THE CHARACTER OF CHARACTER 

1st of a 4-parts series on Character:  Christian Life Practice   

Psalm 1, Matthew 17:1-9

 

[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript seeks to stay close to the exact words spoken.]

A few stories to start off with this morning.  The first one takes place at a large house of a well-to-do Buck's County family.  About 12 teenagers decided to have a beer party--apparently the parents didn't know about it.  A neighbor called the police.  They arrested most of the teenagers after giving them a breathalyzer test, for drunken and disorderly conduct.  And the parents, instead of coaching their children about how to be accountable for their behavior, hired lawyers to protest the police tactics--giving them a breathalyzer test.  "You don't understand," said one of the mothers.  "We all drank beer when we were teenagers.  This is more than a fine.  It affects what college we get into."

The second story takes place at a principal's office at one of our local private high schools.  A parent is complaining to the Principal that his son is getting C's. "How much am I paying this school?  My son could get C's in public school."

A teacher at one of our local school systems, after a tragic accident, is blinded.  And instead of staying home on disability, he decides to create a program for at-risk 5th, 6th, and 7th graders, called Knock Down the Wall.  For every good grade, a kid gets a certain number of bricks, and once the wall is big enough, the group knocks it down, and they go to Chevy's and celebrate.  About that experience he writes, "I should mention the feeling I take home with me.  As you know, my ability to teach was snatched away from me quite suddenly.  These young men have given me a challenge to feel good about myself.  Working with them through this program has been a real gift to me."

All of those are true stories about people who live in our local area here.  And I tell them because I think--I tell them this morning at the beginning of the sermon because I think they speak of character: a theme that I'd like to reflect with you on not just today, but the next several Sundays.  This is the first of a four-week series on the theme of character, the nature of which, I think, touches on most every aspect of our Christian journey.  It touches upon such questions as these:

• What kind of person am I, and what kind of person do I want to be?
• What kind of life is most worth living and aiming my energies toward?
• What kind of values and habits do I consciously want to pass on to my children or to teach others in my life whom I may be mentoring?

And last, and maybe most important for us:

• What does my faith matter in how I really live my life?  How is it to any extent determinative of my character

So those are some opening gambits, some opening salvos in this first of a four part series on character.  And this morning I want to give sort of an overview for the series, and talk about: what character is, why it matters, and the content of a life of character.  So just a brief covering of the landscape as we begin this exploration of character. 

And we begin, of course appropriately enough on this Transfiguration Sunday, when we reflect on the story that Cindy read, about several of Jesus' disciples going up that mountain…a time when his character was revealed, in a rather dramatic moment.  The inner nature of that person, Jesus of Nazareth, was revealed outwardly, disclosing his significance for them, and for all of humanity.  As we consider what kind of people we shall be, our ambitions will be a little bit lower than that (than shooting for divine status).  But it's important that we also contemplate the nature of this person, as we think about what kind of person we shall be.  Because Jesus gives us not only the pattern of a life well lived--a life God intends for human beings to live--but this person, the person of Jesus gives us the ability and the power to live that kind of life, if we have faith in him. 

But I find I'm getting ahead of myself just a little bit.  We'll explore some of that territory later on.  But maybe a good beginning place to start our exploration about character is simply to talk about what it is.  Agree on a working definition of character.  Most dictionaries will inform us of a definition something like this--that the word character, when applied to a human being, is simply whatever attributes and features are unique to you.  So at its simplest level, what we mean by character is: whatever it is that makes you "you." 

In writing fiction, which I've tried my hand at at various times in my life, to varying degrees of success, a writer seeks to create characters whose inner natures are consistent with their actions.  So if you create a good character, a consistent character, we know that that character really would kick the dog when they get home from work.  That's the nature of the character you've created.  Or that character really would save the child from a burning building--because their inner nature is consonant with their outward actions.  So that's what we mean by character:  some inner quality that is determinative of our actions in some sense.

I think the etymology of the word is really interesting, and might give us an even sharper picture of what we mean when we speak about character.  Now the word character comes from a Greek word, kharakter, which has to do with etching, this business of engraving something on something else.  And I think a helpful way to get the image is to think of this:  people used to use a seal and sealing wax to seal letters in the old days.  That's a way that you would know that a letter really came from you.  And whatever is on the seal--whatever's engraved and etched upon it, whatever harmonious design or whatever flaw--would be transmitted to the wax when it's imprinted.  And so with character.  Character is whatever is imprinted upon our inner nature that determines how we imprint life, through our actions. 

Now in saying that, we need to also, I think, mention that our inner nature is not fixed.  I'm always interested, as a parent, in whether it's more virtuous for the kid who is naturally sweet and kind and good to be sweet and kind and good, or if it's more virtuous for the kid who is a spirited child, who is naturally a squirt, to be good and kind and sweet.  The point is that we might be given a certain disposition through the quirk of nature and DNA, but what we do with that disposition, that inner engraving that we're given, is up to us. It's "re-etchable."  And so it's ours to form our character through habit, and through the exercise of our reason. 

So there is a definition of character and how we might think about it.  Let's move on.  Why don't we move on to this question:  Why does it matter?  Why does it matter how we live our life?  And I think that's a very hot question today, in this culture in which we're living, which many are calling the post-modern culture.  Some are even calling it the post post-modern culture.  And we're living in a time when the notion that there are any natural or fixed values according to which to live one's life seems to be evaporating.  We no longer think that there are culturally agreed-upon values according to which everyone should live--there are only subjective values.  There are your values, and there are my values, and there is no way to evaluate which one is better than the other.

