Sermon:
May 24, 1998

Scripture:
Mark 12:28-34

A couple of weeks ago I pulled up to a stoplight on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham at a busy intersection. As I waited, I looked around at the scene right in front of me. In the lane to my right was a brand new Cadillac. It was gorgeous -- one of Detroit's finest productions. It could well have been a Chrysler LHS or a Lincoln Town Car. Those too would have counted as one of Detroit's finest. It just so happens it was a Cadillac. In the lane to my left was a big tractor-trailer truck carrying thousands of pounds of cargo -- a semi. On each of the four corners of this intersection were valuable pieces of business real estate, and walking across the street in front of us was one of the most pathetic looking human beings I have ever seen. She was old and dissipated; her mouth drooped to one side; her clothes were a conglomeration of dirty rags; and she dragged one foot behind the other in a kind of limp. As I observed this scene a thought suddenly struck me. What if you were coming up to this intersection and suddenly realized that your brakes were not working and you were going to have to hit something? Of all the objects here, which would you choose to sacrifice and which would you choose to save? I realized at once that this wouldn't be such a hard decision. I would have instinctively tried to save the woman no matter what damage might have been done to the material objects. I would have chosen to hit the Cadillac or the semi or one of the pieces of real estate -- anything to avoid hitting the human being, and I am sure you would have reacted in the same way. All of us have been steeped in the traditions of Western Civilization, and the primacy of persons over property is a central tenet of this particular value system. If you set a human being and a thing side by side and ask, "Which is of the greater value?", Western Civilization has always pointed to the person. However, that day just a few weeks ago as I sat in my car, I found myself calling this long-standing tradition into question. We have always been told that people are more important than property, but why? On what foundation does such a value-judgement rest? If you stop automatically and press back for the reason behind this tradition, what is the basis for saying that the pathetic old woman is more valuable than a shiny new car or the semi or those business houses? It is a question that every thoughtful person will eventually ask when he or she ceases to be a child and starts thinking for himself, and it goes to the very roots of life itself and how we relate to things. What I want us to do this morning is to dig behind this as if for the first time and ask, "Why? On what foundation does such an assertion rest?"

Several possibilities immediately come to my mind as I turn that question over and probably to yours too. Perhaps the primacy of persons over things lies in their inherent attractiveness. After all, human personality is fascinating and intriguing. There is a beauty and mystery about people that you do not find in things and such inherent uniqueness could well be the distinguishing mark. I am told that when Henry Luce and his colleagues founded TIME magazine, they made a conscious decision to deal with the news in terms of the people who were making it, and isn't that the secret of why that magazine is so popular? The public is not all that interested in an abstract discussion of issues, but they are attracted to the human dimension. This confirms the inherent attractiveness of personality. But in all honesty, is this characteristic strong enough to support the principle that human beings always and everywhere are of more value than material objects? I do not think so. For you see, while some people are obviously beautiful and intriguing, all people are not. As a matter of fact, there was little inherent attractiveness about that woman limping across the street. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the Cadillac and even the buildings possessed more beauty than this little woman. Had the decision been made about what to sacrifice and what to save been made in terms of attractiveness, the human being in that situation would have come out a poor third. There are beautiful people in the world, to be sure, but not all people are beautiful, and if this is the primary criterion, it does not provide a universal foundation for saying people are always more important than property.

Another possible answer lies in what human beings are capable of doing. It can be argued that humankind possesses more creative powers than material objects. The range of things a person can do far exceeds that of a car or a truck or a building. In terms of accomplishment and productivity, humans rise above the material realm, and this is the basis for their being valued more highly. Once again, there is a kernel of truth here, for there are fantastically capable human beings before whom we stand in awe when we view their accomplishments. Einstein, Schweitzer, Madame Curie -- each one of these were persons of creative genius. But once again, is this an adequate foundation for a universal principle? I think not, for again, what can be said of some people can hardly be said of all people. Not every human being is all that productive.

