Watertight Integrity

22 February 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

READING

As we embark on the subject of integrity this morning, I’d like to start with a reading from early 19th century Universalist minister Hosea Ballou, which I believe, illustrates a liberal religious understanding of integrity:

“I know it is frequently contended that we ought to love God for what God is, and not for what we receive from God; that we ought to love holiness for holiness’s sake, and not for any advantage such a principle is to us. This is what I have often been told, but what I never could see any reason for, or propriety in. I am asked if I love an orange; I answer I never tasted of one; but then I am told I must love the orange for what it is! Now I ask, is it possible for me either to like or dislike the orange, in reality, until I taste it? Well, I taste of it and I like it. Do you like it? says my friend. Yes I reply, its flavor is exquisitely agreeable. But that will not do, says my friend; you must not like it because its taste is agreeable, but you must like it because it is an orange. If there be any propriety in what my friend says, it is out of my sight.”

SERMON

This subject of integrity is a complex one, but at the same time, quite simple. Everyone is FOR integrity, everyone wants to HAVE integrity, everyone demands integrity from others.

When something big is at stake or of ultimate importance, then we insist on integrity. We want our leaders to have impeccable character, we want corporations, and government, and schools, and the church to be institutions that are beyond reproach. But when it comes to the small things, well, then it might be ok to stretch the rules. We learn to fib rather than hold fast to our principles if we believe their might be some benefit, or we don’t think anyone else will suffer. The old adage of “what they don’t know won’t hurt them” is a familiar one. So what if I stretch the truth a little on my income taxes. So what if I was undercharged. So what if they gave me back too much change. So what if I speed a little. Nobody is getting hurt, are they?? Integrity is easy to think about, but I believe it is more difficult in practice. Maybe we don’t spend enough time figuring out HOW to have integrity.

So, today I will talk about several aspects of living a life of integrity. These are maintaining wholeness, freedom as a fundamental value, acting on the courage of our convictions, and the willingness to take risks. Wholeness, freedom, courage, and risk. These are all central to integrity in our spiritual and personal lives.

First, we will deal with wholeness. By definition, integrity is the act of maintaining wholeness. Integrity shares the same Latin root as the word integer, or whole number. A person of integrity is a whole person. There’s an interesting 19th century form of the word that illustrates this point. It is “Integralism,” which means “the belief that one’s religious convictions ought to dictate their social and political actions.” – Integrating the religious, social and political aspects of our lives. This is maintaining wholeness.

While we are thinking about definitions . . . I’ve often used the word integrous as an adjective to describe the quality of having integrity. But I’ve noticed that no one else ever uses this form.

Being the educational product of the South Carolina public school system, I often question my own grasp of the English language. You won’t find “integrous” in any American dictionary. But, it is in the Oxford English Dictionary – as an obsolete and rare form. How ironic, or how unfortunate, that we don’t have a commonly used adjectival form of integrity in English. So I will continue to use integrous, in my own hope that it comes back into to our common vocabulary.

So, we have the first concept of wholeness. The second aspect of integrity, especially in liberal religion, is the concept of freedom. Freedom is at the core of Unitarian Universalism. We have emerged from the free church tradition — rejecting prescribed doctrines and creeds, while simultaneously affirming freedom of belief and freedom of association. In 1960, on the eve of the consolidation of Unitarianism and Universalism in the U.S., Rev. David Parke, Unitarian historian and then minister of the Unitarian Church of Peterborough, New Hampshire, addressed the issue of integrity in Unitarian Universalism in a series of sermons. He noted that some of us find fulfillment in the fact that we are free. Others of us find fulfillment not in freedom, but in faith. For the first group, faith is the means to a life of integrity, freedom is the end. For the second group, freedom is the means, faith is the end. Parke said in 1960 that humanists fell into the first category, while Unitarian Christians fell in the second category. He said that Unitarian Universalists – then a new breed – fell somewhere in between. Faith, freedom, and fulfillment — three aspects of integrity for a liberal religious faith; not unlike “Integralism” and integrating the religious, social, and political aspects of our lives. The elegance of Unitarian Universalism is that we are not boxed into absolute categories when it comes to freedom, faith, and fulfillment.

This brings me to the third primary element of integrity – the courage of our convictions. We have addressed the essence of integrity -which is wholeness. We have addressed core of integrity in liberal religion, which is freedom. The courage of our convictions addresses the question of HOW we live integrous lives.

In his book, titled Integrity, Stephen Carter explains that living an integrous life requires discerning what we believe is right and what we believe is wrong. At the foundation of integrity is our values system. Values systems are represented by our emphasis on freedom, by our seven Unitarian Universalist principles, by the Torah and the Talmud of Judaism, by the gospel teachings of Jesus for the Christian and so on, as each religious tradition has tried to discern that which is of utmost importance.

