TO SUBDUE THE ARROGANT
                                                by the Rev. Glenda C. Walker, Emerita

 

 

 

“I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant.”                              Isaiah 13:11

 

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.”                

                                                                                                   -  David Hume

 

“Business as usual. The usual rot. The power of arrogance.”    - Bill Moyers in a speech titled: “Restoring The Public Trust” 2/24/06

 

“…human beings can only pursue the truth and not ‘possess’ it, as many religious zealots claim to do.  Pursuit implies humility, acceptance, openness, and appreciation, while possession suggests arrogance, close mindedness and lack of appreciation.”     

                                                           -  GOD WITHOUT RELIGION by Sankara Saranam

 

“Spiritually minded individuals…strive not to enhance pride and arrogance but rather to acknowledge and dislodge them.” 

                                                            -  GOD WITHOUT RELIGION by Sankara Saranam

 

“Holy war inflames religion into arrogance…”

                                                                     -  AMERICAN THEOCRACY by Kevin Phillips

 

“And with the power that each of these [the religious right and the political right] has gained by their alliance, they have become ever more arrogant in trying to impose their worldview on everyone else in society. 

                                                                  -  THE LEFT HAND OF GOD by Michael Lerner

 

“Power without reverence is aflame with arrogance…”                   

                                                                                        -  REVERENCE by Paul Woodruff

 

“Fear is the parent of cruelty and insecurity and arrogance.” 

                                                                         -  J.A. Froude, English Historian, 1818-1894

 

“Feeling essentially superior to other people is as sure a sign of poor self-esteem as feeling essentially inferior.” 

                                                                           -  THE DANCE OF FEAR by Harriet Lerner

 

“Thucydides does not seem to fear the gods, but he fears human arrogance, and therefore he cares a good deal about reverence, which he treats as a cardinal virtue,

                                                                                          -  REVERENCE by Paul Woodruff

 

“Kipling wrote ‘Recessional’ as a reminder that power leads to arrogance, and arrogance to a fall.”  

                                                                                          -  REVERENCE by Paul Woodruff

 

PRELUDE

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

INVOCATION              written by the Rev. David O. Rankin

HYMN                                 For All That Is Our Life                               #128

READING        from LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN

                                    by James Agee and Walker Evans

OFFERTORY                         God is My Shepherd                 - Anton Dvorak

READING                     from REVERENCE by Paul Woodruff

SPECIAL MUSIC          Solo – Sally Stevens

SERMON

Have you noticed?  The French don't hold the franchise on arrogance anymore.

The epithets arrogant  and arrogance  appear today in newspaper and news magazine articles describing the behavior of corporate executives, political leaders, academic liberals, religious funda-mentalists, administrations and their policies, be those Hamas, Israel, North Korea, Iran, our own.

Arrogance leveled at corporations, administrations, and religions appears in books and speeches.  Witness the examples on the cover of the order of service, and I didn't even quote from CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN.  In his book John Perkins describes the arrogance of corporate individuals and leaders of our country and other countries in service of acquiring power and wealth.

Arrogance of an employee appeared in an advice column in the Sunday Business Section of the HERALD.  Arrogance was brought up in a conversation I had with an acquaintance frustrated by a co-worker.

 Arrogance stalks the land as it has in centuries past.

The prophet Isaiah railed against the arrogance of foreign powers to which the Hebrews were forced to submit in the Sixth Century BCE (Before the Common Era).  Isaiah declared:  "I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant."

In the Song of Hannah in the book of Samuel, we read: "Let not arrogance come from your mouth."     (I Samuel 2:3)

In the book of Proverbs, compiled after the Hebrews' return from captivity in Babylon, Lady Wisdom states:  "I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and duplicity in speech."

Yes, arrogance stalks the land as it has always stalked the land.  It does so in the hearts and minds of men and women.

I have, no doubt, exhibited arrogance myself upon occasion.

