The Way Forward: Integrity

The Way Forward:  Ingegrity

Matthew 7:24-27

In May of 2005, American professional tennis player, Andy Roddick was playing Fernando Verdasco of Spain in the round of 16 at the Italian Masters tournament in Rome.  Roddick was the number one seed in the tournament and a heavy favorite to with this match against Verdasco.

Roddick dominated, as expected and had a triple match point when something extremely unusual happened.  Roddick couldn’t return Verdasco’s hard second serve but the linesman called the serve out and awarded the point and the match to Roddick. 

Here’s the unusual part.  With the crowd cheering for Roddick, Verdasco ran to the net to shake Roddick’s hand and congratulate him on his victory.  However, Roddick knew something that the linesman, the umpire, the cheering crowd and Verdasco, himself, didn’t know.  Roddick knew that Verdasco’s serve had, in fact, been “in” not “out.”  The ball had hit the line, making it in.  

Roddick could have kept this information to himself and accepted all that applause and moved on.  There really isn’t any expectation at a tennis match that is officiated that “honor calls” will be made.  However, Roddick not only informed the umpire that the linesman’s call had been wrong, he insisted that the umpire join him on the court.  Then, he showed the umpire the ball mark on the clay court.  The umpire reversed the call and awarded the point to Verdasco.  

Andy Roddick did the right thing.  What happened next is what often happens when someone does the right thing: Roddick paid a heavy price.  Having been given a second chance, Verdasco, made the most of it.  He not only won that game.  He won the set and the match, as well.  Imagine having that kind of a comeback after having stood at the net ready to congratulate your opponent. 

Doing the right thing cost Andy Roddick dearly, at least tens of thousands of dollars just for that match, perhaps far more if he had gone on to win the tournament.  That’s the thing, though.  Clearly for Andy Roddick, integrity was more important than either winning or money.  Andy Roddick lost a tennis match but won something much more important that day.  He showed us what integrity looks like.  He showed us that it does matter how you play the game.

At their best, sports teach us how to win and lose graciously, how to accept defeat, and shake our opponent’s hand, and congratulate them on a game well played.  Sports teach us that playing a hard fought game against a skilled competitor is what the game is all about.  That other team isn’t my enemy.  We’re helping each other to play the best version of the game that we all love.

Or, of course, sports can teach us how to cheat, how to blame the officials or the groundskeeper rather than to take responsibility for ourselves and our own failures.  Sports can teach us to turn on our teammates.  Sports teaches us to feed off the adoration of crowds.  Sports can teach us that real winners will do anything to win.

The choice is ours.  Are you going to win at all costs?  Are you going to make money, at all costs?  Are you going to do whatever it takes to get whatever you’ve decided you deserve?  Is the measure of your life going to be whether you met your every need?  

The world is full of people who lie and cheat and steal to get what they want.  Some of those people are thieves and some are respected business people.  Some of those people are sitting in jail and some of them got away with with they did.  Some of those people did the right thing, 99 out of 100 times, but that one time, well, that turned out to be a real “whopper.”  People are complicated.  People are vulnerable to temptation. People sometimes give into our worst instincts.  

Of course, not everyone lies and cheats and steals.  People who are rich or poor, people who look like us or who look totally different, people who love the kind of people we love or who love totally different people—a lot of those people have their integrity tested on any given day and they pass that test.  They make the hard choices, even if it costs them dearly.  They don’t get the cheers of a crowd or the winners check.  Things don’t automatically go their way.  They just get to sleep at night.  They get the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they’ve done the right thing. 

Jesus’ goal was to show us how to live.  He wanted to teach us to live faithfully, to do the right thing, even if the right thing wasn’t what we were previously taught to do.  He wanted to open our hearts and minds to a God who is loving and gracious and forgiving and then challenge us to be loving and gracious and forgiving, ourselves.  Do this and you’ll live. Do this and you’ll be a part of the family.  Do this and you will truly be a beloved child of God.  

