Like many of you, I’m anxious this morning as we wait for the election results. What makes me most anxious, like many of you, is the fact our country exhibits all the classic markers for nations that turn into dictatorships and autocracies. In their book How Democracies Die Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt say these four characteristics point to emerging totalitarianism:
(1) The rejection, in words or action, of the democratic rules of the game
(2) The denial of the legitimacy of political opponents
(3) Toleration or encouragement of violence, and
(4) A willingness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media (pp. 21-24).
These are scary times. And the frightening aspects of our situation are not going away today, tomorrow, or whenever the results are in, no matter who wins the election. It’s still a long walk home to the promised land of the beloved community. It's gonna be a long walk home. No matter who wins. Longer one way than the other, but long just the same.
So, what are we going to do? We’re going to do the same thing we’ve been doing. We’re going to listen to wise teachers, lean hard into our most cherished values, side with love over hate, and rely on each other in loving community. I said during the Covid quarantine time that the only way out is through and the only way through is together. We don’t get to avoid the time we live in, and we don’t get to hide from its difficulties.
Together as a community of faith and as citizens we have an anchor, a place of safety, a stronghold, a tactic and a tool, and a team. We have, as Buddhism teaches, 3 Treasures as people of faith and 3 Treasures as Citizens. The three jewels or treasures of Buddhism are:
I take refuge in Buddha.
I take refuge in Dharma.
I take refuge in Sangha.
These things can be thought of as wise teachers, a body of teaching or wisdom, and a learning community of practice. In Unitarian Universalism, this body of teaching can be condensed to our core Values – our JETPIG - and the Covenants we make about how to live them. And as citizens this body of teaching centers on the core values Preamble of the Constitution and the covenants we make about how to live them. These treasures, both sacred and secular are not perfect, but they’re powerful. We have a refuge. A refuge that won’t excuse us from the hard work of freedom, justice, democracy, and love, but one that can and will continually refresh us and reinforce us in difficult times.
The treasures of our faith are the things in which we put our most profound trust. I think people of any spirituality or faith possess these jewels and treasures. The details are different but the Teacher, the teaching, and the community of practice exist in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, in Paganism, in Humanism, and in our faith of Unitarian Universalism. Who the teacher is, what the teaching is, and who makes up the community of practice will be different, but a person of faith – a person who puts their trust in a particular tradition, will find it a refuge, an anchor, a stronghold, a tactic, a tool, and a touchstone. In dark times, we turn to our teachers, the wisdom they’ve taught us, and others who live by that wisdom.
In Unitarian Universalism, although we have Buddha, we also have Jesus, and Moses, and Mohamed, and Shiva and Sati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, we have Channing and Balou, Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Olympia Brown, an all the wise sages, teachers, and exemplars of human history. Which ones are your jewels and treasure? Which ones are the teachers who have a way of reaching your heart and reminding you of your best self and how to live into being that best self?
Unitarian Universalism has a Dharma – a body of religious teaching – we call it the living tradition. It includes the world’s scriptures and other important religious writings, also philosophy, ethics, science, and the arts. Because it’s so vast, perhaps it’s best summed up as our core values of Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity, (JETPIG ) all ground in JETPIG Love. All the Living Tradition boils down to these values. The big question of our faith is “What does Love call us to do?” or “How do we take the side of love?” Its’ been said that Justice is what love looks like in public, and we believe it also looks like Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Gratitude. How do we put these things into practice? How do we live them?
Justice means dismantling oppression and using democratic processes.
Equity means ensuring fairness, accessibility, and inclusion.
Transformation means we’re always open to learning new things and changing for the better.
Pluralism means embracing difference with curiosity and respect.
Interdependence means we base relationships on mutuality and respect not exploitation.
Generosity means sharing our resources and approaching things with an attitude of possibility.
To Love is to do all these things with care and compassion and kindness.
Unitarian Universalism is itself a Sangha- a very large sangha – The Unitarian Universalist Association, but we have a more local Sangha - the congregation, our congregation. In our congregational life we find a learning community of practice - a loving, covenanted community, helping each other more deeply understand and live our core values and side with Love.
During this time leading up to the election, and in the time after the election, let us take refuge in our Teachers, our Wisdom and Values, and in the covenanted community that helps us live them, even when it’s difficult, even if it becomes illegal or dangerous to do so. This is how being people of faith can keep us strong and courageous, especially when we’re scared – and it’s not brave if you’re not scared.