After his death, ABC showed a film clip of Peter Jennings in which he said that he had learned two important things over the years.  One was that:  "No one truth holds for everyone in the world."  "The other," he continued, as he turned an imaginary coin in his hand,” is that every time I look at a coin I instinctively want to look at the other side."

This morning I would like to look at the coin of arrogance with you and to turn that coin to look at its other side.

 

Arrogance is, according to Webster's Dictionary, "a genuine or assumed feeling of superiority that shows itself in an overbearing manner or attitude or in excessive claims of position, dignity, or power that unduly exalts one's own worth or importance."

 

The adjective "arrogant" is:  "having a feeling of superiority that shows or is inclined to show itself in an overbearing attitude or in claiming more consideration than is due one's position, dignity or
power."

In his work "Eclogues, the poet Virgil, who lived and wrote in the First Century BCE, challenged Roman Emperor Augustus :

     Others shall shape bronzes more smoothly so that they seem alive . . .  shall mold from
      marble living faces, shall plead their cases in court, and shall demonstrate with a pointer
     the motions of the heavenly bodies and tell the stars as they rise:
     you, Roman, make your task to rule nations by your government (these shall be your
     skills), to impose ordered ways upon a state of peace, to spare those who have submitted

     and to subdue the arrogant.

I'm with Virgil.  As Virgil challenged Augustus, I challenge Unitarian Universalists to assume the prophetic role and to find a way to "subdue the arrogant."  However, first we must understand arrogance and the other side of its coin.  Only then will we be able to find a way to subdue it.

Not being a student of Roman history, I don't know what problems of arrogance in Virgil's time needed subduing, but I will suggest some examples from history, from our time, from my own experience.

King George II of England arrogantly controlled the American colonies. The American Revolution subdued his arrogance.  In India Gandhi subdued British colonial arrogance with his non-violent revolution.

In his pursuit of a master race, the arrogant Adolph Hitler carried out his "final solution:"  the extermination of six million jews, the mentally ill, gypsies, and homosexuals.  Hitler used force to extend his empire.  His arrogance was subdued by the counter force of those countries which together defeated him in WW II.

We can draw from history example after example of arrogant men who, hungry for power, presumed to conquer peoples, countries, whole continents of peoples to create and expand their empires, be they political or religious.


 

We can draw from history example after example of religious arrogance in the service of men's desire for power and control:  the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition . . .  Protestant Calvin burning Miguel Servetus at the stake in Geneva in 1553.  Servetus' heresy was his dissention from the concept of the Trinity.  He was unitarian in perspective.

 

Society continues to suffer today from the arrogance of preachers and priests - even people in the pews - who insist they have the one and only way to salvation and who consign to eternal damnation those who fail to adopt their presumed truth.  A prime example is Fred Phelps and the members of the Westborough Baptist Church in Kansas City, who picket the funerals of soldiers because, according to Phelps, of this country's increasing acceptance of homosexuality.

 

We can draw example after example of political arrogance in this country, whether it is Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy who, in service of power, went on a witch hunt for communists or Republican legislators who redistricted the state of Texas, gerrymandering by race to acquire more seats in the legislature they already controlled but were in danger of losing.

News anchorman Edward R. Murrow subdued Joe McCarthy. The Supreme Court has subdued gerrymandering by deciding (in June of 2006) that redistricting could be done between census years but could not be done by race or ethnic group.

Lest you think me partisan, in my opinion Bill Clinton was arrogant in delivering interminable speeches and in using his position to establish a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinski, then denying it.

We can draw example after example of corporate and lobbying arrogance. Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Jack Abramoff immediately come to mind.

Arrogant men sexually harass females in the workplace or abuse their wives and/or children at home.  Arrogance isn't exclusively male, of course.  I was privy to a situation in Oklahoma in which a wife was abusing her husband.

Suicide bombers exhibit incredible arrogance in taking lives to assure their martyrdom and presumably a special place in heaven with Allah and a plethora of virgins.

