The liberating love of whistleblowers
On the joys of being cast into the outer darkness
This is the sermon I delivered at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, S.C., on January 28, 2023. You can watch the sermon below, or read along. (And stick around at the end to hear my original song, “I Believe.”)
One morning in 2005, as Michael Winston arrived at his job at Countrywide Mortgage Company, he noticed a license plate in the parking lot that read: "FUND-EM."
He asked a colleague about it and discovered the car was owned by company CEO Angelo Mozilo. The plate sported the CEO's slogan and growth strategy for 2006.
"We fund all loans," the colleague told Winston.
"What if the borrower has no job?" Winston asked. "Fund 'em," was the reply.
"What if they have no assets?" he continued. "Fund 'em," was the reply.
"No income?" His colleague's answer this time was: "If they can fog a mirror, we'll give them a loan."
Winston was concerned and voiced his misgivings over this policy to the head of the loan department. "I was trying to save Countrywide from itself," Winston would later say, but his proposals to avert a crisis were never implemented.
For Winston, this was just the beginning of his realization that he was working for what was, at best, an ethically challenged company. Next, though, it came to his attention that the building they were working in was making employees sick, and he even began to feel ill himself after a while. He reported this to his superiors, who said they'd look into it. Then, his boss told him she had lied about test results on the building when she publicly declared that it was safe. This prompted Winston to call California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
What Winston got was retaliation from the top. His team was reassigned, his budget was cut, and his responsibilities reduced. Winston said he felt a sense of loyalty to his team, so he stayed. The final straw, though, was when he was asked to come to New York and write out a report to Moody's – the credit rating agency – swearing that the company was complying with governance laws. It was a lie. One that Winston refused to put his name on.
Less than a month later, that CEO with "FUND-EM" license plate ordered that Winston be fired. Human resources refused – probably because they knew it would be illegal retaliation. Winston was eventually fired in 2008 when Bank of America bought out Countrywide. Winston did indeed sue over his illegal retaliatory termination, eventually winning a $3.8 million judgment in 2011.
Many of us may remember Countrywide Mortgage and how its "Fund 'em" growth strategy resulted in many foreclosures and a bursting of the housing market bubble in 2008. It was whistleblowers like Winston who drew national attention to the problem.
Winston's story reminds me of the parable Jesus once told about the harsh master and his three servants. As you might remember, in this story, the master is leaving on a lengthy trip. Before he goes, he doles out "talents" to his top three guys – one gets five, the other two and the third only one. The first and second servants go out and double those talents. The third one buries his talent, saying he was afraid of punishment if he did not at least give the master back what he had received.
The way this passage is traditionally taught is to see the master as a stand-in for God. Then, the idea of a "talent" is usually allegorized as talents or skills that we possess, either innately or through practice. In this telling, the first and second servants become the heroes of the tale. They have taken their talents – the things that God gave them – and doubled them. They've brought not just their full selves into the world but have increased their talents and used them in service to their master, or God, in this case. That third servant, though, becomes the cautionary tale. We are told that he is a "faithless servant" who failed not just to better himself and use his talent for God in the world, but he buried it and refused to use it at all. For this crime, he's banished to the outer darkness and his talent is given to the other two servants.
Seems like a clear-cut story, right? That telling, though, misses the true power of this story. It is not a story about using our God-given talents to better the world. It is, instead, a story of liberating love in which the so-called "faithless servant" is the hero, because he, like Michael Winston, is a whistleblower on an unjust system that, like Countrywide Mortgage, takes advantage of those in need for the enrichment of those in power.
Let me explain.
One of the things I learned in seminary so long ago was this: You cannot even begin to say what a piece of scripture means in our modern world without first putting it into the context of the people who first heard it. The people who would have heard Jesus tell this story would have immediately understood what he was trying to say. They would have known that the master was not meant to represent God – but was really a stand in for the exploitative businessmen they all had encountered.
They also would know that the word "talent" wasn't referring to some innate gift or skill you might possess to use in the world. No, a talent was a very specific form of currency. They were not coins or wads of cash, but precious metals – usually silver or gold – that could weigh anywhere from 80 to 130 pounds. This was not something you'd fold up in your wallet. Just that one talent that third servant received was what one ordinary laborer of the day would make in 20 years. For someone back in that day, it would be a lottery winning jackpot.
