Sermon

A Question of Values: Integrity

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

April 25, 2004

First Reading: Alice Walker: Fathers.

I recall a scene when I was only three or so in which my father questioned me about a fruit jar I had accidentally broken. I felt he knew I had broken it, at the same time I couldn’t be sure. Apparently breaking it was, in any event, the wrong thing to have done. I could say, Yes, I broke the jar, and risk a whipping for breaking something valuable, or No, I did not break it, and perhaps bluff my way through.

I’ve never forgotten my feelings that he really wanted me to tell the truth. And because he seemed to desire it - and the moments during which he waited for my reply seemed quite out of time, so much so I can still feel them, and, as I said, I was only three - I confessed. I broke the jar, I said. I think he hugged me. He probably didn’t, but I still feel as if he did, so embraced did I feel by the happy relief I noted on his face and by the fact that he didn’t punish me at all, but seemed, instead, pleased with me. I think it was at that moment that I resolved to take my chances with the truth, although as the years rolled on I was to break more serious things in his scheme of things than fruit jars.

Second Reading: Theodore Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life (edited).

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.

A life of . . . ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole. Who among you would teach . . . that ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration in their eyes—to be the ultimate goal after which they strive? You work yourselves, and you bring up your . . . [children] to work. If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your . . . [children] that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it . . . are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work. . . - work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation. We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those . . . qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.

In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.

Sermon

For several months we’ve been conducting an exploration and an experiment. The exploration part began with the questionnaires the Board of Trustees asked people to complete about the values we hold as a congregation. That part of the process is complete. But that is only the beginning. The results of the survey are posted outside the door of this Great Hall, our sanctuary. The top five values are truth, love, integrity, reason, and tolerance. Statistically truth and love are the most important of the values. They definitely float to the top, followed by the other three. In the weeks and months ahead the entire congregation will be invited to participate in a discussion about what those words mean - because by themselves I don’t think they tell us much - they are just words. The question is what do they mean. The board of trustees is working on some tentative definitions that they will present to the congregation to provide a starting point for that discussion. I don’t know what they will propose, but as I thought about the process it occurred to me that of all the values lifted up, integrity is not just a good place to start, but the place to begin thinking about what values are in general. It is the word to begin with because I don’t think one can have any sense of values unless one first embraces the idea of integrity - which is why I want to talk today about some of my ideas about what integrity means.

Integrity is a common idea. I think we all have a sense of what it means. An acquaintance told me once that he defined integrity in words that went something like this: My actions will be consistent with my words which in turn will be consistent with what I believe in the privacy of my mind. That sounds simple enough. So what’s the big deal? The answer is that it’s easy to say, but difficult to put into practice. It’s difficult to put into practice because it says that what you believe - and in this context it’s about what we’re going to say our values are - has to directly affect one’s actions.

That still doesn’t sound difficult - and often it’s not. Most days the weather is fine. Most days life is easy and the living is good. But there are days when it’s not. There are days when walking the walk suddenly becomes far more difficult than just talking the talk. And that’s when integrity begins to have meaning - in fact, it’s the only time that integrity means anything. The rest of the time it’s just a nice word we use to make ourselves feel better. And if you want to understand what I’m talking about I ask you to stop and think about a news report I heard on Friday as I sat down to write this sermon. It was the report of the death of Pat Tillman.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to sports these days. But when I heard the news on Friday, I remembered a story from two years ago about a NFL football player who left his team, the Arizona Cardinals, to join the Army. He didn’t leave because he had been cut from the team. He left - in response to the events of 9/11 - because he felt an obligation to serve his country. He left with an offer on the table from the Arizona Cardinals for $3.6 Million Dollars. You should know that the year before he turned down an offer for $9 Million Dollars to play for the St. Louis Rams. He turned it down because of a sense of loyalty to the Cardinals - for whom he played one more year at a salary that was a fraction of what the Rams had offered.

At first some people thought it was a publicity stunt. But that wasn’t Pat Tillman. As a student at Arizona State he was asked by his coach to redshirt. He refused, saying he had things to do with his life and after four years he would be gone. Which is what he did - with his degree earned summa cum laude. He became a solid performer in the NFL, a man who could have earned millions. But he turned it down to join the Army because he thought it was the right thing. After telling his teammates what he was doing, he left by a back exit and refused to talk to the press who had heard about his decision. He didn't grant a single interview or release any public statements. He just enlisted and reported for basic training. He completed Ranger school and was serving in one of the elite Ranger units in Afghanistan when he was killed. "What other person do you know,” said David Barrett, a former teammate, “who would give up a life in the NFL to defend what he believes in with his own life?" How many people do you know who have that kind of integrity - that willingness to put what they believe in the privacy of their minds into the public deeds of their lives?

