The Spiritual Gift of Integrity

February 12, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Matthew 5:33-37[1]

In our world today, integrity seems hard to find. Saying what you mean, letting your yes mean yes and your no mean no, is a virtue that is becoming more rare. The idea that “the end justifies the means” is an acceptable school of thought for many. We see it when sales people over-promise and under-deliver. We see it when business executives hide reports of pollution or toxic spills in order to keep their profits from being used to fund clean-up. We even see it in churches who post signs saying “All are welcome” yet make it clear - through side glances and shunning - that some people really are not welcome.

This is not a new problem. All the way back in the time of Moses we can read the call to live according to the values claimed by a people. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.”[2] Live according to the commandments, decrees, and ordinances, and your virtuous life will be rewarded. God will bless you and your descendants if you observe the law. But turn away, follow other gods and serve your own interests, and you shall not live long. Even so long ago we hear the prayer in Psalm 7, “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.”[3]

Integrity means “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values.”[4] A contributor to Forbes magazine once wrote, “Integrity means doing the right thing at all times and in all circumstances, whether or not anyone is watching. It takes having the courage to do the right thing, no matter what the consequences will be. Building a reputation of integrity takes years, but it takes only a second to lose, so never allow yourself to ever do anything that would damage your integrity.”[5]

Another definition is offered by Barbara Killinger, an author and clinical psychologist in Toronto who specialized in workaholism. In a book she wrote on integrity, she said, “Integrity is a personal choice, an uncompromising and predictably consistent commitment to honour (sic) moral, ethical, spiritual, and artistic values and principles.”[6] We judge the integrity of others to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs, and principles they claim to hold.

From an ethical perspective, an individual is said to possess the virtue of integrity if that person’s actions are based upon an internally consistent framework of principles. “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything” is the line in a country song by Aaron Tippin.[7]

Yet what we stand for should also conform to reality. We must be willing to adjust our principles when they are proven to be inconsistent. If what I believe to be true is shown to be false, I must try to incorporate the truth into my internal framework. This is where our media and political systems fail us, by allowing false equivalencies to rule the day. False equivalencies give plausibility to each side even if one side is provably wrong. False equivalencies encourage one to mislead in order to maintain a narrative, even when it has been proven to be wrong.

As Christians, we adhere to the importance of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. And yet those values are not always reflected in how we live our day-to-day lives. As Jesus reflected on the world around him, he saw a great lack of integrity from the leaders of the people. Those charged with teaching and keeping the laws would make bold promises, swearing by heaven, earth, or Jerusalem, and then continue to lie, cheat, and steal. The laws of Moses, meant to free the people to live together in society came to be used to oppress the poor and enforce power and control over the people.

Judaism had developed a system of oaths and vows to guarantee that at least some words would be especially true. In both the Gentile and Jewish worlds, an oath invoked God to guarantee the truth of what was said, or to punish the one taking the oath if it was not true.

“You have heard that it was said…” proclaimed Jesus, “But I say to you… Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No.’”[8] Your integrity matters. Doing what you say you will do matters. Jesus paraphrases the Old Testament teaching about oaths, then commands that his followers take no oaths at all. Jesus sought to abolish the distinction between words that must be true and those that must not, between words one is compelled to stand behind and those one must not, and called for all speech to be truthful. I say that there must be truthfulness in all that we say.

The importance of integrity can be seen in the final days of Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem. The act that set the ruling priesthood against him came when he took up a whip and angrily drove the money lenders and merchants from the grounds of the Temple. By profiteering from pilgrims coming to worship, they had corrupted the integrity of the Temple as a holy place.[9] Later, he preached a lengthy sermon condemning the Pharisees and teachers of the law as hypocrites, claiming that they and their followers obeyed the narrow letter of the law on the outside while they were corrupt, greedy, self-indulgent, and spiritually dead on the inside.[10]

For Christians, integrity and faithfulness is about more than simply following all the rules. It is about doing the work of the heart, of living up to the values we claim even when it’s hard. It is embracing the challenge to reflect God’s grace, God’s goodness, and God’s integrity in what we say and do. What Jesus was saying is that following the law is easy, but it does not transform. Living with a God-formed integrity of heart, speech, and action is what truly makes a difference in people’s lives.

Jesus calls us to have integrity in how we live. There are so many ways we separate ourselves in this world – nations war against nations; political parties slander and undermine each other; religions seek to kill one another’s followers; wealthy and poor seek to protect themselves from each other. The destruction brought about by this division is devastating. If we can begin to find our common humanity within, and begin to live, from a Christ-like heart, perhaps we can begin to heal some of the damage we have done.