In today's money, the single talent received by the third servant would be about $28,000. So, the first servant was given about $140,000 and the second received about $56,000. The master expected them to take that currency and do something with it – namely use it to generate more wealth for him. How would they do that? Well, most likely the master's business consisted of lending money to poor farmers at interest rates ranging from 60 to 200 percent. When they inevitably could not pay off the debt, the master would foreclose on their land, leaving them to become peasant day laborers or beggars.
This is what New Testament professor William Herzog says is going on in this story. The master's three top guys were entrusted with all that money and were expected to make a return on it while he was away. It was, of course, in their best interest to do so. If they made money for the boss, the boss would guarantee that they lived a life of ease and comfort.
The third servant, though, could not do it. He saw the heartless exploitation of the farmers, and he knew that his boss was greedy and corrupt. What could he do to protest such an unjust system? He buried his talent. He refused to use the money to further exploit the farmers. He stopped taking part in an exploitative system.
He is no longer a passive participant in that exploitation. Like Winston, he was a whistleblower. Like Winston would centuries later, this servant suffered the backlash of system. He was cast into the outer darkness – out of a system that benefited him if he played by the rules of exploitation – to being one of the exploited who did not benefit from the system.
Remember, I told you that Winston was eventually fired when Bank of America took over Countrywide. That was his initial casting out into the darkness. But, that $3.8 million judgment he won against the company? In an appeal, that was taken away from him. To add insult to injury, Bank of America sued Winston, and a judge ordered Winston to pay the bank's legal bills to the tune of $65,000. On top of that, Winston, who before this, had a long career working for the likes of Motorola, Lockheed Martin, and Merrill Lynch, could no longer find gainful employment. He was cast deep into the outer darkness – forsaken by a system that once wholeheartedly supported him.
Herzog tells us that the third servant who refused to take part in a corrupt system was the hero of the story because he refused to exploit his fellow humans for his own gain. We're used to our heroic tales ending a little more neatly and happily. The heroes should be rewarded handsomely for blowing the whistle on unjust systems. But unjust systems don't work that way. Those who dare to say the emperor has no clothes will soon find themselves stripped bare of worldly pleasures.
Why, then, is he the hero here? Because this whistleblowing servant knew a thing or two about liberating love. The first thing he knew was this: Liberating love is not welcomed by the oppressor. This servant, though – and every whistleblower who came after him – understands one thing: the system itself is corrupt, not the people caught up in it.
This servant, I think, tries to reach the humanity of his master when he tells him: "I know you are a hard man, reaping where you do not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed." I believe he's trying to get him to see that what he's doing to the people who do sow and scatter seed – the hard-working farmers – is harmful, not just to the farmers but to his own soul. He's saying, "I know you sit in the C-suite, and you never have to talk to a customer or dirty your hands, and it's hardened your heart, but it doesn't have to be this way."
I think this servant clearly saw his boss as a good human being trapped in a terrible system – one that exploited him just as much as it exploited those that he took advantage of.
Those he took advantage of may have lost their worldly possessions because of his actions within this unjust system, but this master sold his soul for what? A nice house or two? An extra yacht or two? Had any of it made him happy? Had they made him satisfied? Obviously not. The third servant calls it. It's made him a "hard man," because his greed could never be satisfied – even by his servants doubling his wealth.
The third servant understands that the master suffers just as much as those he exploits. The master may live in posher surroundings but he's no less miserable. Whether you're the exploited or the exploiter – an exploitative system makes everyone a victim in some way. This third servant, though, refused to dehumanize his master, even as he earned his master's retribution.
The whistleblowing servant then – like Winston in modern times – hopes that his actions will redeem not just the system, but those caught up in it. In the parable, we don't know what ultimately happens to the master. Does he change in evil ways, or does he simply continue working in a system that benefits him?
