How we are in our intimate relationships, in our relationships with our spouses or “significant others”, with our best friends, our children and our parents, will greatly impact the quality of our everyday life. How we are in our relationships with others, neighbors, coworkers and strangers will greatly impact the quality of our community and world; this is why growing in love is so important. History will be impacted for good or for detriment by how we live our relationships. The discussions on domestic violence last week showed us how abusive relationships can damage people for generations unless and until someone breaks the cycle. On the other side even wonderful relationships can get deeper and more satisfying as we grow in love and that love ripples out as the couple models and shares their love with others.  Over the next seven weeks we are going to look at specific tools to help us strengthen our relationships. We’ll be using The Pledge of Shalom from the Families Against Violence Network as a guide.^[i] Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace, wholeness, well-being and prosperity. When we grow in love, we participate in shalom, God’s vision for us and our world.

Today we begin our series by talking about respecting ourselves and others. I think this is an important place to begin because whether we respect ourselves and others will determine our commitment to improving in the other areas we’ll be talking about. Webster’s dictionary defines respect as “to feel or show honor or esteem for, to hold in high regard.” ^[ii] I would add that to respect is to value another. We start with self-respect. I am convinced that there are many people who do not love, value or respect themselves and that binds them to destructive patterns and behaviors.  Respect means more than just feeling good about ourselves, it means doing what we need to do, having attitudes that prompt us to move toward the image of humanity that God has for us. We have that image in Jesus Christ.

Psychiatrist and writer, Scott Peck in studying successful people and people in prison found a very important distinction in how the two groups felt about themselves. The group of successful, well-balanced people was committed to self-love while those in prison were committed to their self-esteem.^[iii] He said self-love includes the ability to look at oneself honestly, to see one’s flaws as well as one’s strengths. It implies respecting and caring about oneself and being responsible for oneself.  Self-esteem, in his definition, is feeling good about oneself at any cost. If a person is devoted to their self-esteem “any evidence around them of their own imperfection or something that might cause them to feel bad about themselves, rather than using that evidence and those bad feelings to make some kind of correction, they will go about trying to exterminate the evidence.” People who are committed to their self-esteem mask their failings or push the responsibility for them off on others so they can always feel good about themselves. These folks will never change because they are unwilling to accept that there is anything wrong with them. People who have self-love value themselves even if they don’t always feel good about themselves. Those negative or bad feelings become a motivation for them to change and grow; it becomes a motivation for what we call repentance. Whatever words you want to use for his definitions, I think he makes a very important distinction. A healthy person needs to be honest about their flaws and failings while they value and respect themselves. They need to use their failings and struggles to learn, to change, and to grow even as they appreciate their goodness and utilize their strengths.

This self-love and self respect begins with an understanding of who we are and whose we are. Psalm 139 tells us in beautiful language just that. God formed us in our mother’s womb. Before anyone else knew we even existed, God knew us. God designed us, wove us together like a weaver creates a tapestry, thoughtfully, deliberately and carefully.  We are intimately known and understood by God. “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.” (Psalm 139:1-2) God knows us I contend better than we know ourselves. We are carefully crafted creations of God, fully understood by God, who have belonged to God from before our birth. So who are we? We are children of God. And whose are we? We are God’s!

If we start with this premise that we are God’s fearfully and wonderfully made, (actually the Hebrew word translated fearfully can also mean reverently,) so if we start with the premise that we are reverently and wonderfully made it should tell us that we need to value and respect ourselves. We need this Biblical truth deep inside of ourselves for there are many forces over the course of our lives that try to rip that self-understanding away from us. The Gospel of John tells us that even Jesus experienced prejudice. Nathanael heard where Jesus was from and his first response was a put-down, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip gives us a response, one that doesn’t escalate the hostility, but one that provides an opportunity to change a prejudiced mind, “Come and see.” Nathanael would come and see this Nazarene Jesus who became is teacher and his savior in the years to come. I wonder how many times he had to eat his words, “Hey, Nat remember what you said about Jesus the first time you met him?”

Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor as yourself only works if you love and respect yourself. We were watching Dr. Phil’s show the other night about custody battles over children. ^[iv] This one father who had been in prison a number of times, who assaulted his former wife, and who was an alcoholic and drug addict said at one point, “I love my daughter like I love myself.” The whole audience reacted and the man later said he didn’t understand their reaction. Dr. Phil explained to him that his self-destructive behaviors showed that he didn’t love himself and that is what they were reacting to. If that father loves his daughter like he loves himself, he will harm her just as he has harmed himself over and over again. If we are going to experience God’s shalom in our lives, we need to start by recognizing that our value comes from God and we need to respect the gift of life and personality and personhood that God has given us. If you don’t love and respect yourself, then the Golden Rule “do to others as you’d have them do to you” is not a very good standard. I think Jesus recognized how hard this would be for some so later in the Gospel of John (John 15:12) he ratchets up the standard to “love one another as I have loved you.” We are called to love and respect each other as Jesus loved and respected those he served and continues to serve which includes you and I today.

Respecting others definitely impacts how we treat them. If we respect and honor our loved ones, it means that we consider and take into account their ideas, opinions, wants and needs. Respecting our loved ones means that when we get in conflict, we don’t humiliate them or bully them to get our way. It means we refrain from calling them hurtful names or saying things that we know will wound them. Respect for our children means we discipline them appropriately, in ways that teach them self-control without humiliating them. Respect is an attitude and mind-set that is evidenced in how we treat our loved ones.

On a broader level, respecting others may mean that we work with them to change attitudes and laws that devalue and dishonor them. Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday where we celebrate and honor the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks had enough self-respect to one day say I won’t give up my seat on the bus because my skin is black. Many people including white people faced hatred and violence as they took a stand that persons with dark or colored skin were as precious and valuable, as deserving of honor and respect as people with white skin. It was a painful conflict, but many went through the pain because of their respect and valuing of others and their efforts have helped us to come closer to being a shalom community. White children and black children play together and learn together today. My children don’t immediately think “maid” when they see a black woman, no they are more likely to think “doctor” since their doctor for most of their lives was a black woman. Dr King said in his famous speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”^[v] We still have a long way to go, but that dream is much closer to being a reality because folks like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw themselves and their black neighbors as precious children of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. Our respect for ourselves and others motivates us to seek shalom. It motivates us to do the difficult and sometimes painful changing or repenting that is necessary for us to live in shalom. Respecting ourselves and others is the first tool for growing in love because it is the motivation that helps us learn to use all the other tools better. In the Pledge of Shalom we commit “to respect self and others: to respect myself, affirm others and to avoid uncaring criticism, hateful words, physical attacks, and self destructive behavior.”  God has a dream and a vision for all of us, may we respect ourselves and others enough to pursue that dream. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on January 15, 2006.