Christ’s challenge is to refuse to allow ourselves to live only according to the low standard of law, but to go beyond it to living from the heart – serving, seeking justice, offering welcome and compassion, protecting the vulnerable, and preserving our rich ecological heritage on the planet. There is no question, though, that to adopt Christ’s heart-driven life can be painful and difficult. It will, however, also open the doors to life for us and others. Integrity is a spiritual gift, and through it the Spirit can empower us to change ourselves and the world.

When we allow God to capture our hearts with love, when we allow God to grow our hearts, when we live in a way consistent with Christ’s love for God and others, and allow that to guide our speech and actions – then we become those who make a healing, restoring impact on the world around us. We will find, and bring to others, fullness of life, a deeper connectedness, and a more gracious community.

Do not be lead astray. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying and holding fast to the Lord; for that means life to you and length of days.” Live a life of integrity, and the world will be transformed.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Deuteronomy 30:15.

[3] Psalm 7:8.

[4] Webster’s Dictionary online, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrity.

[5] Amy Rees Anderson, “Success Will Come and Go, But Integrity Is Forever” November 28, 2012, online: https://www.forbes.com/.

[6] Killinger, Barbara, Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010, P.12.

[7] Aaron Tippin, “You’ve God to Stand for Something” on You've Got to Stand for Something, BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 1990.

[8] Matthew 5:33-37, selected.

[9] See: Matthew 21:12-13.

[10] See: Matthew 23:1-39.

Intentions of the Heart

August 29, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-23, selected[1]

“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers” (James 1:22). This message from James may sound like common sense, but it was considered scandalous by Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer. Luther called the Letter of James “an epistle of straw.”[2] For Luther, the Letter of James did not fit into his doctrine of justification by faith alone. What do I mean by that? Justification by faith is the theological principle that salvation comes to an individual by God’s grace through faith, apart from any works of merit. This is outlined by Paul in the letter to the Romans. In other words, we are “saved” not by anything we do, but only by faith in Jesus Christ. Luther had more appreciation for the “theological” letters of Paul than for this letter of James, which focuses its attention on the daily practice and acts or works of Christian life.

Of course, I think faith is very important. It’s part of my job description. But perhaps James was reacting to something he was experiencing in the early church. One commentary on James explains: “For some, justification by faith meant having faith without a commitment to others, without works. James, then, is trying to correct this idea by introducing works as an important element in justification.”[3] James saw a lack of integrity among those in the community to which he wrote. He criticized those who thought of themselves as if they were isolated individuals with no relationship to the wretchedness around them. He spoke out against those who were quick to speak and to get angry, but did nothing to change the circumstances that oppressed the poor, the orphan, and the widow.

We could offer that same critique to contemporary Christianity. Many of the attributes James criticizes are going on in churches today: hypocrisy, corruption, favoritism, gossip, divisiveness, navel-gazing, and a focus on saving ourselves for heaven rather than helping our neighbors escape the hell they are living in right now. If you have a big building that survived a hurricane, but you don’t offer to shelter those whose homes did not, I don’t think you actually have a church.

It is not only our failure to act, but also the words that we choose that can undermine the labor of love, justice, and peace. James tells us to “be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). We all know that words spoken in the heat of anger are the ones we most often regret. Words that are motivated by fear, pain, and frustration are often the most destructive, and are a quick way to cause a break in our relationships. James counsels us to slow down, to think before we speak, before we cause harm with our mouths.

Jesus has a similar warning in the passage from Mark. It is the things that come out of us, our words and actions, which can cause harm and defile us. Racial slurs and stereotypes, labels that dehumanize and shame, oversimplification, and outright deceit are poison that destroys community and relationships, and eats away at us from the inside. We cannot be who we are called to be when we allow the evil within our hearts to spill out of our mouths. We cannot reflect the word of God unless we bridle our tongues, and speak instead from the love and kindness that are also implanted in our hearts.

James must have sat through his fair share of contentious gatherings, and maybe even a few political campaigns. He understood that unless anger is transformed, unless it is tempered with patience, anger alone cannot make things right. “Be quick to listen” (James 1:19), he says, because it is in listening and in being listened to that we open ourselves to a welcoming, trusting relationship with one another. It is hard work, especially for those of us who are impatient, quick to judge, or have already made up our minds, to listen, really listen, to the other person. Patient listening can, however, redirect anger toward solving the problem and not just treating the symptoms.

When we look in the mirror, what are we like? Are we “hearers of the word and not doers” (James 1:23)? Honestly, we all fall short of perfection. I know I do. And that is one of the reasons often given for why people are leaving the church: hypocrisy, and the way that we fail to live up to our rhetoric. All are welcome here, but if your toddler makes too much noise, or you haven’t showered recently, or your skin is covered with tattoos, you will probably receive some “looks” if not an overt indication that maybe you’re not really welcome.

