"Living a Life of Integrity" . Romans 12:1-8
08-21-11 . Rev. Phillip R. Fenton
If I had just one gift to give you, I think it would be the gift of integrity - such a gift that when you come to the last chapter of your story, you could have the chutzpah to say, "I have lived a life that God approves of; I have lived according to God's good and perfect will."
If I could, I'd give you the gift of integrity. But I can't give it to you. This is not something that just zaps us in the night; it's a gift we have to work at all our lives as we coauthor our stories with God. And it comes very hard.
I was once having this conversation with high school youth in my congregation. One of them said, "You got that right, Pastor. Integrity is hard. The hardest thing for me is to be honest all the time." I felt an instant rapport with him. "I know what you mean," I said. "Wait a minute," he said, "how can it be hard for you? You're a pastor. I mean, you get paid to be good!"
"It's hard for everyone," I said. "There are too many people to impress, so many people to please, so many powerful reasons why we should make believe that we are what we appear to be, or pretend to be what we think other people expect us to be - so many pressures to fake it, gloss it over, to make believe instead of make true. It's tough to walk in integrity."
One of my favorite definitions of integrity comes from Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird. It is said of Atticus Finch - the lawyer and main character of the novel: "Atticus Finch is the same in the house as he is on the street." He is not an angel in public, and an ogre behind closed doors. His is the same wherever he is. He has integrity.
What about you? Does your life evidence a central integrating belief? Are you gentle? Are you honest? Are you generous? Are you noted for being Christ-like - all the time, everywhere? Integrity, you see, is earned in the trenches of life. It is earned in the crucible of pressure. Integrity is not what you look like on Sunday morning in church. It's not revealed when you are on stage before the floodlights of popularity. It is seen in the ordinary experiences and pursuits of life - in the day-to-day choices you make. And be aware of this: the closer you and I walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, the more we will be tempted to be less than we should be, because the more often our ethics will be at odds with the majority, with what is popular. There in the crises is seen the stuff of which you are made.
I love Paul's prescription for a life of integrity:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true
and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is?his good, pleasing and perfect will.
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. (Romans 12:1-3)
Notice that the integrity is decision followed by action. Paul isn't talking about talking a good line, but walking in integrity. He's not suggesting we have integrity the way we can have a genetic code, he's talking about living a life of integrity. Integrity isn't a possession that we have once and for all. It's a calling. It's a decision, or many decisions you make every day. Every day you decide to offer yourself as a living sacrifice. Every day you decide not to follow the herd but to live differently than the rest. You decide many times in a given day not to think more highly of yourself than you ought. And with consistency over time you prove yourself to be a person of integrity. We're on a journey to integrity.
Offer yourselves as living sacrifices. Let's look at the back part of that phrase. Live a life of putting others before self. That's integrity, and it's not easy when you consider the way we are put together. Leonard Bernstein was once asked, "What's the hardest instrument in the orchestra to play?" He smiled and said, "Second fiddle." In the 1970's a research team of psychologists from Stanford University conducted an experiment with a group of 4-year-olds. They called it the "marshmallow test". They put the kids in a room, one at a time, with one of the researchers, who had a bag of marshmallows. He would ask the children a series of questions or give them certain tasks to do. If they answered correctly or performed well, they would get a marshmallow. But the real test came when there was a knock at the door. The researcher would go to the door, speak to someone, and then come back and say to the child, "I have to run an errand. I'm going to leave a marshmallow here on the table in front of you. If you don't eat it while I'm gone, when I get back I'll give you two. But if you eat it, it's the only one you're going to get."
What a test! There wasn't a kid that wasn't tempted to just grab the marshmallow and eat it. The kids developed all kinds of strategies to help them wait. They sang songs. They told themselves stories. They sat on their hands. One little guy started licking the tabletop around the marshmallow, thinking that maybe the flavor had leaked out into the wood. Some successfully held out. Some grabbed the marshmallow and ate it.
The team tracked these kids into adolescence and then into adulthood. They found that those who were able to wait as 4-year-olds grew up to be more socially competent and responsible, more charitable toward others, better able to cope with stress, and less likely to give up under pressure than the grabbers. The marshmallow grabbers grew up to be more self absorbed, more stubborn, more disturbed when things didn't go well, more resentful when they didn't get what they thought they should have, never being able to experience the sense that what they had of something was enough, never being satisfied. Moreover, the marshmallow waiters had SAT scores that averaged 210 points higher than the group of grabbers. As adults, among the grabbers, there was a higher incidence of substance abuse, social irresponsibility, and divorce.
"Living sacrifices." One of the best gifts you can give your children is to teach them early on to become moral people, help them escape the prison of self that is the root cause of human cruelty. Start early and early on they'll develop a holy vision, allowing them to see others, be connected to the story, the plight, the hopes and dreams of other human beings. This is integrity.
Let's look at the front part of that phrase: "Offer yourselves." All the great Christians that I have met in my life have this characteristic in common: they give their lives as a thank offering to God. What do you think of when you hear the word "offering"? Are the feelings associated with the word benevolent or sinister? Do you tense up when the plates are passed? Are you conflicted over how much you should put in, what would be a responsible amount, what would reflect an adequate response to God's goodness to you? Or is it all joy, because your offerings are pre-meditated, a lot of thought and prayer has gone into the amount, and you give liberally knowing that you are participating in God's ongoing creation locally and globally?
When I think of offerings, I think of our acolytes. When the offering time comes, there's usually some nervous whispering going on: "Do the ushers want 8 plates or 6 or 4 today?" And I usually add, "However many it is, don't forget to bow after you give them the plates. If you don't bow, they won't go away."
When I think of offering, I think of the children who help bring the offering to the altar, and what a wonderful lesson they are learning early on. And they're getting it, because I've learned of one little guy who refused to let mom and dad give him money for the offering. He wanted to give from his own money. How could he call it an offering otherwise?
When I think of offering, I think of how Carol and I grew into tithing and beyond. Early into our first parish we took stock of our giving - we were at an anemic 5%. That wouldn't do. We accepted the growth giving challenge, growing our giving by 1% a year toward the goal of 10%. It scared us at first, but the fear was quickly dispelled. We can tell you that there has been more joy in giving than in any other aspect of our spiritual lives. To partner with God for God's purposes and to see that there is always plenty for all of our needs is a beautiful thing.
When I think of offering, I think of how the last time that St. Paul's met its ministry budget was when there was only one pastor on staff. There is a huge disconnect somewhere. We are a resource rich congregation. We are definitely not a one pastor congregation. How, why are we letting this happen year after year? We can change this pattern, St. Paul's. Let's step up and live into the kind of stewardship we are capable of. Let's fund the ministries God is requiring of us. Let's staff according to our size and mission. And let's start today.
This is true of all the great congregations: they know that they exist to give themselves away. This is true of all great Christians: they give themselves away to their spouse, their children, their neighbor, their God, their mission in life. Somewhere, sometime in their life as a Christian, they heard the call and they came before Jesus Christ and said, "I offer you my life. My life is yours." This is integrity.
Our world today yearns for integrity. Ask those who manage people in the workplace: "What's the #1 thing you would like to see in your employees?" They are going to answer, "integrity". They are looking for people who understand that showing up on time and not leaving before time and not calling in sick constantly shows that a person is aware of his/her interrelatedness to others and is willing to accept that responsibility. They are looking for people of strong ethical and moral character - when the boss is watching and when he is not. I believe integrity is the #1 thing that spouses are looking for in their mates. It's the #1 thing that young people are looking for in their parents. They are all looking for integrity, for people who live with the constant sense of their lives being an offering to God in service of others. Amen.