Look again at the scene at my intersection. That little woman limping across the street was not the most powerful entity in that setting. Let's face it, the truck could carry much more cargo, the Cadillac could give much more social esteem, and the business property could earn more income in a month than this one woman could earn in years. Here was a person who obviously had not developed any particular competence. There were probably very few things that she could do that society would call productive, and therefore, once again, had I approached that intersection solely from the vantage point of functional usefulness, the woman would not have been of value to be saved at the expense of everything else. In terms of productivity, she was probably at the bottom of the scale, and what was true of her is true of a vast host of human beings. They are not all that skilled or capable or creative, and if you evaluate them solely in terms of their utility, their primacy over material objects becomes a debatable point indeed.

If then a foundation is not to be found in inherent attractiveness or functional utility, on what does this ancient value-judgement rest? As I pondered this question long and hard, I came to the conclusion that there is only one answer, and that is to be found in the religious realm. It goes back to God, the Creator of all things, and how he evaluates the works of his hands. You see, he is the one who originally singled out persons as the most precious gift of all he created, and the vaunted humanism of our Western Civilization rests ultimately on that affirmation. The Book of Genesis makes it clear that things were made for human beings and not human beings for things. The material order is here for fulfilling of the human order and not the other way around, and this Divine declaration remains the only abiding foundation for this most basic of all our value judgements.

Perhaps you can understand the nature of this foundation more clearly if I compare it to something that happened in our family some years ago. My two older children, now college students, were small, probably about 3 and 6 years old. One afternoon I was washing the family car and they came out and wanted to help. I was feeling expansive, so I said, "If you work hard, I'll give you each 25 cents." We finished the job and I went inside to begin to prepare supper when I remembered the promise I had made. I went to my wallet and discovered that I only had one quarter. Fortunately, I had some other loose change, so without thinking a great deal about it I proceeded to put the quarter at Joshua's plate and two dimes and five pennies at Miracle's plate. However, as soon as the children got to the table and saw what was there a howl of protest arose. My son looked at his pay and then at his sister's and immediately charged me with being grossly unfair. "Look," he said, "you gave her seven and you've only given me one!" I said, "Wait a minute, son. You don't understand. This is a quarter, and it is worth 25 cents. This is a dime which is worth 10 cents and the pennies are worth one cent." Whereupon he looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why? Why is this one worth 25 cents and this one 10 cents and this one just one cent?" Now to be honest with you, I have never considered the foundations of numismatics, but when one is under the gun, she thinks rapidly. It suddenly dawned on me that the value of coins, as least the way they are made nowadays, is not based on inherent qualities. If you melted down each one to its bare metallic value, I am sure there would be little difference. Neither could you say that quarter was much prettier than a dime or a penny. I realized in a flash that the ultimate value of each of these coins wrested solely on the United States Treasury Department, the source responsible for their existence, who declared a quarter to be worth 25 cents, a dime to be worth 10, and a penny to be worth one. The value was determined ultimately by the creating source.

And what is true of coins is true of all creation. The ultimate reason why persons are to be valued more than property is not found in their natures, but in God's nature. His evaluation is what is decisive here, which is what the writer of the Eighth Psalm was trying to say. One night that ancient Hebrew stood out under the stars and found himself asking the question that must have occurred to everyone at some time or another, "When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars and all Thy hand has made, what is man that Thou considereth him?" In other words, amid all the immensities of stellar space, what value could one tiny human being possess? Who can I possibly be in relation to all this? The answer that comes back is significant indeed. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. Thou has crowned him with glory and honor." The key word here is the pronoun "Thou." Our value as human beings rests ultimately on God's valuation. Out of all he has created, human personality is designated as having the greatest value, and our preeminence over the material universe is based on that fact and that fact alone. Jesus makes the same point by commanding folks to 'love their neighbor as themselves' only after he commanded them to 'love the Lord the God with all their heart and mind and soul and strength.' The sequence here is very important. You see, until we love God totally; that is, let him become Lord of our lives and accept his perspective on things, we really have no reason to love our neighbor as ourselves. Human beings assume importance when God's perspective is taken seriously. Only when we allow God "to price creation" so to speak, do we find a basis for regarding human personality as the highest of all values. This means that what is called humanism rests ultimately on a religious foundation. The ultimate reason for hitting the

