TRUST
A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer
 Delivered at First UU Congregation of Ann Arbor, May 1, 2005


Trust is the glue that holds individuals and societies together. It is essential 
for human existence.

If we do not trust ourselves, we cannot act. If we do not trust others, we 
cannot know love or friendship or collegiality, cannot visit restaurants or use 
traffic signals or take our ailing bodies to a doctor. If we do not trust the 
world, we cannot live comfortably with nature or our own bodies.

Margaret Fuller once exclaimed, "I accept the universe." To which a friend 
immediately responded, "Gad, woman, you'd better!"

Exactly! We'd better trust the universe, at least some people, and our own 
selves a good bit of the time if we are to function at all, much less happily or 
productively.

Trust, or mistrust, begins in the earliest moments of our lives. Dependent as 
we are on others at birth and for some years to come, we have no choice but 
to trust those in whose keeping we find ourselves. If we are well provided 
for and affectionately treated, trust becomes part of our way of being.

If our bodies are healthy and we are supported in our efforts to take control 
of our physical urges and to explore safely our environment so that we come 
confidently to a sense of our own autonomy, trust can develop as a vital part 
of our personality. 

If we are denied human warmth and the assurance that our bodily needs will 
be attended to, if we meet with constant frustration and chastisement or 
neglect, it is likely that we will grow into suspicious, insecure persons, 
unable to trust anything or anyone.

Erik Erikson, in his influential book of half century ago, CHILDHOOD 
AND SOCIETY, speaks of developing a sense of trust as "the first task of 
the ego." Our capacity for all the other elements of a healthy and happy 
life—described by Erikson as autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, 
intimacy, generativity, and integrity—depends first on our trusting both 
ourselves and others and the world in which we live.

Our sense of trust is enriched or diminished throughout our lives by the 
personal, social, and natural events that are the substance of our experience.

We do not live in an age or a place where trust is easy or prevalent.

On a global scale, consider the tens of millions of land mines implanted in 
over 90 countries. Innocent looking metal or plastic objects irresistible to a 
child's curiosity, a short cut through a deserted area to lessen the distance a 
woman must carry a heavy load, a seemingly safe field needing to be 
cultivated are all situations that can lead to death or dismemberment of 
innocent civilians, including children, because of land mines left behind by 
military forces. In Chechnya, in Bosnia, in Afghanistan, and too many other 
countries, you literally cannot trust the ground you walk on or the building 
you enter or the objects you pick up.

The situation for soldiers and civilians on all the several sides of the war in 
Iraq is the same. No one can trust a supposedly innocent car or bus or 
roadway or building—the other side could blow it up or a suicide bomber 
could detonate himself and you.

Surely one reason fewer people are flying after 9/11 is the fear of the plane 
being used as the four planes were on that terrible day.

In our own society, trust is much abused. The ease with which government 
officials evade the truth is well known; they call it spin. Some government 
officials, like Arthur Sylvester, argue that governments have a right, even a 
duty, to lie in certain circumstances.

Every lie erodes trust, as Tony Blair is finding out in England right now.

Advertising is built around what advertising executive Samm Baker once 
called "the permissible lie," that is, a lie that "helps to build profits."

Clergy, doctors, teachers, parents, even older children who take sexual 
advantage of the young not only wreak havoc in those lives, but make it 
harder for all of us to trust people in positions of authority. 

Where there are lies, it is hard to find trust.

Cynics describe paranoia as no longer a mental illness but as a keen insight 
into reality.

The motto of The X-Files spoke for our age: "Trust no one."

Or, as W.C. Fields put it many years ago, "Trust everybody, but cut the 
cards."

It is hard to trust. It probably always has been. Trust makes us vulnerable to 
being hurt and to looking foolish.

There is no better example of that than good old Charlie Brown. Every fall 
when Charles Schulz was alive, he did a cartoon that showed Charlie Brown 
racing up to kick the football being held for him by Lucy.  Every year she 
pulls up the ball just as he is ready to kick it, sending him sprawling to the 
ground looking like a sap for believing her. 

Lucy says that this is her challenge to Charlie Brown's "undying faith in 
human nature." 

Yes, trust can make a fool of us, but trust is a better option than mistrust, for 
us and for society.