Thank God for those who work to subdue arrogance.  Thank God for Jesus, Gandhi, the Reformation's Martin Luther, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Edward R. Murrow, the American Civil Liberties Union, and those who follow them.

Enough, already.  Too much, already!  And I haven't even mentioned the arrogance, the evil of slavery, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

What's behind arrogance?  What is the other side of its coin?

When I began to look at the issue, my immediate and instinctive response to the other side of the coin of arrogance was:  "Insecurity. Insecurity is the flip side of the coin of arrogance."

I have learned from experience that when one is secure in one's beliefs, one's faith, one's religion . . .  one's self . . .  it is sufficient, when asked or given the opportunity, to state one's beliefs and describe one's faith or religion.  One doesn't have to proselytize, to convince, to convert others.  If my beliefs, faith, or religion seem reasonable to others, they will decide for themselves if it has value for them and join or not join me. 

 

To proselytize, to serve with the aim of converting, smacks of insecurity.  If we have to harangue, badger, coerce, use force or offer service in an effort to get people to adopt our perspective, we are not secure in our conviction that our way is best, right, or true.  We exhibit an underlying insecurity that necessitates - no, demands - the conversion of others.

Now a personal, yet more positive, example.

The first year I was in Divinity School, I went home to visit my family in New Jersey at Thanks-giving time.   Dad was driving me nuts.  He kept insisting we go to look for snow tires for my car.  I resisted.  I felt bullied:  something I'd never felt before with Dad.

 

"As though at age 52 I'm not capable of taking care of myself," I said to myself.   Dad was being arrogant, from my perspective, as if I were a child and he still had to tell me what to do and make sure I did it!

Then one day as we were going down the cellar steps together and Dad was again insisting we go get snow tires, I suddenly realized:  "He's afraid!  He's afraid something will happen to me!"

Not wanting him to be afraid, I said:  "OK, Dad, let's go."  We went. We found snow tires at a good price in an auto junk yard.  (Dad knew the owner.)  I had fun that afternoon with Dad.

Underlying arrogant behavior is not simply insecurity; it's fear.

What are they afraid of?  People who exhibit arrogance?

Dad?  That I might have an accident on a snow-packed New England road and be injured, even killed.  The implications for him were obvious.  He loved me and still felt a sense of responsibility for me.

What is the proselytizer afraid of?  That he will not be acceptable to God if he doesn't convince the unbeliever of the "truth" of his religion?  An unconscious or subconscious sense that his truth is called into question if others don't buy into it?

I went to a Billy Graham crusade in Minneapolis years ago.  I was astonished to learn that there were shills in the audience.   At the call to come down and be saved, the shills were the first to go forward to facilitate the willingness of others to go forward. What manipulation!  What arrogance!  What were the crusaders afraid of?  That people wouldn't - on their own -  have the courage to answer the altar call and the crusade would fall flat?

"Oh, ye of little faith," was my reaction watching the charade unfold before me that day in a Minnesota stadium.

Insecurity and fear lead to a struggle for power and control.  Power and control are ephemeral, temporary.  They have to be defended.


 

For example, in her book FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, psychologist Alice Miller gives the back-ground of Adolph Hitler.  He was the son of an unwed mother, a servant in the home of a Jewish family.  There is speculation that Hitler's father was the head of the household.  Pregnant, Hitler's
mother left her position and later married.  Her husband abused and abandoned Hitler.

In her book, Miller speculates that if Hitler had had children, he would have abused his children rather than the Jews.

Another example.  In the biography THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOE MC CARTHY, Thomas C. Reeves quotes contemporaries of McCarthy.  Here are two quotes from the book: 

 

      Clifford Mularky, who had met Joe in Manawa and walked with him to the stadium,
      admired his boldness and later reflected upon his friend's intense determination
      to be somebody.  (emphasis mine)

      (I'm reminded of a "Dennis the Menace" cartoon.  Dennis is filling a wading pool

       while Joey stands by ready to launch a toy sailboat.  Dennis says to Joey:  "The secret,

       Joey, is to know you're somebody without thinking you're somebody.")