Cadillac or the trailer-truck or the building on the corner rather than the woman comes down to a three-letter word - GOD. It is he who has made this ethical distinction, not we humans ourselves. And needless to say, such a conclusion has far reaching implications.

For one thing, it has a definite historical significance, for it helps us understand how our Western Civilization has developed so differently from the East. However, of even more urgent importance is the challenge set before us as to how a human society is to be developed and preserved. To assume that we can achieve this without any religious assumptions would be folly indeed. The history of our Twentieth Century gives glowing evidence of this fact. The Russian philosopher Nicholai Berdyaev is correct when he observes, "Where there is no God, eventually there will be no man." Whenever the Divine perspective is lost or forgotten or abandoned, when God's value judgement on things is put to the side, then the stage is set for the eruption of all kinds of inhumanity and brutality.

This is exactly what happened in Germany over 50 years ago. The rise of the Nazi Party to power signified a break with the basic religious traditions that goes all the way back to the Old Testament and are foundational of Western Civilization. In the ideology of the Third Reich, human beings were no longer regarded from a Divine perspective, but rather were judged by what they were inherently or what they could do productively. And what happened when the vantage point shifted? Six million people were exterminated because of what they were; namely, Jews, and this was justified by Hitler out of a demonic racial prejudice. Also, thousands of German people were eliminated because they were old or mentally retarded or had some kind of weakness that made them of no productive value to the state. You see, when something other than the Divine evaluation became the prime criterion of evaluating human beings, what resulted was a holocaust of inhumanity the likes of which we have never witnessed before. Here in the events of our own century is proof that "where there is not God, eventually there will be no man." What we must realize is that humane civilization is a flower that comes from a specific root system. Humaneness does not come to be all by itself. It needs a certain soil and root system to produce and sustain it. And what are these supporting realities? The soil is God himself and his declaration about what is most important. The roots or stems are the willingness to let God be God and to live in harmony with his will. When this is the spirit of a person or a society, then humaneness will flower forth as the fruition of the process. There is a reason for holding human personality in high regard and treating all persons with reverence and love. But where such soil and roots are not present and human beings are looked at solely in terms of how attractive or useful they may be, many will inevitably appear distasteful or unproductive and justification will be found to do to "the undesirables" what the Germans did to the Jews and the weak. We must never forget that the love of God is the soil out of which the love of humanity grows, and when you uproot the one from the other, drastic things happen. In one of his parables, Jesus describes a certain judge as one who "neither feared God nor regarded man," (Luke 18) and I contend these two realities go together. All humans are neither attractive enough in themselves or capable enough to assure ultimate reverence. Only what God says about human beings is a bulwark against rampant inhumanity, and this is a realization we must never loose sight of if we are to survive.

Which brings me back to where we started -- my stop at that intersection. One day I found myself at a busy intersection in Birmingham. On one side was a Cadillac, on the other a trailer truck, on each corner a piece of expensive real estate, and a pathetic human was limping across in front of all of us. Which of these objects is the most precious? I knew the traditional answer, but I asked the question, "Why?" Why was that woman more important than that car or truck or business property? Was it because she was inherently more attractive than all the rest? No. Was it because of her creative capacity? No. The reason isn't even about her -- it is about God. God has declared that human personality is his most precious creation, so where there is no God, eventually there will be no man. It was so scary a few weeks ago to read in the paper that many persons no longer believe that the Holocaust happened ... and a new generation is rising up that doesn't even know about it. Oh God, help us keep the memory fresh ... lest we forget ... lest we forget.