Beyond knowing what we believe, integrity includes acting on our convictions, even at personal risk. Our own UU principles are a covenant to affirm and promote – these are actions which we agree in principle to take on.

The courage of our convictions also includes articulating our faith — openly saying that we are acting on our understanding of right and wrong. Even if our saying so is unpopular. We must be willing to tie our actions to our principles and say “I’m doing X because I believe Z.” This is what Hosea Ballou was trying to illustrate in his example of loving an orange. We don’t do things because we are told to, or for the sake of doing them. Living with integrity means that we understand what we believe, have the courage to act on our beliefs, and are able to articulate our convictions even in the face of criticism and disagreement with others.

I spent many years being openly critical of Christianity because I felt that its foundation was weak. But when I truly came to understand what I believed as a Unitarian Universalist, I realized that I could not, with integrity, dismiss Christianity or any other belief system that has as its basic assumption the goodwill of everyone. I recognized that Christianity was central to the lives of my mother and father in law, and that they are the most integrous and most service oriented people I know. I know what I believe and why. I act on my convictions. I let others know why I am doing so, but I must also hear and accept the differences and whys of others’ beliefs.

So, now we have expanded our definition of integrity beyond the idea of wholeness, beyond seeing integrity in our value of freedom, to conviction in understanding right and wrong, acting on those convictions, and being able to articulate our faith.

But we are not finished yet. I’d like to add the idea of risk-taking to our understanding of integrity, especially as it relates to liberal religion. My experience with risk-taking comes from an unlikely source, but I find a certain synchronicity it all of it.

I’ve been keeping you in suspense with the title of this sermon – Watertight Integrity. I learned about risk taking as a component of integrity in the Navy. I spent 11 years as an active duty Naval Officer, and recently retired from the Naval Reserve. Four and a half of my 20 years of service were aboard ships. In ships and submarines, WATERTIGHT integrity is essential. Without it, the ship risks sinking. Each door and hatch is lined with a rubber seal, treated with petroleum jelly and tested periodically for its integrity. This ensures that there won’t be any leaks into the next compartment in the event that one side is flooded. Some compartments are called voids and they stay constantly sealed, so that the ship can float. In a submarine it is a little trickier, because they purposely fill these voids with water, and then expel it so that the sub can surface or dive.

We constantly trained in the Navy to ensure that our watertight integrity remained intact. During General Quarters, the level of alert that we go to when danger is imminent, all doors and hatches are closed and sealed. No one is allowed to move around the ship and open any of these doors. We would time how long it took to report “Condition Zebra,” Meaning that everyone had reached their station and all watertight hatches and doors had been secured! There is a Navy ship somewhere right now who is going through this drill, I am certain. They are testing their integrity.

But, Condition Zebra is an extreme condition in which we take no risks. Everything is locked tight. We don’t go to that condition of watertight integrity very often and don’t stay in it for very long. So, we also had condition Yoke, Xray, and modified Zebra – all different degrees of watertight integrity. Each hatch was marked with an X, Y or Z and allowed to be open at certain times and not at others. Just like in life. Sometimes we open doors and take a calculated risk, sometimes we don’t.

Fundamentalist or conservative faiths might be considered to be more often in condition Zebra, relying more on certainty and allowing for very little risk. But they deny their wholeness in the very act of trying to maintain it – People don’t function as well if they are constantly locked down. As believers in a liberal tradition we allow for less rigidity in our knowledge and beliefs, and are more affirming of others’ beliefs. We take calculated risks, but need to have a keen understanding of why we are doing so, and a plan for when we might tighten up a little.

We often TALK about integrity in terms of honesty, of right and wrong. We THINK of it in terms of shoulds and should nots, cans and cannots – but we PRACTICE integrity in degrees. It isn’t PRACTICAL to stay in Condition Zebra all of the time.

Part of integrity is attending to life and to being whole, knowing what is going on around us and what watertight condition we are in at any given time!

Integrity isn’t a question of either/or, it isn’t a question of should or shouldn’t, can or cannot. Integrity is more complex than that. Critics might say this is a slippery slope – .that it is moral relativism to explain away integrity as other than pure and certain. To them I say, we can lock down every door. Or we can live our lives paying attention to our wholeness, maintaining our commitment to freedom, having courage in our convictions, and knowing when to take risks.

Know what you believe. Act courageously on your beliefs. Say publicly and without shame why you are doing so. Have the sense of awareness to know when to take calculated risks, all the while maintaining your wholeness. If we do these things perhaps we will be more integrous people.

May it be so.

———————

Except where otherwise cited, the material presented here is the intellectual property of the author. Use and reproduction of this material for non-profit personal, academic, or religious purposes is encouraged with appropriate citation. Any other use requires the expressed consent of the author.