Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“The Second ‘Deadly’
Sin: Envy”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
Witness: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin,
from 10,300 Ministers
The week before last I was contacted by The Clergy Project – no, not some people whose ‘project’ it is to check up on us clergy, to upgrade us, or upbraid us – but a group that was working on something called Evolution Sunday and the Clergy Letter. Evolution Sunday was last week, (when we were cancelled because of snow), the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. In celebration, nearly 500 churches said they would do something on Feb. 12th, or near that Sunday, to honor his contribution to our knowledge, and to demonstrate that science and religion are not adversaries. We are one of those congregations. And, more than 10,300 clergy, including myself, signed a letter to government officials saying that we “believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth…” The clergy letter supported the teaching of science, including evolution.
Most of you know that Unitarian Universalists have no problem with scientific study, but are eager to search for the truth in all aspects of life, with all the tools available. You may also know that Charles Darwin was a Unitarian. He was raised by a Unitarian mother, but also spent some time in the Anglican religion. When he boarded the Beagle, the ship he would travel into history with as his observations led him to propose natural selection and strengthen the theory of evolution, Charles was a bit orthodox in his Christianity. He thought he’d become a minister and he followed Paley’s theological understanding of God being like a clockmaker, standing apart from the creation, which was like a clock. Charles Darwin’s mind was broadened by his travel and study, and his religious views changed.
I hope you have a chance to read the story in this month’s UU World magazine called “Welcome to the Ecozoic Era”. It is about a couple of Unitarian Universalists who are traveling around, preaching the good news of cosmic evolution, of the “Great Story” of this amazing universe, which can be embraced by atheists and theists alike, they say. Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow explain that instead of the clockmaker view of God and our world, we should think of the metaphor of “a set of nesting Russian dolls, made up of levels of … nested creativity: subatomic particles within atoms, within molecules, within cells, within organisms, and so on. … The largest nesting doll is God – or Allah, Adonai, Source of Life, Ultimate Reality, Nature, the Universe, whatever name describes the divine whole for you, the ultimate creative reality that includes and transcends all levels of reality.”
Charles Darwin, I am sure, would have been comfortable with this form of preaching, as would have the great 20th century scientist Albert Einstein, whose view of God was cosmic and expansive, and of the universe as connected and whole. I want to leave you with some words of Charles Darwin, from the conclusion of The Origin of Species, which help us to understand the spirit of this man of science.
“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. … Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
Happy Birthday,
Charles Darwin!
The Second ‘Deadly’ Sin: Envy
Today is the third in a sermon series that examines evil and sin, and I am doing this in a Unitarian Universalist way, which is to say, with an open mind and an open heart, seeking if there is any wisdom to be had from ancient traditions. Our religious tradition doesn’t have a theology of evil, nor of sin, but we do try to understand how to be in right relationship, how to live our principles, and we try not to do what is hurtful.
The seven so-called ‘deadly’ sins, or capital sins are an old piece of Catholic theology which examines the inner stuff that could lead us to brokenness in relationship. The first of these we looked at was pride. This month it is envy. I searched my various files and many books on world religions, and I came up empty for anything about envy. I was tempted to put up my hands, like the comedian John Stewart, and say, “I got nothing”.
Even a search of Bible passages and Catholic texts was not much help. We just heard the Biblical wisdom saying that as bad as wrath and anger are, “who is able to stand before envy?” (Does it seem that toxic to you?) Peter says we ought to rid ourselves of all envy and Paul says that love is not compatible with envy. But what is envy and why is it something we should guard against, and how did it make it into the top seven?
Envy
is when we are sad because of another’s good fortune – their material or
emotional or spiritual well-being gets under our skin. But who’s to know we are feeling envy, so what
harm does it do? And who among us with
all of our good fortune actually feels envy anyway? Don’t we live in the enviable Berkshires,
with the enviable abundance of
Nonsense – envy is all-inclusive, an equal opportunity problem – we can feel it whether we ought to or not. We have everything we need, but we are suddenly sad when our friend gets a better house, car, sound system. We have good friends and good relationships with family, but a holiday comes along and we are put out by the obvious joie de vivre in our neighbor’s home, where we can well imagine a Norman Rockwell scene that we don’t come close to embodying with our own loved ones. And our friends are so talented – they can create amazing art, write poetry that sings, speak three languages, play an instrument beautifully, cook a fabulous meal, fix anything that breaks, dance with abandon and grace, and we are downhearted – we are so incompetent in comparison. And, we want to admire people who are grounded in a spiritual practice or who bless the world with their compassion and justice-seeking and peacemaking, but we are not always that happy about their goodness. We put ourselves down in comparison.
Envy has two effects upon us – we don’t like the person we are envious of, and we don’t like ourselves. Maybe just for an instant, or an afternoon. Maybe, though, we cultivate this envy and a wall grows up between us and that person who ‘has it all’, even hatred, arises, and maybe our self-esteem ends up in the toilet. Envy is the spoiler of love – love of our neighbors and love of ourselves. Envy keeps us small in our hearts.
The strange thing about envy is that it seems rational in a way – of course anyone would feel bad in comparison to others who have some special goodness in their lives – but actually, envy does not reflect reality at all. The person we feel envy toward is undoubtedly hurting in some way – everyone is hurting in some way – and that seemingly enviable person needs our compassion, but how can we open with a kind heart to this person when we are feeling sad and envious? Envy does not reflect the objective truth about ourselves either – we are not inadequate at all – we are talented and good and have been graced with an abundance in this life, all of us.
The absence of much written on envy may mean that it is more hidden from us than most of our inner issues. Envy is like a burning bed that we go lie down on. We may be unconscious about the origin of the brokenness in certain of our relationships, that envy is a root cause which needs to be dug up and discarded. And our own sense of inadequacy, that poisons so much of our lives – if we could but rid ourselves of evil comparisons which deflate us, we would be liberated to give our full selves to the world. The world needs our full selves.
In
the evolution of our spirits, envy is worth seeking out and letting go of. Love is not envious. So may we blessed be.