The United Nations: Forgotten Successes and Remembered Failures

Realizing Our Global Conscience

En Español

Introduction:

In 1945, after the atrocities and horror of World War II, the United Nations was founded as a place for nations to settle differences. Many hoped that war would be eliminated, that social problems would be addressed and the evils and ills of humanity would be eroded allowing the virtuous spirit of humanity to grow.
While there is still war and injustice in the world, the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office continues to stand by the ideals set forth in the Charter of the United Nations. To continue this important work, we invite you to join in our efforts. Celebrating UN Sunday in your congregations helps not only to educate about the work of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, but allows you to engage in conversation about the interconnectedness of the world.
Realizing Our Global Conscience. We ask you to consider this phrase and to reflect on how injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It is important to draw upon the concept of the social conscious and the effects that individual social action can have throughout the world.

Lighting the Chalice: "At Times Our Own Light"

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to thank with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schwietzer

Prayer:

Whenever we choose to leave the safety of a singular life ,be that one family or one person. We are making an act of courage. We are being daring. We are risking everything. When we come away from the safety of the morning newspaper, Leave the garden with its sure beauty of spring, Gather ourselves up and walk out the door it could shake our foundations ? we lose control more than we?re ready to bear. >From the look in the eyes of either a friend or stranger our hearts might break open from hurt or love. Who knows what will happen out here in the wild territory, even this place, this place where we pry ourselves open to be in the world.
Hymn:   A Hymn to the UN  Music: Pablo Casals   Words: W.H. Auden

Eagerly, musician.
Sweep your string,
So we may sing.
Elated, optative,
Our several voices
Interblending,
Playfully contending,
Not interfering
But co-inhering,
For all within
The cincture
of the sound,
Is holy ground
Where all are brothers,
None faceless Others,
Yet mortals beware
Of words, for
With words we lie,
Can say peace
When we mean war,
Foul thought speak- fair
And promise falsely,
But song is true:
Let music for peace
Be the paradigm,
For peace means to change At
the right time, as the World-
Clock
Goes Tick- and Tock.
So may the story
Of our human city
Presently move
Like music, when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be,
At last it is,
Where even sadness
Is a form of gladness,
Where fate is freedom,
Grace and Surprise.



Covenant: We, the Peoples of the United Nations SLT #475 Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations, 1945:


We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and to live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of economic and social advancement for all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to establish these ends.

Story for All Ages:  (the children go to Religious Education at the end of the story and the adults sing "Spirit of Life" )

Hymn::    # 123  (STLT)   "Spirit of Life"   by Carolyn McDade (adapted)

Spirit of Life, come unto us,
Sing in our hearts all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
Move in our hands, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold us close; wings set us free;
Spirit of Life, come to us, come to me.

Sermon: The United Nations: Forgotten Successes and Remembered Failures by Reverend Elizabeth Banks

Just after the First World War, in 1919, the League of Nations was founded as a response to that catastrophic war -- an effort to bring nations together to cooperate and end all wars. The United States never joined the League, and of course there was a Second World War. But in 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed by 50 countries. The United States was on board this time, becoming the home of the UN headquarters. The UN's aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. Sound like Unitarian Universalist values? By the way, one of our UN Ambassadors, Adlai Stevenson, was a Unitarian Universalist.

Some of us can remember back in the 1950's and 1960's when the UN was controversial. The ultra-conservative John Birch Society took the position that the UN was a communist plot and paid for highway billboards that urged the U.S. to get out of the UN. Ruth Hall shared with me that in 1960 Texas would still not allow the UN to be referred to in its school textbooks.

1965, the 20th anniversary of the United Nations, was declared International Cooperation Year, a time to try to dissolve tensions during the Cold War era.

The Unitarian Universalist Association stuck its neck out, and in 1964, passed a resolution reaffirming and intensifying its support of the UN by urging congregations to give special emphasis to International Cooperation Year projects.

The UN has had an illustrious history so far, with many successes, failures, and controversies. Yet its basic aims are in alignment with the Principles and Purposes of our faith. In this service we will focus on one of the most recent UN initiatives, the Millennium Development Goals, and in particular on the goal to reverse the world-wide HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The goals, which are simply stated, concrete, and measurable, will be presented to you a little later, but I would like to say that now that they are a shining light of hope in a very difficult world scene. That the 152 member nations of the UN have pledged to support these goals is in itself a real sign of progress.

Why do I care so much about this topic of the UN?