Julian Rotter conducted a study among 20,000 students over two decades, 
from which he concluded that trust is an enduring and positive trait of the 
human species. He found that the more trusting people are, the more likable 
and the more trustworthy they are. 

The Charlie Browns of this world are the most beloved, the most pleasant, 
and the most reliable people we know.  They get things done. They build 
community. We like them. And, frankly, we like ourselves better when we 
know that we are trustworthy.

We cannot return to the beginning of our lives to build trust as a foundation, 
but we can take steps to increase the measure of our trustworthiness.

The first thing we can do is to learn to trust ourselves. If we do not believe in 
ourselves and in our own abilities, trust in others is distorted into a 
relationship of dependency or subjugation, or worse.

Those who do not trust themselves often take out their insecurities on others. 
It is easier to see our flaws in someone else.

I discovered a horrifying example of this kind of projection into others of 
our weaknesses in my doctoral studies in Christian anti-Semitism. 

Many scholars in the last century came to appreciate the degree to which 
anti-Semitism is an outgrowth of Christian believers' failure to accept the 
responsibility of being a follower of Jesus. He taught that we should be 
perfect as God is perfect, that we should turn the other cheek and go the 
second mile and forgive even our enemies. Very few human beings can live 
up to such high ideals.

Unable to condemn the founder of their religion for asking too much of 
them—that would be blasphemous—the rage and frustration of Christian 
believers who perceive how far short they have fallen must be directed 
elsewhere. Who better for this role of surrogate than Jesus' own people. In 
this mind-set, the reason Christianity has not really worked is because Jews 
won't follow Jesus. Jews are the cause of our, Christian, inadequacies. 

This hateful nonsense has been repudiated by most Christian leaders over the 
past half century, but so often through the centuries it was the cause of 
terrible meanness and murder.

Blaming others for our failures tells the world we do not trust ourselves. We 
hear that message a lot.

Children blame parents because they can't make anything of their lives. 

Parents blame their children for holding them back from career 
advancement. 

Addicts blame any one but themselves when things go wrong. 

Employees blame employers and employers blame employees for low 
production, poor profit margin, and an atmosphere of bickering and 
unhappiness.

We must learn not to blame others for our failings. If we cannot admit where 
we have gone astray, we cannot change or grow or realize our capacities.

Trusting ourselves enables us to do this. It is not easy, but it is justified. 
Each of us is worthy of trust. Each of us can do remarkable things.

I ground this conviction is what remains, 35 years after I first encountered it, 
the most important theological insight of my life.

The 19th century German philosopher, Ludwig Fueurbach, argued that the 
attributes humanity has customarily assigned to the Deity are in reality 
projections of our own human capabilities. We thrust these qualities of our 
own human-ness out of ourselves to a point above and beyond us where we 
can worship them as divine attributes. In this way we can evade 
responsibility for using these human potentialities.

Love, for example, said Fueurbach, is not a perfect characteristic of God. 
Love is God, the highest power and the noblest force there is. We bring that 
"God" into being by manifesting love in our lives.

So with justice and mercy and cooperation and sharing and creativity and 
loyalty and friendliness and the numerous other worthy attributes that we 
possess as part of our humanity. They lie there in us waiting to be brought to 
life.

Is this not the message of our Unitarian Universalist faith? Whether we are 
theists or atheists, Christians or humanists, we believe in the power of the 
person. We hold the principles of freedom and reason aloft because we 
believe that every individual has the capacity to use these principles wisely 
and humanely to develop their own theology and to do some good in the 
world. 

At the heart of our faith is a deep trust in every person. We who proclaim 
this faith have both the right and the responsibility to trust ourselves.  

The beginning of trust is in self-knowledge, knowing where we are weak 
and knowing our potential for good.

The beginning of trust is in trusting ourselves.

Openness is a second component of trust.

If we trust ourselves, then we can be open to others. We can reveal who we 
are, laugh at our foibles, be willing to change, use our gifts. Trusting 
ourselves, we can be open to who others are and learn from them rather than 
hide behind walls of defensiveness.

When we open ourselves to others, it is then possible for them to do the 
same with us, and there is mutual benefit. Countless numbers of us have 
learned this lesson if nowhere else then in therapeutic or non-therapeutic 
groups built around common problems or common interests. We share 
openly. We learn. We grow. We deepen our ability to trust.