What we need to remember, and to practice with one another as the Church, is that we are not perfect. We are not the Kingdom of God. We are not the community of saints. We are a community of people who are trying to become saints. We are the broken people of God trying to find the Kingdom. We are imperfect, “hearers who forget” (James 1:25), wicked, sordid, angry sinners. But we’re trying. And we must be patient with one another as we try. We must listen to one another, learn from one another, and grow in faith with one another.

The Letter of James calls on us to live up to a high standard. James is trying to elicit integrity from us, that is, consistency in hearing, seeing, believing, speaking, and doing. We’ve all heard the gospel stories, we’ve learned the Great Commandment; does that change how we act? Do we really love God with all of our being? What do we do that shows that? Do we really love our neighbors? What do we do that shows that? How is the way that we live informed by our faith?

I have a friend who is an aggressive driver. She was ordained a few years ago, and now she has a “clergy” sticker in her car window. I remember her telling me how now she has to be careful about how she reacts to the other drivers around her. I had one of those stickers too, and let’s just say, I take a lot of deep, calming breaths while driving.

There are evil intentions in our hearts. There is “fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly” (Mark 7:21-22). But, we were created by “the Father of lights,” from whom we receive “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift” (James 1:17). These intentions are in our hearts too: generosity, kindness, love, faithfulness, hope, respect, peace, and truth. But we must do these things, not just hear them, not forget—when we turn away from the divine mirror—that we have light inside us that is longing to shine forth.

We have work to do. It is the work that was begun long ago by those in the Old Testament who cared for the widow, the orphan, the stranger. It was given a new life by Jesus of Nazareth, who always found the pressing issues of those in need to be more important than any dogma or fine theological point. It is the work of loving our neighbor actively. It is the work of showing evidence of our faith through our actions. It is the work of taking responsibility for our anger, learning to listen well, and becoming builders of the community of Christ.

Our work is to move ourselves and the world around us ever closer to becoming the realm of God. We are the first fruits, the early signs of God’s new creation. We can embrace both the good and evil intentions of our hearts, and take responsibility for our words and our works. We can, with humility, accept our potential for construction and destruction, and seek to develop the best in ourselves, in one another, and in our community. In this way, together, we can transform the world. Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Luther’s Works, vol. 35, Word and Sacrament I (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), pp. 395-397.

[3] Elsa Tamez, The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works Is Dead (New York, Crossroad, 1985, 2002), p. 53.

Faithful Witness

October 27, 2019
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Exodus 20:2, 16; Matthew 15:10-20

In Exodus, the Hebrew people, set free from the Egyptians, begin to establish a new culture, and discover their identity as God’s people. Having set the people free, God gives them the means to remain free. The law, beginning with the Ten Commandments, sets this people apart as the people of God – the Lord God who brought them out of slavery to freedom. And the people of God worship and honor God by obeying God’s laws.

The law is not a punishment, a burden, or an obstacle to freedom. True freedom requires responsibility. Freedom without responsibility, without limits, is anarchy. And anarchy is the mob rule, freedom for the strong and the powerful, but slavery for the weak and defenseless.

In order to be a free people, we must be at peace with one another, able to trust one another, responsible for the well-being of one another. And God, by giving the commandments, by setting the boundaries, has provided the means for the people to remain free. If the people worship God, resist temptation, and take responsibility for one another, they will prosper and remain a free people. God fulfills the promise made earlier in Exodus: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.”[1]

The commandment to not bear false witness is a particular command that protects society by creating a space for truth to be told. In ancient Israel, witnesses to a crime – who incidentally also brought the charges – had to testify before a court of elders. At least two witnesses were required, as stated in Deuteronomy: “Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained.”[2] If a witness was found to be lying, the punishment was the same as that given to the accused. This was when “an eye for an eye” was the rule of law. If one was accused of a crime that was punishable by death, the lying witness would have been put to death. This harsh reality ensured that the court of elders was a place where truth would be told.

Truth, indivisible from trust, is the foundation of community. The Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann says this commandment is “a recognition that community life is not possible unless there is an arena in which there is public confidence that social reality will be reliably described and reported.”[3] In order for society to function, there must be a place and time where we can trust that the truth will be told.

The commandment that we shall not bear false witness gets at the heart of our capacity to ruin ourselves and others by lies and deceit. Another theologian, the Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, once wrote: “The capacity to speak… is the primary way through which we human beings express ourselves, and nothing reveals more deeply the biblical insight into the sinfulness and brokenness of human life than our verbal means of self-expression.”[4] Speech can express both truth and falsehood.

Our words are powerful. They can do tremendous good – think of the words written by Lincoln in The Emancipation Proclamation. But our words can also do tremendous harm. Mein Kampf led to the rise of Nazism in Germany. The thoughts in our minds and the feelings in our hearts come forth in our words, and they make an impact on the world around us.

