The Gifts of Ethics & Integrity

In every age there are the select few – the mystics and the prophets – who go where the rest of us hesitate, or are afraid to go. They are the special few who see the sacredness of all people – ALWAYS. They can’t be bought by the lure of wealth and power. They can’t be swayed to be someone they aren’t. In recent times we know the names of some of those people well: Desmond Tutu, Mother Theresa, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the first century (of time as we know it), one of those people was a man named Jesus.

The first Sunday in Lent always recounts the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The author of Mark, the first gospel to be written, tells it more briefly than the other gospels. He tells us that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism in the Jordan River, then the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness for forty days where he was tempted by Satan and lived with the wild beasts and the angels. It is a story that very clearly symbolizes the struggle between good and evil, the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other.

Mark is setting the stage for Jesus to become the Messiah, the anointed one of God. What are the requirements of being a Messiah? You must be able to withstand the temptations of the world that will draw you away from God. You must be willing to put God first in all circumstances. You must understand that the things of this world – money, power, accomplishments, stuff – are fleeting. The soul is all that is permanent. You must understand that the Spirit of God is within you, supports and strengthens you, and you are to live out of that Spirit with a commitment to love, compassion, justice, kindness, hope, peace, non-violence.

The wilderness is Jesus’ job interview and probationary period. It is the refiner’s fire. It is the strengthening, the opening, the connecting. It is the choice.

It makes me ponder my own call to the ministry. All I had to do was go to seminary and survive some psychological exams, interviews, and a probationary period. Would I have survived an intense period of isolation and self-reflection in the wilderness? Would I have succumbed to the “temptations” and given up on what I felt was my call? Or would I have been strengthened for the journey ahead?

In this story, Mark sets the bar high. He makes sure we know who Jesus gets his authority from. He makes sure we know what Jesus’ ethical and moral code is. He makes sure we know that Jesus maintained his integrity to the beautiful, unique soul he was.

Mark doesn’t need to be explicit about what the temptations were because we know those attractive things that tug us away from the often harder, less traveled path of love, mercy and grace. In addition to the obvious temptations of money and power, there are the more subtle temptations of doubts, complacency, fear of failure, comfort, security, certainty, a desire to be liked, to please others, safety, peer pressure, self-centeredness, convenience.

In this story, Jesus gave us the gift of showing us how to live with ethics that are in line with the love of God, and how to maintain one’s integrity in the face of temptation.

The trick becomes understanding that this story isn’t about Jesus in the end, it is about each of us. Who is our authority? Where did our ethics (moral principles that govern a person’s behavior) come from? Do we have integrity (living with truth and honesty) to the deepest, truest part of ourselves that is called to be an extension of God, or have we forgotten that part of us exists? Do we sometimes make choices in favor of a shallower version of ourselves that seeks protection and keeping the status quo above all else?

Jesus did great. He passed the test and was able to come through and announce that “the reign of God is at hand!” “At hand” can also be translated as “on the verge of breaking in upon you.” How wonderful! The fullness of God’s love is on the verge of breaking in upon us… if we’ll accept the gift of ethics and integrity Jesus offers and make good choices.

Do you remember years ago when WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? - was a big slogan? There were bracelets, t-shirts, bumper stickers, billboards, necklaces, bookmarks and much more stuff that had the letters WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? It was an effective, widely publicized marketing campaign designed to get people thinking about what Jesus might do in any given circumstance. At the time, I preached a sermon at the first church I served about how it’s actually pretty easy to know what Jesus would do. The more important question is “What would I do?” Would I follow Jesus’ example or not? After that someone made a box for me that I have kept in my office ever since that says, “What Would Kaye Do?”

Joan Chittester shared this story in her book, The Time Is Now:

Once upon a time an old woman ran through the streets shouting, “power, greed, and corruption. Power, greed, and corruption.” For a while, people stopped to hear, to think, to discuss the problem. As time went by and nothing happened, they finally went back about their business. Finally, one day, a child stepped in front of the prophet to say as she ran by, “Old woman, no one is listening to you.” So, the woman stopped to say, “Oh, I know that.” The boy was puzzled. “Then if you know you have failed, why do you go on shouting?” And the old woman answered, “Oh, child, you do not understand. I do not shout in order to change them. I shout so that they cannot change me.”

It can be so easy to get sucked into the temptations we named. To limit our scope of caring to those in our immediate circle. To seek wealth and comfort and ignore the voices of pain, distress and need in the world. It’s easy to choose safety over risk. But then who will change the world? Who will experience the breaking in of God?

Joyce Rupp, in her book, Return to the Root, shared this story: “National Geographic journalist Victoria Pope interviewed protesters against dangerous regimes. She realized the activists could be arrested and imprisoned for speaking out, so she would ask them if she could use their names in her reporting. Pope marveled, “Usually the answer would be yes, despite the danger. I was told more than once: I want my children to know what I stood for.”

What will our children remember us for? What will we have stood for, or risked for, or volunteered for?

We’ve started the journey, we’re on the road, we’ve been given the example of what it means to live with a deep sense of God’s ethics and personal integrity. The choices every day are up to us. Each day, sometimes each moment we decide how to live and respond. May we choose well.

Lenten Blessings,

Kaye