Let's put it this way….We all know that the law of gravity exists, and I can choose either to cooperate with the law of gravity or not.  I can choose to walk off this ledge and say, "I'm not going to abide by the law of gravity," but the law of gravity exists whether I cooperate with it or not.  Right?  And in the same way there used to be some agreement that there are laws governing the way a human life should be fruitfully lived.  And I can certainly cooperate with them, to the end that I achieve a life of flourishing and abundance.  Or I can disobey those laws, in the same way as I might disobey the law of gravity, to my detriment.  But many claim that such a shared belief--that one way of living is any better than another--seems to be waning in this post-modern age. 

I guess for me the commonsense answer to that quandary is to ask the question, "What do you believe…? What do I believe?"  Because I believe that there are ways of living life that are better than others.  There are ways of living that are more conducive to human flourishing than others.  You can learn to play the saxophone any way that you want to learn, but there are rules governing what is beautiful music, and a beautiful and excellent way of playing the saxophone.  So I believe, and I would submit, that there are values of character we ought to be teaching and instructing one another about.  Not because we want people to be like us, but because we know that there are ways of living that are conducive to human flourishing and human happiness.  Does it matter what we teach our kids?  Yes. 

You know I have a lot of friends who teach at the Lawrenceville School over here.  It's a great joy of my life, to have many good friendships there, and with PDS teachers.  And sometimes I hear of the frustrations of being a teacher.  This is sort of a composite conversation--this is not any one.  But I might have a conversation with a teacher, who might speak of the frustration of dealing with parents who think their kids are like they are in Lake Wobegon, you know, they're all above average.  And they all ought to get into an Ivy League school.  And sometimes there's a frustration about…why are we doing that?  Why are we teaching our children?  What for?  Are we teaching them to be homo economicus?  Making decisions only on the basis of their economic self interest?  Get into a good college, get a good job, live a comfortable life--is that what all it's about?  Or are we teaching our youth and our children about vocation?  That there is a unique purpose to which to apply your unique gifts in serving the common good.  There are values of integrity and honesty and compassion that form the content of a life of character, and that is what education is for--and religion.  It matters what we teach our children.  Teaching skills to operate in the marketplace is important, but are we teaching our children a life that enables them to live a life of human flourishing? 

Psalm One, I think, gives us a great image for that kind of life--the very first psalm in our Psalm book.  It speaks about how the person who lives his or her life according to the divine law is like a tree planted by a stream.  And it's a wonderful image, because it speaks of a life that doesn't depend on the outward circumstances of rain, or drought, or sun, or flood.  A life whose roots are deep enough in the soil that it can be nourished by a deep underground stream of water.  That's the kind of life we aim for.

Now the last thing here.  Just briefly let's touch upon the question:  What's the content of that kind of life, a life of character?  I only have a moment to mention them briefly, and maybe we'll talk about these a little later, in our reflection together.  But the Greeks called the content of this type of life a life of virtue.  And they had four main ones, or cardinal virtues.  For those of you who like etymology the word cardinal comes from a later Latin word cardo, which simply means "a hinge."  So these are the pivotal virtues, the virtues around which the moral life turns, and they are:
1) prudence, or wisdom;
2) fortitude, or courage;
3) justice…treating others fairly; and
4) temperance, or moderation.
Christians, of course, have spoken of this sort of life, a life of virtue, and we put our own spin to that kind of life, and we've added three others, which we call the theological, or apostolic virtues, which are:
5) faith;
6) hope; and
7) love.
The greatest of which is love.  We can read about those in I Corinthians 13.  And maybe the greatest spin that Christians have put on this business of character is the idea that we can't attain a life of character without the grace of God.  We can't with our own muscular human will achieve that kind of life without the healing medicine of Christ's grace.

So that's an introduction--maybe too much of an introduction for today.  But the bottom line is this:  What does this matter for you?  How are you struggling with issues of character in the way that you're living your life?  Or what you're teaching your children?  What you're teaching other people's children? 

You know, this week I started a blog for the first time.  I'm now deep in the realm of blogging.  And I've sucked my whole church staff into that, too--we started a staff blog, to go with this series.  So I'd invite you to sign in, and go to our blog and read some further reflection on this subject.  And give your own opinion about some of the questions I've raised here, and other questions.  (blog address:  http://pclawrenceville.blogspot.com/)

Well, I'd like to end this morning with one last story about character.  About the question: What kind of life shall we live?  What does it means to live a life not dependent on the conditions of the moment, but rooted and nourished by the deep stream of life?  It's the story about a man named Bob Weiland, who landed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates at age 19, but was drafted to serve in Vietnam.  In that war he lost both legs to a mine explosion.  After returning to the United States he suffered a deep depression, and wasted away to only 87 pounds.  One morning he woke up and decided to focus his life, not on what he can't do, but on what he can do.  He began to lift weights, and he learned to walk on his hands.  On September 8, 1982, he began to walk on his hands across America.  Three years, eight months, and 15,000-odd hand steps later he reached his destination in Washington, D.C.  "I wanted to show," he said, "that through faith nothing is impossible."

How then shall we live?

So then to next week, when we'll talk about suffering and character.  Hope that you can join us.  Amen.     

From Thomas Lickona, Character Matters, p. 5.

 

February 3, 2008
Transfiguration Sunday

The Reverend Jeffrey A. Vamos

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