The second quote from Reeves' biography of McCarthy is from Miles McMullin.  McMullin said: "He [McCarthy] seems to have no other interest than political power."

McCarthy died a devastated man, broken by Edward R. Murrow's confrontation and the ground-swell of opposition it engendered to McCarthy and his witch hunt.  Reeves presents evidence that McCarthy falsified his military record:  an obvious effort to "be somebody." McCarthy didn't know he was somebody.  We are all somebody!

Bill Clinton and his mother were abused by his stepfather until Bill was big enough to physically confront his stepfather.  How secure can a man be growing up under such conditions?

And how would it feel to be a man who has struggled with learning disabilities all his life, then be offered political position and power only because you are the son of a president and, therefore, electable? How secure would you be?  How important would power and control be to you?

Low self esteem, insecurity, and fear, with the anger that may accompany them, may well drive the struggle for power and control.

Power and control, wealth and fame, are ephemeral:  temporary. Administrations are voted out; regimes are overthrown.  Wealth is lost. Ask anyone who lived through the depression of 1929.

Women take their children and leave abusive husbands.  Movie stars lose their looks.  Athletes their athletic prowess.  Unethical CEOs, congressmen, and lobbyists are found out and wind up in prison.

Charles Schultz' characters Charlie Brown and Lucy are picnicking on Linus' blanket.  Linus appears, pulls his blanket out from under them with a flourish and announces:  "The struggle for security is no picnic!"

The struggle for security is not only no picnic, it is indicative of a failure of both courage and an understanding of reality.

In a discussion of Alan Watts' book THE WISDOM OF INSECURITY, a friend suggested that:  "The source of evil is the drive for security."

"Wow!" I thought.  "I'll have to think about that."

There is no security.  The nature of the Universe is change.  Nothing - in the final analysis - is secure.  We are born to die.  Some of us early:  witness the boy on the back of the school bus that was rear ended by a semi in western Wisconsin and Father Gross of Church of the Resurrection who died in an automobile accident in an intersection west of Wausau.

Not only is life ephemeral, temporary.  Power and control, wealth and fame are as well.  The depression of '29 proved the ephemeral nature of wealth.  Saddam Hussein, Randy (Duke) Cunningham, Bull Connor, George Wallace, political figures - Democratic and Republic - deposed or voted out of office, prove the ephemeral nature of power and control.  Fame fades along with skill, looks, and sometimes behavior.

In his book THE FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES, Josef Pieper, German Thomist scholar and philosopher, states that there is a "persistent human desire to achieve security."  He goes on:  "All neuroses seem to have as a common symptom an egocentric impiety, a tense and self-centered concern for security."

Insecurity is our natural state, and the only authentic power we humans beings can hope to acquire and hold is the power over self:  power of attitude and behavior.

Witness those I've mentioned earlier:  Jesus and Gandhi, among them.  I would add the Buddha, who has helped millions understand and deal with insecurity.

Insecurity is a spiritual issue.  It is a symptom of spiritual immaturity or spiritual poverty:  a failure to understand  and accept the nature of reality.  It is a failure to know we're somebody and that everyone else is somebody whether they are rich or poor, more or less skilled, more or less intelligent, of a different race or culture.  We are all born with the death penalty as the friar reminded the little king when the king asked the friar what he thought of the death penalty.  We are all subject to whims of chance and change.  No one has the right to be arrogant.  Humility in the face of our common lot is the only appropriate attitude to adopt in our relationships, whether in relationship to spouse, children, parents, friends, neighbors, fellow citizens of the town, city, state, country, world.

Bill Gates has learned that, with the help of his wife, Melinda and with his father as a role model.  So has Warren Buffet.  They are giving millions to the effort to control, if not eliminate, AIDS in Africa. They have been in Africa.  They understand and accept their common humanity with victims of the AIDS epidemic.