In the Gospel According to Matthew, we hear about the power of our words to do harm. “Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles… What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.’”[5]

Bearing false witness means to lie, to give false testimony, to mislead. It is speaking with the intent to deceive. Another form of lying – slander and gossip – also bear false witness, leading us to believe in stories that are fiction born in the heart of those who would harm. False witness breaks our relationships with others, and damages our integrity.

There is a story that tells of a man who spread gossip and lies about a neighbor. When she heard the stories, the victim confronted her accuser with the truth. The man apologized and asked if there was anything that he could do to right the terrible wrong that he had done. The woman walked into the bedroom and took a feather pillow from the bed. Taking out a knife, she cut open the pillow, and then, going to a window on the second floor, dumped the feathers into the breeze so they blew in every direction. “Yes,” she said. “There is something you can do. You can go out now and gather up all of those feathers and put them back inside this pillow.” The man protested, “That is impossible. I could never recover each of those tiny feathers.” “Yes, it is impossible,” the woman agreed. “It is just as impossible as it is for you to take back all the hurt and the pain that your malicious rumor and lies have caused to me. You cannot recover the suspicion that you have sown. The damage to my character can never be undone.”[6]

When we bear false witness against our neighbor, we deny our responsibility for our neighbor, we deny our duty to God, and we destroy ourselves as we become untrustworthy. The trust that holds the community together is broken, and without trust, we can no longer be a people. Bearing false witness brings us into the state of sin: separated from God, separated from one another, and separated from our own integrity.

We must do more than not lie. We must face the challenge of being witnesses to truth, creating a society where truth can be told, where our words are reliable, where we can trust one another. Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount about the Ten Commandments. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all… Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”[7] Jesus requires a level of truthfulness from his disciples that goes beyond taking an oath not to lie. It is a life of truth; a life lived with faithfulness toward God and responsibility toward others. The followers of Jesus were to be trustworthy, true, and faithful, a community of God’s people bound, not by oaths, but by love, trust, and responsibility for one another.

As Christians, we are challenged to do more than not bear false witness. We have a special call to be faithful witnesses. We are the people who witness to the work and words of Jesus Christ. We are the evangelists who are tasked with sharing the good news.

Evangelism is a word that tends to make us cringe. When I hear that word, I usually think of people who want to convert me to Christianity – at least their version of it – and my blood-pressure rises. But I’m not talking about proselytizing. I’m not talking about standing on a street corner shouting that judgment day is coming and we’re all going to hell unless we believe on Jesus. I’m talking about the evangelism of speaking our truth, the truth of how God is moving in us, and through us, and around us.

Now, let me stop to say that we must take care that we do not fall into the trap of thinking that our view of reality, of truth, of faith, of God, of what it means to be Christian, is the only way of seeing things. We don’t have a universal perspective. Bishop Spong warns us:

Words can point to God, but words can never capture God. Creeds can be formed to contain truths but creeds can never be formed that will exhaust the truth. God is bigger than the human frame of reference which tries to talk about him. God is bigger than any of the words of any human being about [her]. No matter how hallowed by the ages, no matter how thin or how gilt-edged the pages which we say contain the holy words, God is beyond the understanding of the Bible. God is beyond the understanding of our holy traditions, beyond the creeds, beyond the Church itself. No human system of thought can ever be ultimate. God, alone, is ultimate. Anything less than God will be destructive the minute we elevate it to the level of ultimacy.[8]

As witnesses to Jesus, we are evangelists. However, the evangelism I’m talking about does not make the claim that any of us hold the absolute truth for all time. God is, after all, still speaking. The evangelism that I’m talking about means being a faithful witness to the living Christ that is at work in our own lives. It means bearing truthful witness, speaking the truth, even though it may be hard, even though we may pay a price for it.

Evangelism means not hiding the values upon which we base our lives and our actions, but standing up for them. It means becoming representatives of Christ, ambassadors of God to the world. It means seeing other people, every person, no matter how strange or different, as a neighbor. It means loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. It means being true to ourselves and our vocation. It means bearing faithful witness to our own identity as Christians, as the people of God.

Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

---

[1] Exodus 6:7.  The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Deuteronomy 19:15.

[3] Walter Brueggemann. “The Book of Exodus” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, volume I (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).

[4] John Shelby Spong. “The Human Tongue – A Call to Responsibility” in The Living Commandments (New York: Seabury Press, 1977).

[5] Matthew 15:10-20 (selected).

[6] This story, from the Jewish tradition, I altered from Spong in The Living Commandments.

[7] Matthew 5:33-37 (selected).

[8] Spong.