Don’t you think he was crazy? He could have been a millionaire several times over. Most people have more sense. Most people are more flexible. Do you remember Michael Milken. In 1991 he went to federal prison for twenty-two months. His crime was stealing over a billion dollars through fraudulent schemes involving junk bonds. He was required to pay about six hundred million dollars in fines and restitution, but as part of his plea agreement with the government he kept Six Hundred Million Dollars of the money he stole. That has led me to speculate: How many of you would be willing to accept this offer. You steal over a billion dollars, get caught, are convicted of a felony, and have to go to a Federal Prison for two years. We’re not talking about hard time. This will be one of the minimum security places - probably like being in the army for two years and restricted to post. When all is said and done you get to keep Six Hundred Million Dollars. Would you accept that offer? All you would really lose after the two years would be the right to vote in an election - but with that much money you could buy any politician you wanted. What percentage of the population would accept such an offer? How many of us in this room would accept such an offer? It sure sounds tempting to me.

Pat Tillman and Michael Milken - two extremes. I’d like to think there is a middle ground, but I’m not sure there is. And that’s why I think this integrity business is so serious. Genuine integrity doesn’t come easy. It calls for us to make decisions. Not all are as dangerous as Pat Tillman’s. Alice Walker’s was much simpler. It was integrity expressed in the form of honesty, it was having the integrity to live up to the expectations her father had for her. Alice Walker didn’t put her life at risk by telling the truth. But I wonder. Suppose a person were to make a commitment to telling the truth. If a person has the integrity to stand by that commitment, what might be the cost? For some people it has - like Pat Tillman - cost them their lives.

That’s why I think the life of integrity is the strenuous life. That’s why I was attracted to the speech by Teddy Roosevelt this morning.

To my ears that sounds a great deal like integrity. That’s why I’m proud of this congregation for holding up integrity as a virtue. I’m proud of this congregation because I think it says that you want a church - that by its deeds - preaches not a doctrine of convenient beliefs and low expectations, but the doctrine of meaning and high expectations and commitment - commitment to values that are not just empty words, but values which people are willing to defend with their own lives.

There I go, sounding extreme again. But I think it’s necessary. I began by saying that integrity was a prerequisite for other values, but other values are, at the same time, a prerequisite for integrity - because to have integrity you must first have something to which you can be committed. Integrity - by itself - is meaningless, because it’s always a question of integrity in what. The person who understands his or her beliefs as completely relativistic, as wholly personal, has nothing by which to stand. One of my favorite passages from Proverbs captures this idea. "The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity." - (Proverbs 11:3) What is duplicity? It can be construed as lying, as not telling the truth, but I think a better understanding is to think of it as first standing for one thing and then another, as not being able to decide what one believes. If that’s true, then integrity is what we have when we take our other values seriously - when words such as truth and love and reason and tolerance are no longer empty vessels, but icons that point us towards something worthy of sacrifice.

If there is what you intend, then I imagine ours will be a church that preaches not the doctrine of anything goes; not a doctrine of just say the words, don’t worry about actually believing or making a commitment to something; not the doctrine of prosperity for a faith offering; nor salvation for reciting the proper creed. I imagine a church that requires something more strenuous, a church that requires commitment and sacrifice and labor and strife, a church that says salvation will be found in character, not beliefs, a church that says truth means not something nebulous, but something concrete and specific. It is a church that doesn’t accept artificial peace, but embraces the difficult, even the dangerous, because it’s the right thing to do, because it is only in striving for greatness that a church becomes worthy of its name. I believe a church of integrity is one that does not rely upon the gifts of others, but relies instead on itself and the current - not the past - gifts of its members.

I believe a church that values integrity is one that requires much of its youth. It does not hesitate to say it has something of value - a statement best made not in words, but in deeds. And it is a church that knows how difficult and painful it is to fail, but knows it is worse to never try. It is a church that teaches - by example - that the greatest satisfaction in life comes not in ease or leisure or luxury, but in effort for that which is worth so much that it is worthy of our lives and our fortunes. It is a church that says integrity is both the beginning and the end to which it strives.

I think the choice of integrity as a value is more than just saying we will hang that word on a bulletin board. I think the choice of integrity says we are choosing to live lives of integrity - lives that will require us to make those other words - truth, love, reason and tolerance come alive in the deeds of our lives. I think if we do so, then we will be a very big church indeed - a big church in the sense of the spirit. We might even have a church that matches the spirit of a man like Pat Tillman.

Amen.