 

Spiritual poverty is exhibited in arrogance and lack of respect.  It is exhibited in the failure to understand what Paul Woodruff in his book REVERENCE states:


 

    “. . . none of us is all-powerful or immortal . . . no one can play god and get away with
    it.  We will all die, we will all make mistakes.  We all together seek to maintain an
    orderly system that is least vulnerable to hubris, to the violence of mind or action that
    comes from forgetting our common human limitations.  An act of respect represents the
    thought that I cannot get away with treating you like dirt, no matter how powerful I am.
    No matter how low, how immature, how foolish, or how weak in mind I think you are,
    reverence does not allow me to overlook our common humanity . . .”

Or, as James Agee states in his book LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN:
      "[A person's] true meaning . . . .  is that he exists, in actual being, as you do and

       as I do . . . . His great weight, mystery, and dignity are in this fact."

 

Arrogance is a failure to understand and accept our common limitations as well as our common great weight, mystery and dignity.   Arrogance is the failure to reverence ourselves and others.  We are all equally incarnations of the holy, all equally a miracle of being.  We must accept our common insecurity and subdue arrogance when it is exhibited.

How?

Some suggest arrogance be subdued with ridicule.   If you're getting the same e-mails I'm getting, you know there's plenty of ridicule going around these days.  I am uncomfortable with ridicule.  I am not uncomfortable with disagreement on issues of the day, but, from my perspective, ridicule is disrespectful and fails to understand the insecurity and fear that underlie arrogance:  which is why I object to people making fun of George Bush's speech and reading problems.

I would suggest beginning a dialogue by respectfully asking the person behaving arrogantly:  "What is causing you to be insecure on this issue?  What are you afraid will happen?"

Denial might be the first response we receive.  If so, we can go further and explore the possible reasons for insecurity or fear.  I could have done that with Dad.  If I hadn't intuitively understood his fear, I could have asked:  "What are you worried about, Dad?" or even:  "I wonder why I'm feeling pushed by you, Dad?"

There are things we can do to build a better foundation for respect and reverence of ourselves and others.  We can make it mandatory for our children to read - first in high school, then again in college – James Agee's and Walker Evan's LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN.  We will need to read the book ourselves so we can discuss it with our children.  It is a sensitive, respectful, reverent description of tenant cotton farmers in the midsouth whom Agee and Evans encountered in July and August of 1936.

Agee writes about their project:  ". . . this is an independent inquiry into certain normal predicaments of human divinity."

 

We can require community service in high school and college:  community service working with those who struggle with poverty or mental illness or racism, for example.  We can do community service ourselves so we understand people of other cultures and socio-economic status and are
more able to discuss those issues with our children.

Chris Hedges in his book LOSING MOSES ON THE FREEWAY recounts his experience doing community service in Roxbury, Massachusetts, when he was in Divinity School.  Community service in Roxbury was life altering for Chris.

There are no doubt other things you can suggest.   I would also suggest reading Buddhist Alan Watts book THE WISDOM OF INSECURITY.  That wouldn't go over in the public school setting.  The religious right would see to that.  They are insecure, afraid.

I end with the words of Rebecca Ann Parker, Dean of our UU Star King School for the Ministry in Berkley, California.  In the summer, 2006, issue of the UU WORLD, Parker writes:
    

        Reverence for life has to be learned.  It is not just a feeling; it is a way of life

        that is manifested in more than an isolated moment of appreciation for
        nature or awe before its destructive or creative power.  Reverence involves

        full-fledged devotion enacted in deeds of care and responsibility.  It involves

        knowledge, study, and attention.

It does indeed and it is a spiritual issue.              AMEN

 

 

HYMN                               One More Step                                  #168

BENEDICTION           written by the Rev. Eugene B. Navias

POSTLUDE                        We Sing to Him                       - Henry Purcell