The group where I have benefited the most from this kind of openness is the 
Senior Ministers of Large UU Congregations group. Those of us involved as 
the lead minister of congregations with more than 600 members meet 
annually for a seminar, meet at General Assembly, stay in touch via e-mail, 
and are not infrequently in phone contact. Each of us learns, quickly or 
slowly, that by revealing ourselves to the others, we can benefit from their 
similar openness about themselves. The learning has been invaluable, as this 
congregation has grown from a mid-sized to a large congregation. 

Of course, there is a risk involved in opening ourselves to others. Our 
feelings can be trampled, our sensitivities battered.

Jules Feiffer had a cartoon some years ago about a woman opening herself to 
love. Only her head was visible, alternately raised or lowered, smiling, grim, 
or watchful:
               "I open myself to love. I get hurt.
               I close myself to love. I get lonely.
               I reopen myself to love. I get clobbered.
               I close myself to love. I get depressed.
               I reopen myself to love. I get destroyed.
               I close myself to love. I self-destruct.
               I open myself to despair. 
               Safe."

Being open to others can hurt us, but not to be open leads to despair, the 
worst of all human conditions, hopeless, helpless, miserable.

Trust is what we need, not despair.

James MacGregor Burns, in an address at the ancestral home of James 
Madison in 1990, noted, "the remarkable thing about the political climate 
two centuries ago was trust." He referred to the fact that at the 1788 
convention in Virginia called to ratify the new Constitution; there was much 
concern about the intrusions on liberty of this new proposed government. 
But they set aside their reservations to vote for ratification on the promise 
that the first order of business of the new government would be the 
consideration of a series of so-called liberty amendments. The same thing 
happened in other state conventions and the Constitution was ratified.

Trust enabled that to happen. It was a trust that was honored, as the first 
order of business was the deliberation on those amendments that are now 
known as the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. 
They guarantee freedom of religion, of speech, of assembly, of a free press, 
due process, no cruel or unusual punishment, and much else. 

The Unitarian Universalist principle of tolerance is also about openness. 
Negatively we are open to ideas and practices we reject and find foolish—
we tolerate them—because positively by supporting a society and 
congregations that are open to diverse ways of thought and practice we 
sometimes find a wise insight or a meaningful ritual where we least would 
have expected them to be.

Since 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions at the latest, our religious 
movement has adopted the stance of openness to all the religions of the 
world. We were the first, but others have been following our lead over the 
past few decades. 

In a world where no religion is likely to become dominant, where every 
religion has need of repentance and repair, where the power of religion is 
needed to help create and sustain both justice and peace, it is essential that 
religions be open to each other.

Raimundo Panikkar—who identifies himself as Roman Catholic, a Hindu, 
and a Buddhist—noted in an essay exploring the roles and relationships of 
the world religions, that "what is needed is trust." 

Opening ourselves to others so that we can give to and receive from them is 
a necessary part of the process of trust.

We can also assume the best.

Trust sometimes asks of us that we pretend not to notice when words are 
spoken that are hurtful. Trust asks that we just ignore some gestures that 
pain us. Some things are not worth getting upset about, and by remaining 
even-tempered in the face of provocation we can sustain and strengthen a 
bond of trust.

There are occasions when every person will strike out in a cruel way, 
because we are tired, because we are ill, because we are feeling besieged, 
because we feel insecure. We are looking for reassurance, for attention, or 
maybe just letting go of frustration. 

To respond in kind to such expressions of inner weakness or anguish, even 
though such expressions appear to be malicious, erodes the trust between 
marriage partners, between a parent and child, between friends, between 
colleagues. Trying to understand what might have inspired such an unkind 
act can lead to a deeper, stronger relationship.

In other words, it is always better to assume a good intention until a wicked 
one is clearly established. It is always better to return trust for betrayal 
whenever we can. Sometimes doing so can have a transformative effect on 
the other person.