Courageously, let us turn to our most treasured values as citizens as well as ] people of faith. Let our practice of citizenship make three treasures or jewels out of our democratic tradition. In terms of citizenship our Buddha or teacher might be the founders of our country, and all the wise citizens who have called to our best selves, people like MLK, the notorious RBG, The Suffragettes, The Obamas and all the others who beckoned us to create, as Langston Hughes urged us, “the dream the dreamers dreamed,” the America that never was but could be.
Our Dharma or teaching as citizens, is centered in the constitution, especially the preamble, which consolidates and encapsulates the essence of American values the way JETPIG does the Living Tradition of Unitarian Universalism. Our Sangha might be all ethical citizens committed to democracy and justice, upholding our institutions, and helping to create Beloved Community. Just as our Living Tradition of Unitarian Universalism can be encapsulated in Love and the core values. I think the constitution can be encapsulated in the Preamble.
I’m a Gen X er so I grew up with Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings in between cartoons and bowls of sugar frosted sugar bombs. I bet just about anyone my age not only has the preamble memorized we can SING it to you. Just like you heard in the video today.
Watching this video today, I’m practically horrified at the depiction of America as empty land, waiting for the white Europeans to move across it in manifestation of their destiny. There are no women’s names among the candidates in the voting booth ballot, all kinds of things could be better in this video, it’s true. But this song, like the acronym JETPIG, helps us condense our long history and tradition into a manageable and memorable summary.
Edwin Chemerinsky is a constitutional lawyer and professor at Berkeley Law School who has argued cases before the Supreme Court. In his books We The People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-first Century and No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States he says the preamble to the constitution isn’t just introductory language. He says the preamble sets out the core values through which the rest of the document and the government it describes must be considered.
Yes, the Constitution itself is problematic, and Chemerinsky himself says that in addition to its history as a racist, sexist, and classist document, the equal distribution of senators and the electoral college create more problems for democracy than they solve, and it’s time for new constitution. For example,
1 electoral vote accounts for 195,000 people in Wyoming and over 700,000 people in Texas, Florida or California.
12 states can win the electoral college, but 11 with more population can lose to 39 that equal less than half the population
5 times the popular vote winner lost electoral college, twice in last 25 years.
2 senators per state is undemocratic. The 50 Democrats in the current Senate represented 42 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.
AND YET…
The core values of the Preamble (and thus the Constitution) are Democracy, Effective Government, Justice, and Liberty. We the People means what it says. The constitution is written by people and for people. These words imply democratic process. The history of the document has been to expand who is included in “We.” Y’all means all. Effective Government means creating internal peace and peaceful international relations, conditions under which everyone should be able to thrive not just survive. Justice means fair treatment of all – not just citizens – and that the government uses fair processes. Government action and intervention should result in just and equitable outcomes.
Liberty should be guaranteed by the government so that unless something infringes the humanity and rights of others, the general welfare or threatens domestic tranquility, people need to be left to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Chemerinsky reminds us that until the mid-19th century, the SCOTUS held the preamble in esteem, but since 1905 in Jacobsen vs Massachusetts ( a case about state mandated vaccinations) the SCOTUS held that a law can’t be challenged as unconstitutional because of disagreement with the preamble and since the 1950s the SCOTUS has considered the preamble merely rhetorical flourish. Chemerinsky says that this attitude toward the preamble has been a factor in enabling the recent string of SCOTUS decisions that take away freedoms, especially the right to abortion and voting rights.
Our core values are important because character is developed by living your values consistently over time. In difficult times, character matters exponentially more than in stable times, because in difficult times the dangers and stresses of daily life increase and it’s easier to abandon our core values and ethics when our safety and survival are threatened.
In these days before and after the election, no matter who wins, practice being your best self. Read and re-read, watch and re-watch your teachers. Lean into and upon your core values and side with love – even when it’s uncomfortable or unsafe. Don’t isolate, participate and revel in community – our congregation, and all other communities of practice that share your values.
One reason we live in such tough times is that our values have made huge progress, and the pushback is strong and surging. I’m convinced that the rise of authoritarianism in our country and around the world is the old, white, hierarchical, hetero-normative, capitalistic hierarchy is threatened. It’s like a wild animal cornered in a trap. It will lose, but it’s still very dangerous. The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but it’s never really a smooth arc, it’s more like a lightning bolt of a jagged movement, two steps up, one step back - and more the progress we make toward Beloved Community, each step back seems bigger and stronger, but we are moving forward, and I am convinced that in the end love will win. Because Love isn't just at the center of our values, Love is at the center of everything.
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