When I was 13, President Kennedy established the Peace Corps (this was right around the time of the UUA Resolution I just mentioned). I wrote an article on it for the school newspaper and I was so inspired that I told myself I was going to join the Peace Corps and help people on other continents improve their quality of life. That never happened -- but you know I am thinking it still might. It could be my next career. Another reason I am taken by the UN and its work is that my Sudanese son-in-law has brought me an awareness of Africans and their lives. The work of the UN High Commission on Refugees has real meaning for Hashim and his friends who have immigrated to the U.S. My daughter Annie will be traveling to South Sudan this summer to train primary school teachers, which is directly related to the Millennium Goal of primary education for all boys and girls by 2015. As you can imagine, I am very glad that there is now a peace agreement in South Sudan, enforced by the presence of UN troops.

The Unitarians and Universalists were supportive of the League of Nations and watched the creation of the UN closely. In the 1950s before the two denominations merged to be one in 1961, both made resolutions (public statements on political, social and economic issues) to support the UN.

The Principles and Purposes of our denomination were created as a statement of our shared values have a great deal of similarity in content and phrasing to both the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. The intertwining of the creation of a UN world vision and the document of our beliefs that came from the merging of the Unitarians and Universalists gives the feeling of optimism of the time: if only we would come together, understand each other, we could overcome the problems of the world.

In April of 1962, Unitarian Adlai Stevenson wrote to the President of the new UUA suggesting that Unitarians should continue to be aware of the UN and the issues that would come before it. His words are the precursor to those of religious and political and religious leanings today.

Let me recommend that the appointment of envoys in Unitarian Universalist Churches . . . to promote better knowledge and understanding of the United Nations. In this disastrous and shrinking world it is no longer possible, if it ever was, bfor local communities to be more secure than the surrounding world. Our ultimate security therefore lies in making the world more and more into a community . . . . All of you have the opportunity to share in the answer, and thus help us build a peaceful world.

In 1962 the Community Church in New York City offered space to a beginning Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. The mission of the new UU organization was and is to promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, justice for all as reflected in the UN Charter.

They speak, act and bear witness on behalf of Unitarian Universalists at the UN and within the governments of Canada and the US. Their purpose continues to be to educate UUs about the UN.

Their issues include: Water for Life Campaign, ending Modern Day Slavery, ending the use of Child Soldiers, ending the violence in Darfur and the spread of AIDS as a world-wide epidemic. Among the UN Millenium Goals, also the focus of the UU UN office, today we are focusing on AIDS.

This disease that was first identified in 1959 has grown to be an international terrorist that kills people and populations from the inside out. In the early 1980s the disease seemed to exist within a restricted population of gay men, some women and drug abusers who used needles. But, within a few years, those who were infected with the virus were of every race, class, gender, and sexual orientation . There were mothers and infants, fathers, sons, single and married - people of every description.

By 1985 at least one case of immune system failure, HIV, had been reported in every region of the world. Statistics were alarming world-wide, but in sub-Sahara Africa it was and is the worst. The numbers still show that worldwide five people die of AIDS every minute.

In Adlai Stevenson's day he alerted the United States citizens to the fact that we are not isolated. And today we are less isolated than before. Technology and travel have erased boundaries between countries, and allowed the continents to drift closer together. The AIDS epidemic we speak of in Africa is separated from us not by geography but by issues of economics. Within this country or internationally, who has the best health care, education and access to treatment? Where they are not available, the numbers of those suffering from HIV related illnesses are disproportionately high.

We grapple with the meaning of the number 6 million Jewish people killed in the Holocaust. That number is inconceivable. The loss of human lives is heart-breaking. It is, therefore, devastating (if we dare to allow the enormity of this number into our being) to know that more than 25 million people around the world have died of AIDS related diseases.

It has become the first truly international epidemic that has easily crossed borders and oceans. The global numbers of people infected continue to rise even though treatment exists. And the numbers do not tell the stories of the lives of those who have died and those who are left behind. Fear, shame and denial are a deadly trio, and they run relentlessly through the populations of every country, the United States included. It is the stigma of the disease that makes people keep their diagnosis or symptoms a secret; and the fear, shame, denial has bought the explosion of AIDS.

I read many stories of people who were tested for the AIDS virus, and whose results were positive. What amazed me was the reason that they were being tested in African countries. Sometimes it was for unexplained illness, or certain tell-tale symptoms. But I was interested in how in Africa AIDS tests were required of people who appeared very healthy.

Testing was required to purchase insurance, or a home, a car. Imagine that before you make your next major purchase and as a matter of course, it is required that you be tested for HIV. In any country where there is unprotected sex, needles are shared by drug users, blood is taken for transfusions where the donors have not been tested, and untested mothers breastfeed, the active and strong virus of AIDS will spread. The more education and resources, the more hope.