In Winston's case we know this: No one at Countrywide went to jail and Bank of America eventually agreed to pay $16 billion in a settlement with the government. The CEO of Countrywide, Angelo Mozilo, died last summer but lived out the rest of his years in comfort.
Speaking of a "hard man," though, Mozilo insisted that the loosening of the mortgage restrictions at Countrywide was for a noble cause. His stated goal was to try to close the racial lending gap in mortgages. He wanted more minorities to be able to afford a home, which is a worthy goal. But after the housing bubble burst, most of those families were plunged into debt so deep they were worse off than before they bought a home. Mozilo went to his grave denying that Countrywide had anything to do with what eventually happened to those families.
However, the system, while still not perfect, is less exploitative today. No one is out there saying "fund 'em" if you have no viable income. There were regulations and safeguards implemented after the housing bubble burst. Some good came from Winston's efforts.
It's certainly not the fairy tale happily-ever-after ending we like. No one was brought to justice, the exploited are still being exploited and people are still being corrupted by unjust systems. Why then, would we celebrate this whistleblowing servant or any whistleblower who came after him?
Our reading from chapter 16 in A Course in Miracles can shed some light here: We built these unjust systems based on the beliefs of our selfish egos. Everything we perceive in this world springs from our thoughts – oppressive thoughts become oppressive systems. If this is true, then loving thoughts can become loving systems. We begin to build those loving systems by withdrawing our thoughts from the unloving ones.
"When you do not share a thought system you are weakening it," A Course tells us. This third servant and Michael Winston, and all the whistleblowers through the ages, have weakened systems of exploitation by no longer sharing in them, by walking away, even if it cost them everything they have in the world.
When we point out exploitative systems, those within the system feel attacked – and they lash out, trying to reinforce the system that benefits them. But we'll know that we've created a loving system – one that looks after the rights of all and grants us all the responsibility to and for each other – when truth is the only thing that system produces. We know corrupt systems because all they produce is deception.
We must be committed, like that third servant and Michael Winston, to effecting real change on unjust systems and we do that, according to A Course, by increasing our motivation to make change. As A Course says: "a change in motivation is a change of mind, and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because mind is fundamental."
What can change our motivation so completely that we will be courageous enough to speak truth to power and bring liberation to unjust systems? Love. Not the namby-pamby romantic love the ego peddles – but that unbreakable, faithful, unconditional, and never-ending Love that will set all things right in the end.
That kind of Love begins not out here in the world – but within each of us – in our hearts and in our minds. We must be the ones who are willing to put down the weapons of hatred within if we are to extend the truth of Love into the world. This is not work for the faint of heart. It requires us to see the good in everyone – even in the men and women we believe have the hardest of hearts. It requires us to stand on the side of the oppressed, even if we become one of them in the end. It requires us to never dehumanize anyone, even as they may cast us into the outer darkness.
It requires us to adopt that "fund 'em" mindset, not with the goal of enriching ourselves, but enriching all of us. What we're funding everyone with, though, is not money but love.
"What if they withhold love from you?" "Fund 'em."
"What if they exploit you?" "Fund 'em."
"What if they take all you have and cast you into the outer darkness?" "If they can fog a mirror, we'll give them Love."
This system has an endless supply of Love that no one is ever asked to pay back, because Love does not loan itself out – it gives itself to everyone joyfully, generously, wastefully. It keeps no ledger; it asks for no return on its interest. It simply extends forever and transforms all that it encounters.
This is our challenge today, friends: Will you be that third servant – the one who is faithless to unjust systems, calling them out and seeking to redeem those trapped within them – no matter the personal cost? If so, then you will be funded with something of greater value than all the money in the world – you will be rich in liberating love.
PS: Don't feel too bad for Michael Winston. He has since gone on to found his own consulting company and on the lecture circuit, he gets nearly a talent per speech.
Looking for a guest speaker at your spiritual community? Contact me!
On Sunday, January 14, 2024, I spoke at the Jubilee! Community in Asheville, NC. Catch the sermon below and stay tuned for my original song “Dance Anyway.” (The World Beat Band is awesome!):
Upcoming speaking engagements:
February 4, 2024: Clayton Memorial Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Newberry, SC - 11 a.m.
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution, or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.