Virtue Is its Own Reward
UU Fellowship of Midland, MI
May 16, 2004
Jane Thickstun

Reading

The reading is by Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emporer and philosopher.  His Meditations, from which the reading is taken, is a famous work of the Stoic school of philosophy.

            If mortal life can offer you anything better than justice and truth, self-control and courage – that is, peace of mind in the evident conformity of your actions to the laws of reason, and peace of mind under the visitations of a destiny you cannot control – if, I say, you can discern any higher ideal, why, turn to it with you whole soul, and rejoice in the prize you have found.  But if nothing seems to you better than the deity which dwells within you, directing each impulse, weighing each impression, abjuring . . . the temptations of the flesh, and avowing allegience to the gods and compassion for [humanity]; if you find all else to be mean and worthless in comparison, then leave yourself no room for any rival pursuits.  For if you once falter and turn aside, you will no longer be able to give unswerving loyalty to this ideal you have chosen for your own.  No ambitions of a different nature can contest the title to goodness which belongs to reason and civic duty; not the world’s applause, nor power, nor wealth, nor the enjoyment of pleasure.  For a while there may seem to be no incongruity in these things, but very quickly they get the upper hand and sweep a [person] off his balance.  Do you then, I would say, simply and spontaneously make your choice of the highest, and cleave to that.

Sermon

            Does it sometimes seem like the world is going to hell in a handbasket?  And American society in particular?

            The recent reports of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by their American guards disgusted me, but it didn’t surprise me.  They’re trying to determine if it was just a few bad eggs, or if it is part of a bigger problem.  I think it’s part of a much bigger problem, one that goes way beyond the military. 

            It seems to me that we’re losing sight of the values that enable people to live together.  Our capitalistic economy with its focus on the bottom line is being paralleled by a social structure where what counts is money and power. 

            In the Enron scandal,  corporate leaders gained millions of dollars while their employees lost their retirement savings and stockholders lost their investments.  Again, I get the feeling that this was not just a few bad eggs, but a symptom of a society that condones corporate greed and individual greed.

            I recently read something that suggested something like 75% of students cheat.  Actually, I think it was in Doonesbury, so I don’t know how accurate it is, but still – it wouldn’t surprise me. 

            The rise in pornography disturbs me too.  I used to struggle with the issue of free speech in relation to pornography, but not anymore.  Anything that degrades and even does violence to women, not to mention children, is wrong, in my mind.  And I don’t listen to current rock music or see the videos, but I understand the lyrics and the visual effects are practically pornographic.  They send a message that women are to be valued only for their sexual appeal, and I’m not sure what other messages they might be sending–  about violence, for instance.

            I happen to be one of the millions who watched the show, “Friends”, that just ended an 11-year run.  I got hooked watching it in reruns, and the early shows were really good.  Actually the pilot, the very first show, was the best, and the first few seasons were high quality.  They showed a group of young people who cared about each other, and helped each other get through the trials of getting started in life.  There were poignant moments and lots of tenderness.  At some point though, it started to change.  The humor was based more and more in the characters saying mean things to each other, and the characters seemed to get less and less mature as they got older, instead of more so.  It’s just the opposite of what I observed about MASH – another long-running TV comedy show.  That show got more mature as it aged, it got better and better.  As for “Friends,” I never heard or read anything that suggested anyone else noticed the decline– people seem to feel it kept its quality right up to the end.  So I wonder if what happened to “Friends” is just reflective of trends in our larger society.

            The dominant rule these days seems to be “look out for Number One,” which means “get as much as you can for yourself, even at the expense of others, and just don’t get caught.”  It feels like an “anything goes” atmosphere.  There’s no morality anymore, no talk of duty, only rights.  The values that predominate in American society today are fame, power, wealth, and the enjoyment of pleasure.   And it’s OK to get these things by any means.  People’s behavior often seems mean and shallow, even selfish and ugly.  

            On the other extreme, there’s the religious right, who talks plenty about morality.  They deplore the lack of morality in American society, but what they would replace it with is their own value system.   The sense of morality that they would impose on all of us is narrow and prudish, and is based on a set of absolute rules that everyone must follow.  It is black-and-white thinking, that allows for no gray areas.  It claims as an authority the god that is revealed in the bible, and takes the bible as the literal truth, and the only source of knowledge about right and wrong.  I find it interesting though, that so many people talk in an authoritative way about knowing God’s will– God wants this and God wants that – and they apparently believe God talks to them here and now, yet  they don’t acknowledge that God might reveal new truth that wasn’t contained in the bible.  They limit God to conform to their definition, and the bible must conform to their interpretation. 

            A letter to the editor in Friday’s paper says, “The only way to find truth is to read the scriptures.  There are two ways to go in life and that is truth or a lie, right or wrong, day or night, good or bad.  Every issue in life is clearly explained in the word of the truth (God’s holy word).  It tells what is right and wrong that pertains to mankind from the beginning to the end of life.”

            This black-and-white thinking is found in the abstinence-only sex education that is taking over in our schools.  It is found in the moves to define marriage as between a man and a woman only.  It is found in the view that abortion is simply wrong in all cases.  It is found in the view that if you don’t agree with what our president is doing, you don’t love this country.  This black-and-white thinking that doesn’t allow for situations or conscience to play a role in ethical decision-making is found mostly in people who look to an authority rather than their own conscience in matters of morality.

