Integrity

An Election Sunday sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, November 5, 2006

The dictionary definition of integrity reads; soundness of moral principle and character; uprightness and honesty.

Oh, how I long for integrity in other people. I want people to be good and moral…of honest character. I feel so naive, so young and foolish, when I am surprised by immorality. And it happens all the time. On both the national stage and within my own personal and professional life, I am regularly surprised by dishonesty…especially in people in elected office, or people who I assume have chosen to live on higher moral ground, people like ministers, and priests, like doctors and presidents.

I want people of character and integrity in my life, in this world, for a lot of reasons. Wouldn’t it be a better world if there were more trustworthy people in it? How wonderful would it be if we could believe everything we read in the paper, or all the people who are interviewed on television…or if all those we met along the course of our day acted with character the goal.

What if we could go back to trusting priests, and all the members of the cabinet of the US of America? What if schools didn’t cover up for atheletes with poor grades, or doctorial candidates didn’t steal the research and writings of others off the internet? Was there ever a time of more public honesty and moral character? Is it possible to work toward a day when honesty and character are the standard and the expectation? Am I just naďve?

Questions of integrity come up every day. Should the Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University have terminated Jane K. Fenandes’s contract as president? Wouldn’t a more honest and upright solution have been a compromise; say a 9 month probationary period? How much integrity did that board show in their actions?

Celebrities often stand in for the litmus tests of cultural norms. What were Madonna’s true intentions in adopting a child from Africa? Was this an act of integrity…or were selfish motives at play. America wants to know. And of course, America suspects the worst.

A common understanding of integrity is acting without concern for self -aggrandizement or profit of any kind, including status.

A true person of character cares little about what others’ think of them.

And that brings me to Oprah! On her recent Halloween show, Oprah, following in her own footsteps, gave away $1,000 to each member of the audience. That was a $300,000 give-away. Not small potatoes, unless you compare it to her other, more lavish, give-aways. But the moral problem was not in the relatively small size of the gift…but in the strings attached.

This was a trick or treat gimmick, and the trick was…that the $1,000 was given in the form of a debit card, with the caveat, that all the money must be given away to charity.

Oprah claimed that what she really intended to give to her audience, was the “best feeling in the world, the good feeling of happiness that she gets when she gives things away.”

Had she stopped there, I might have seen the trick with good intentions…but no…she went on to pass out cam-corders…so that the audience could record their give away moments to play back on a later Oprah show.

Little integrity there, I’m afraid.

The Sunday before election day is a good time to think about the meanings of integrity and the role it plays in our lives.

Certainly the negative campaign ads of this election cycle give us plenty of examples of lack of integrity.

How could these ads possibly encourage voters to the polls? How could they encourage votes for either the accuser or the accused in these ads? Is the lack of character, the absence of integrity not obvious in both parties? How does all this contribute to civic pride or an honorable society?

And then there’s always clergy sexual misconduct…this time the Evangelical pastor of a 14,000 member church in Colorado accused of paying for gay sex while speaking out against same sex marriage. I would question whether it’s possible for any person to retain integrity under the pressures of a 14, 000 member congregation.

I really don’t care too much what Madonna does, but I, for one, think it’s fair to hold religious leaders and presidents to a higher standard. I think we should all tell the truth, all of the time, but then, I am just naďve.

I called my 22 year old son, a senior at St. Mary’s college to get his perspective on the question of integrity. To my great surprise, he got excited about the topic, and directed me to read, Aristotle’s Ethics…which I did…and along the way, I reviewed a little Nietzsche.

Contemporary ethics comes to us by way of Christian ethics, which came by way of Greek and Roman morality, and Plato and Aristotle. One of Aristotle’s great questions is whether or not you can become a just person by doing acts of justice, or whether you must be a just person first in order to do justice. A chicken and egg of integrity.

Putting this kind of question to today’s dilemmas might inform our choice of hope or cynicism. Can we expect greater morality in the future? Will there be more leaders of integrity in days to come? Will each of us be dragged down by a moral lowest common denominator, or can we pull the collective character up by its bootstraps?

Aristotle’s wager was on the efficacy of doing justice. If we act, “ as if”, we are just, then we will be better able to move toward a state of integrity. My hope is also in the “as if” camp…I recommend naivite for all. If more people expect honesty, then perhaps fewer liars will be tolerated and rewarded.

Perhaps we are in a historical period of backlash against unrealistically high moral standards. Perhaps the strict Christian expectations of moral perfection of earlier times, have led us to the seeming character wasteland of today.

This was one of Neitzsche’s points – that Christianity had made an idol of moral perfection. That the early church fathers defined sin and sanctity in such a way that everything fell along the fault-line of either good or evil. Too often, we still tend to think this way.

There is a second definition of integrity that may bring clarity. Integrity as the state of being whole, entire or undiminished. As a piece of music or art might have integrity if it is balanced, complete, resolved. Or a congregation might have integrity if it balances the past and the future, but lives most fully in the present. Or a life might have integrity if it embraces all aspects of a person’s character, not only honesty and righteousness, but also fear and anger.