Many of us will remember Victor Hugo's novel, LES MISERABLES from 
French class or an English edition or the musical play or one of the films 
made from the story. Early in that tale Jean Valjean is released from prison 
after 19 years. He can find no one to take him in until a kindly priest does so. 
Hardened by years of imprisonment, Jean repays this kindness by stealing 
the silver from the rectory and fleeing. He is caught and returned to the 
priest's house so the police can discover if he is telling the truth when he 
says that the silver was a gift from the priest. Not only does the priest 
confirm this story, but he presses on Jean two candlesticks, which he says 
Jean had overlooked in his haste.

This is the turning point in Jean Valjean's life. He overcomes his bitterness 
and becomes a generous and kind man. This happens because the priest 
ignored what Jean had really done—steal the silver—choosing instead to 
trust some deep goodness he sensed or believed to be in this man.

This story illustrates the power of not responding in kind to evil done to us.
 It is an unusual, even an extreme story, and fictional. The story of Creina 
Alcock is not.

Neil and Creina Alcock were a white farming couple in South Africa. 
Because they detested the policy of apartheid, they chose to live among the 
poorest people of the land, the Zulus, in an area so poor it was called the 
Place of the Lost Grasses. They worked very hard with scant success to 
create a viable farm and to live harmoniously with their neighbors.

While trying to solve a tribal feud, Neil was murdered. Though he was 
shortly after that deified for his good life, no one expected Creina to remain 
on the farm. But remain she did. 

She chose to set aside the fact that her husband had been murdered. She 
chose to ignore the continued risk to her own life in such harsh conditions 
among a people hardened by centuries of living in harsh conditions. She 
chose to go on trusting the people and the process that she and Neil believed 
in. She knew that trust was risky, but more importantly she believed that 
trust was necessary.

Hers is one of the many stories that make up the great saga of South Africa, 
of black and white and colored people trusting each other when every 
circumstance of their lives calls on them to be suspicious and hateful. That 
South Africa has become a free and honorable nation among the nations is 
due not just to the courageous efforts of well-known figures like Nelson 
Mandela, but also to the lesser-known people like the Alcocks.

The capacity for ignoring things, for assuming good intentions, for trusting 
the process and not succumbing to the emotions of the moment, is not easy 
but it is certainly important. The poet Marianne Moore reminds us why in 
these lines: "As contagion of sickness makes sickness, so contagion of trust 
can make trust."
 
If governments as well as individuals accepted and practiced this principle, 
we could mitigate much of the hostility that darkens and threatens our world. 
Disagreements between people of different sexes, races, nationalities, 
economic conditions, and religions might then be occasions for learning 
rather than cause for battle.

To trust even when it does not seem merited is one of the highest moral acts 
of which humanity is capable.

Trust is essential to human life because trust is necessary for the community 
to even exist, and without community no individual could long exist. Trust is 
"a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water 
we drink." Those individuals, those activities, those institutions that nurture 
and extend trust deserve our support. Those which breed mistrust we must 
work to change.

It is not always easy to trust. The times are hard and human nature is 
imperfect. The comedy that is our Congress, the tragedy that is the greed of 
too many CEO's, the grim farce that is our health care delivery system, and 
many other parts of society that violate and betray and mock trust do make it 
difficult to be a trusting person.

But if we can learn to know and trust ourselves, if we can be open to other 
people and other ideas, if we can ignore certain bothersome things and put a 
good interpretation on other things that feel cruel to us so that we do not 
further mistrust but generate trust, then we will surely create and be able to 
sustain strong and caring communities with strong and caring people living 
in them.

As this congregation moves forward in September to its new life and 
Tawnya and I into ours, trust is one of the most important elements to take 
on these divergent journeys. May we be richly rewarded for being trusting 
people.


Copyright 2005, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved







BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.	Samm Sinclair Baker, THE PERMISSIBLE LIE: THE INSIDE 
TRUTH ABOUT ADVERTISING, Beacon Press, 1968.
2.	Sissela Bok, LYING: MORAL CHOICE IN PUBLIC AND 
PRIVATE LIFE, Pantheon Books, 1978.
3.	Erik H. Erikson, CHILDHOOD AND SOCIETY, W. W. Norton and 
Company, 1963.
4.	Ralph Keyes, THE POST-TRUTH ERA: DISHONESTY AND 
DECEPTION IN CONTEMPORARY LIFE, St. Martins, Press, 2004.
5.	Reinhold Niebuhr, MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY: A 
STUDY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS, Charles Scribner's Sons, 
1932.




12