Jesus tells a story to make the point.  Consider the person who hears my words and actually does what I’ve asked him to do.  That guy is like the person who builds his house on rock.  Now, consider the person who hears my words and never actually does what I asked him to do.  That guy is like a person who builds his house on sand.

In theory, you can be all for forgiveness and love and grace and faith.  Jesus isn’t interested in the theoretical.  The challenge is to be inspired by the vision, to take the words to heart, and then to actually get down to the business of loving and forgiving real people, even the one’s you don’t like, even the ones you consider your enemies, even when loving people like that is going to make you look stupid to the people around you and may cost you dearly.  The good news is that Jesus isn’t big on being perfect.  The bad news is that he is going to ask us, “Did you at least try?”

The truth that Jesus tells us is this:  the rain is going to fall; the floods are going to come; the wind is going to blow like crazy.  Let me make this point abundantly clear:  the rain and the floods and the wind are coming for us all.  Life is hard, whether you’re doing the right thing or not.  Doing the right thing won’t make you immune to life’s difficulties.  You won’t get special protection.  You won’t be given a pass.  This is the honest truth:  life is hard whether you are trying to be a good person or not.

Here’s the other truth: if your life is built on a solid foundation, your life will withstand such things.  If the foundation of your life is the numbers in your bank account then when the market falls, you will fall with it.  If the foundation of your life is being adored by others, then on the day when that adoration wanes (and it will) you will feel the ground under your feet shake.  If the foundation of your life is winning at all costs, where will you find solid ground on the day that you meet your match? (And you will!)  Understand, money and adoration and winning, with the right perspective, when they’re not the “be all and end all” of my world—can be okay.  However they will never be, and can’t be treated as if they are, the only thing that matters or even as the thing that matters most.  Be successful.  Wave to the crowd.  Play hard and play to win.  But when any of those things come into conflict with actually doing the right thing—drop those things like their hot.

Living with integrity is part of how we find our way forward, as individuals, as families and friends, as a church, and even as a nation.  When we have a sense of who we have been and who we have not been, we have some idea of who we seek to be in the future.  Each chapter is different, and yet there the things we do precisely because of who we are (and I would say “who’s we are,” too).  There are also things that we just don’t do because that’s not who we are and because those things would be totally out of line with “who’s we are,” too.  No matter what happens next, we’re going to be watching for the next loving thing to do, the next chance to be forgiving, the next opportunity to bring hope to life.  And no matter how hard things get, we’re going to keep looking.

The job, in the end is to be who we are and to show the world “who’s we are” by the things we do.  We know this individually.  It’s the moment when we face a hard choice and give in to the easy way out or give into our worst instincts.  In that moment, we know, right away, “That wasn’t me!  That’s not who I am!”  In a similar way, it’s the moment when we face a hard choice or maybe just face a lot of pressure to give into someone else’s choice, and we do the right thing—the thing that fits.  We feel the rush in that moment of knowing, no matter what others may think, that this was exactly the right thing to do,that this fit with who I was created to be.  Best of all are the moments when those who know us best see that kind of a moment and say to us, “Way to go!  That was totally you!”

Churches have their own integrity, too.  Whenever the Union Church keeps it’s eye on being the Union Church—the unique group of people with the unique history that we share—and makes decisions that express that core identity, things go just fine.  However, when we try to do what some other church is doing, we get tripped up and fall.  The conversation today and over the next few months is an opportunity for the congregation to refresh our sense of who we are and “who’s we are.”  It’s a chance to make the connection between who we actually are and what we actually do to be as coherent as possible.  It’s the chance before you all to build the next chapter of this church’s life on a rock solid foundation.

The rains will come.  The floods will fall.  The winds will blow.  The house that is built on rock will be standing when the sun rises on a new day.  Let’s be who we are.  Let’s do what we do with integrity. Let’s discern this church family’s future, together.

Mark Hindman