader) to heart and no longer “regard. Our living together … as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us --but as a deliberate act making us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life."