In Hawaii, Ben wrote his story. He said, When I was ten years old I learned that I am HIV positive. My story starts when I was very young. My Mom was a prostitute and used drugs, and I was taken away from her and given to another family. My new mother thought I should know about being HIV positive and decided to tell me the truth. When I was 10, the worst day of my life, all of my dreams and hopes shattered. But I am 17 now, and I realize that all of my dreams are not gone, and being HIV positive is one more thing to make me stronger and that is exactly what it has been doing. My friends are with me every step of the way. My family is priceless. I actually feel normal and not shunned by the world around me. The more education and resources the more hope.

Many years ago there was a young man in my adult education class. He was a much loved public school teacher who was one of the many gay men in our urban congregation. What I realized later was that he had been dying right before my eyes and I did not know what I was seeing. He was losing weight at a rapid pace, and his skin was increasingly bruised, broken open and not healing.

One night he did not come to the adult education class, and learning was one of his favorite activities. We discovered later that he had tried to drive himself to the hospital that night, but was too weak. A taxi dropped him at the hospital entrance and he remained conscious for another day. Long before this night he had refused to accept the diagnosis his doctor had given him. He never wanted his students or their families to know he was gay, never mind the AIDS. He never wanted his own family to know and he did not want to know himself.

At night when we was drifting in and out of consciousness, two of his best friends and I held hands around the bed and placed our hands on his body. He wanted last rights, which came from his Catholic childhood. Unitarian Universalists do not have a sense that we will go to hell, but we could speak about his life and love with gratefulness.

We could remind him of the best in his life and offer him the chance to ask for forgiveness if he wanted to be released from some sense of guilt. We sang. We told him how much he was loved. We even laughed about his talking parrot who loved to screech his favorite repertoire at the top of his lungs, words that do not belong in the pulpit on a Sunday morning - swearing like a sailor. With my own eyes I saw how fear, shame and denial could take a life that could have been saved.

A disproportionate number of lives are lost to AIDS in southern Africa. Statistics show that 2/3 of all people living with HIV are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Faith is the name of a four year old whose face has the expression of someone tired of the world, and when a group of American women came to her village, she passively allowed herself to be passed from person to person. Both her mother and father died from AIDS related illnesses and they left four children behind. This tiny 4 year old child weighs only 16 pounds because she is HIV positive. She is never well, and she is three pounds too light to qualify for the anti-retroviral treatment.

She was the poster child for people coming to study about AIDS in southern Africa. The children are the most devastated by losing parents and their own health, and they are the ones who most often fall through the cracks in society. She was dressed in a pink crinoline dress. The woman who held her wrote, Oh resigned little girl. How I hate this disease and how it is reduced you. And that dress! We used to call that a twirling dress. I wish I had seen you in it dancing and laughing with dizziness. Pink crinoline dresses were made for partying not for dying in just as four year old girls were meant to scatter the magic of their laughter and joy into the world, not break our hearts with your suffering. It is so twisted. After several months, the American women heard that Faith had died from AIDS related illnesses, and they entitled their article, Three Pounds Too Late, for the three pounds she could not gain to qualify for the anti-viral drugs to save her life.

What does our UU UN Office say about Ben from Hawaii, a young gay teacher from upstate New York, Kenyan mother and father and their child named Faith? We believe that our UU Principles call us to learn the realities of HIV and AIDS, to be a forceful voice for comprehensive sex education, education about the disease, and an unrelenting voice insisting on the right of all to have access to universal health care, no matter what their economic ability.

People who are HIV positive or have AIDS deserve our support no matter how they contracted the disease. Our ethical and moral compasses direct us to break the silence, continue to speak when it is no longer new news for the media, and to work to create healthy communities that empower people to care for themselves. (paraphrased from Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office statement on AIDS & HIV)

Extinguish Chalice:

We extinguish this Chalice but not the hope or the commitment to work for a nuclear-weapon-free world.

Closing Circle of Hands (We link arms while we read )

"Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and
powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or
willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for
success, but rather an ability and commitment to work for something because it is

Closing words: by Wayne B. Arnason (adapted)

Spirit of Life, We are here as a community dedicated to all that is good and just and beautiful. We ask that we might be strengthened in our dedication to a better world. In time of war, when national pride and anger overwhelms the call for world community, We would remember all those around the world who suffer from acts of violence, Whether committed by terrorists or by nations. We go to war as to a funeral, And so we hold in our hearts all those who are oppressed by forces of privilege and power, Whose lives are torn by war, Who are prisoners of conscience. May we find it within ourselves to capture a vision of a future that can be, To recognize a brother or a sister in a distant nation, That we may serve without fear the cause of justice for all. In the name of all we find holy, we pray.