At times I experience my life as lacking in integrity, even if I am doing my best at my ministry, even if I seem to others to be virtuous (at least, in part)…but I know better, there is more to me than fulfilling the role of minister, even if I’m doing that to the best of my ability. As Yeats said, “All virtue is a form of acting” A harsh, but true statement, I believe…because virtue is only a part of who we are. To be a person of integrity, we must learn to integrate all aspects of who we are. Our Jungian shadow, as well as our virtue.

Integrity requires bringing everything that we are into the present moment.

It is also the wisdom of all faith and ethical traditions to understand along with St. Thomas Aquinas that; “the good of the whole is of more account than the good of the part”. It means little to be moral or good or honest – if we limit our goodness to our intimate relationships- if we go from a loving family breakfast to road rage on the beltway.

It means little to be moral and upright in our marriage- if we go from the consolation of our marriage to declare war under false pretenses.

It means little to be a doctor or a lawyer working with the poor and needy if we become wealthy in the process and don’t use our money for good.

It means little to be the upright, honest director of a homeless shelter and we don’t bother to vote on election day.

To be a person of integrity means to live with character in all parts of your life…and to make the good of the whole a higher value than the good of yourself, or the good of your family, or the good of your special interest group, or the good of your race or gender or age group, or the good of your neighborhood, or your religion, or your state, or your country.

Integrity calls us to higher and higher acts of character. Integrity calls us to the good of the whole.

Fortunately, we have our whole lives for this work of character building. Fortunately, we have our whole lives for acting, as if, we are thoroughly honest and upright. Fortunately, we have our whole lives To learn to live in the present…to be our whole human selves.

I looked for a hopeful and inspiring story to encourage us all on the road to integrity. I looked for a story that would not make an idol of moral perfection. I looked for a story that would show how important our seemingly small acts of character can be.

Of course, I found my story to be one about children. And not just ordinary children, but children with various disabilities, children who ride a small school bus to a special education class.

The author is Robin Cody…the essay is called Miss Ivory Broom. Robin Cody is former dean of admissions at Reed College and presently drives a school bus. (Remember this is a story about integrity)

The story begins, “I am in love with a six year old. She is in the first grade and rides in a wheelchair on my school bus to a special education class. She is the first child I pick up each morning. We have some quality time together.

Ivory Broom is an incomplete child, she has spina bifida, only her top half works.

I was a nervous wreck before I even got to Ivory’s house on the first day of school. I’d practiced the hydraulic lift..and the tie-downs on a spare wheelchair- but still I was worried, what if I had to break suddenly?

Anyway, here she came on the first day of school. Ivory was not at all the pathetic broken creature I’d prepared myself for. She was fair-skinned with freckles and big fearless blue eyes and light brown hair that her mom had fixed into a complex French braid. No bigger than a large Chinook salmon, Ivory came rolling toward the bus strapped tightly into her wheelchair and wearing an eager lopsided grin like this was a yellow amusement park ride and she was the luckiest girl in the world to get on it. Ivory waved her little fingers at me as the lift took us up, and I thought, Uh-oh, she lacks arm control too. But, no. She was showing me, so proud, her two-tone manicure.

I had focused so hard on what’s wrong with Ivory that she just floored me with what’s right! Turns out this kid has huge spirit. She has life-loving relish and thinks almost everything is funny.

Oh, and then there’s Jacoby. Jocoby is, (or was at the beginning of the school year) a tough sullen fifth grader who got kicked out of his neighborhood school for defiance and for not trying. Self-pitying, resentful for having to ride this short bus, “with the retards” to his own special ed program, Jacoby can poison the sir inside my bus just sitting there if he chooses to. At first, he chose to.

Or may, I think now, he was just scared. Lost. But anyway, Ivory’s daily greeting…Ja Co By…I …am…happy…to …see…you…began to coax a smile out of him.

Soon Jacoby began sitting opposite Ivory’s wheelchair and talking to her. And just the other day, this really got me- I saw in the mirror they were holding hands across the aisle. Jacoby now has a spring to his step to the bus each morning. He is teaching Ivory her numbers. He also helps Ashley and Anthony to fasten their seatbelts which they cannot do themselves. His teacher tells me Jacoby is doing his school work! The little ones recently elected him President of the Bus.

So you see, Ivory would not let Jacoby brood, What we have here is a busload of children who have every reason to feel sorry for themselves. But despair? Ivory Broom won’t have it.

It seems to me that Ivory Broom is a person of integrity. She uses all that she has, all that she is…for the good the whole…for the good of the whole bus. She was fully honest, fully present, as complete as she could be. Integrity in a six year old child.

So I ask two things of you this morning. First, before you go to vote on Tuesday, spend some time thinking about the integrity of the candidates and the good of the whole that is affected by the good of the election process.

And second, consider what you need in your life to move you toward integrity…what you need to encourage you toward the kind of moral character that comes from your whole humanity. Don’t strive for perfection…but try each day to act, “as if”.

So Be It/ Amen