            It sometimes seems like there are only two ways people are going these days - embracing a rigid black-and-white morality, or a total rejection of morality.

            It seems to me that both extremes are getting further entrenched, further from each other.  The moral rules get stricter and louder, the rejection of morality gets more and more brazen.  Both are losing sight of what life is all about. 

            True morality comes from the source of wisdom and truth deep within the soul:  that point at which we connect with something larger than ourselves, that part of us that is divine.  The god within is the best barometer of right and wrong, not a set of rules, no matter where those rules come from. 

            As Unitarian Universalists we believe that each individual has a conscience that is the ultimate authority not only in determining religious truth and meaning, but right from wrong.  We believe that each of us can hear the voice of God, or the voice of reason, by listening deep inside our souls. 

            Our noble forbear, Mr. Emerson says, “the assumption that inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed; . . . indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. . . . They think society wiser than their soul, and know not that one soul, and their soul, is wiser than the whole world. . . . Once leave your own knowledge of God, your own sentiment, and take secondary knowledge, . . . and you get wide from God with every year this secondary form lasts. . . .”  (Divinity School Address)

            The point Emerson is making is that the deepest truth, the greatest wisdom, is found in the soul of each individual.  Emerson in particular warned again and again against turning to outside authorities instead of the authority of the highest within ourselves.

            It’s important to distinguish that when we look within ourselves to determine what is right and good to do in any situation, there may be more than one voice clambering for our attention.  The voice of self-interest always seems to be the loudest.  It even has a knack for disguising itself as the voice of reason, trying to make us think that what it is suggesting is the best, the most morally right, the most virtuous alternative, when really our duty lies elsewhere.  It’ll say something like “I really can’t raise my pledge to the fellowship this year, because I really   need that 50-foot boat.”  It will tell you all the reasons buying the boat is the morally right choice, and you will willingly believe it, because it’s telling you what you want to hear.  Isn’t it nice when the moral choice coincides with our desire?

            But if we examine it, we can usually tell the difference.  It’s possible to know what we need to do, even if it’s not what we want to do.  And it’s important to do what’s right.

            Why?  Not to get brownie points with your boss or your spouse.  Not to get rewards in another life.  Not to avoid punishment.

            It’s important to do right because that’s how we flourish as human beings, as citizens of the world and of the universe. 

            It’s important to do right because that’s how we earn our self-respect. 

            It’s important to do right because that’s how we become free, how we realize our freedom.

            Freedom and responsibility are flip sides of the same coin.  We exercise our freedom by behaving responsibly.  Virtuous acts set us free.  Acting in accordance with what is right brings contentment and happiness. 

            When I was a child of maybe eleven or twelve, I was aware that I sometimes experienced a deep happiness that had nothing to do with my external circumstances.  I remember asking my big brother if he thought a person could be happy all the time.  I can’t remember what he said exactly, but it was something like you have to work to get somewhere, and then you can be happy.  It was a definition of happiness that depends on having or achieving certain things.  I remember feeling like he didn’t understand, he didn’t know about this kind of happiness.

            Marcus Aurelius says, “If you do the task before you always adhering to strict reason with zeal and energy and yet with humanity, disregarding all lesser ends and keeping the divinity within you pure and upright, as though you were even now faced with its recall – if you hold steadily to this, staying for nothing and shrinking from nothing, only seeking in each passing action a conformity with nature and in each word and utterance a fearless truthfulness, then shall the good life be yours.  And from this course no man has the power to hold you back.” (Meditations, p. 60)

            On the other hand, he says, “the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action.” (Meditations, p. 139)

            The “good life” Marcus promises us isn’t a life filled with material goods or lots of pleasure or power.  It’s a life that feels in synch with the natural world, a life that feels in synch  with pure goodness.  It’s a life filled with that kind of happiness I felt as a child, that can lift you up even when there aren’t any good things in your life.

            In one sense there is no correlation between goodness and happiness. A just universe would reward people for good actions and punish people for wrongful actions.  But life isn’t fair. Plenty of bad things happen to good people.  And plenty of good things seem to happen to people who knowingly harm others.  For instance, most of the Enron executives seem to have gotten away with their money.  It may feel like they won by cheating.  They did get what they wanted.  And maybe they even consider themselves happy in my brother’s sense, in a conventional sense.

            But such people will never be happy in that other sense.  They will never feel the deep joy that a soul in right relation with the universe can feel.  While they may be able to sleep at night, they will never be able to experience a true self-respect.

            In that sense there is justice.

            Virtue is its own reward.

            Virtue is worth pursuing, indeed, it is the way to the good life.  Our dignity as individuals is served by our serving something higher than our own self-interest.  We can aim no higher than to seek to be good.

            And the source of goodness lies within us.

            Marcus says, “Dig within.  There lies the well-spring of good: ever dig, and it will ever flow.” (Meditations, p. 115) And he says, “Withdraw into yourself.  Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm.” (Meditations, p. 110)  

            I wish you the all the rewards of a virtuous life.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland is recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association as a Welcoming Congregation. We welcome, affirm, promote and celebrate the full participation of all persons in all of our activities without regard to age, gender, sexual orientation, race or any other such category of exclusion.

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