Maundy Thursday: The Dignity of Love

April 9, 2009 

Let us think together this Maundy Thursday about human dignity. You know the phrase well from the Baptismal Covenant.  “Will you respect the dignity of every human being?”  “I will with God’s help.”  What is the source of human dignity?  What does it mean to have dignity?  What does it mean to respect the dignity of every human being? 

Back in the early 1990’s, the film Grand Canyon dealt with the idea of respecting human dignity in every scene.  The film opens with a white corporate lawyer type, courtside, at a Laker game.  The game ends and the man is driving home, in his BMW, through Watts.  His car breaks down, and he calls for a tow.  While waiting for the tow-truck, a group of young black men, gang-bangers, surround his car.  He’s terrified.  The tow-truck arrives, and out walks a powerful, middle-aged black man.  The gang-leader confronts him, while holding the gun grip of the gun in his pants.  And here’s the gist of their conversation.  “What you doin?”  “My job.”  “Don’t you respect me?”  “Sure, I respect you.”  “You respect me or the gun?”  “I don’t want to have this conversation.”  “That’s what I thought.  No gun, no conversation.  No gun, no, fear, no respect.”

That scene has stuck with me so clearly because it reveals human nature in search of lost dignity.  Obviously, a neighborhood riddled with crime, drugs, and every kind of brokenness under the sun is a place devoid of dignity.  Fear mongering and violence appears, in such situations, as a way to get respect.  But this interaction between the tow-truck driver and the gang-banger reveals that a gun isn’t the source of dignity. 

That’s such a stark example, which makes it powerful.  But let’s bring it closer to home.  This financial crisis we’re in—part of its source is a mistaken, misplaced, quest for dignity.  Let’s give everyone a chance at home-ownership—whether they can afford it or not.  Let’s offer interest only notes, 40 year notes, adjustable rate mortgages, and let’s build houses that dwarf those of a generation ago for families half-the size.  Isn’t this an attempt to get respect, to clothe oneself in dignity, through a house? 

What is the source of human dignity?  What does it mean to have dignity?  What does it mean to respect the dignity of every human being?  Jesus said, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-16) 

Now, it’s not that being a foot-washer makes one magically aware of their dignity, or of the dignity of others.  I have no doubt that there have been many such servants who hated that demeaning job with a passion.  Foot washing isn’t magic.  Jesus’ dignity isn’t diminished by the task, but increases.  Why?  Because Jesus, “knew that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God.”  Most fundamentally, dignity comes from knowing that you are created in God’s image and likeness.  At the root, dignity comes from knowing that God so loved the world, so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son. 

One’s worth is not measured by how high—or low—you are on the food chain.  One’s worth is not based on having all your chromosomes (did you know that 90% of Down’s Syndrome fetuses in America are judged not worthy of breathing air, and are aborted because of the drain they will be on their parents and society?).  Every time God gets bracketed out of what it means to be human, where human dignity comes from, whether by the state or by utilitarian philosophy, life itself is cheapened.  Every time God is excluded from the discussion of what it means to be human, the circle of compassion and care, of human rights, shrinks to include fewer and fewer people. 

The source of our dignity as human beings, why we must respect ourselves, why we must respect our neighbors, is absolutely and totally based on being wonderfully and fearfully made, and even more wonderfully redeemed in Christ.  That frees a person to love others—with reckless, prodigal, abandon.  Respect isn’t a matter of asserting oneself, of clothing oneself with things that pass away, but of trust, of faith. 

“Will you respect the dignity of every human being?”  “I will with God’s help.”