Expectations
a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
April 13, 2008

Text: I Peter 2:19-25

As many of you know, my wife is Jewish.  One of the fun things about a cross-cultural marriage is discovering the differing ways in which we interpret reality.  When it was revealed that Governor Spitzer was buying the services of a sex worker, my wife responded instantly, “I can’t believe a Jew would do that!” She has had similar responses when Jack Abramoff and other prominent Jews have been caught doing something illegal. 

Being a Calvinist, I always respond with, “Why are you surprised?  People are people.  No one is exempt from illegal or immoral behavior.” Phyllis then responds (after many years of marriage these conversations become quite predictable), “Thank you, John, for reminding me that we are all human!  What would I do without you?  But growing up in the fifties, in the Jewish community, we were taught that Jews don’t do certain kinds of things and, at least in the case of my family and friends, we didn’t.”

When former Governor Spitzer’s actions provoked this conversation for the umpteenth time, instead of challenging Phyllis’ assumptions, I decided to challenge my own.  I asked myself, “Why am I not surprised when Presbyterians do something appalling?  Why do I accept bad behavior as a to-be-expected phenomenon?”

Contemplating the question for weeks, I have arrived at the following conclusion.  As Presbyterians, we need to raise the bar of our expectations.  We need to expect more from ourselves, more from each other.  Just as Phyllis expects exemplary behavior from her Jewish brothers and sisters, so we should expect exemplary behavior from our Presbyterian brothers and sisters.  And when a Presbyterian does something appalling, we should think, “I can’t believe a Presbyterian did that!”

I fear many of us have grown entirely too comfortable with good people, including ourselves, doing bad things.  The time is long past overdue for us to be shocked by the shocking, appalled at the appalling, outraged by the outrageous.  We have artificially lowered our expectations for ourselves and others.  As a result, these lowered expectations have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If we don’t expect much from ourselves or others, we can be pretty certain we won’t get much.

As Christians, we need to set the bar for our moral/ethical standards much, much higher than they are presently set.  The norm for human behavior cannot be that we will inevitably do bad things.  The norm can’t be, “What did you expect from a corporation, government or church official?” The norm can’t be, “Stuff happens.” Our norms must be God’s norms for human behavior: treat others as we expect to be treated, forsake violence by turning the other cheek, embrace forgiveness, welcome the stranger into our midst.  Nothing else is acceptable. 

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain all say things regularly that they know are less than true.  That is unacceptable and we need to let them know it is unacceptable. 

Some US. Corporations bring toys into this country that are painted with lead paint.  And they know it.  There was an interesting piece on NPR a while back saying that Europe hasn’t had our problem with lead in toys.  Their toys are manufactured in Chinese plants similar to the plants where our toys are manufactured.  But the European companies insist on high quality control standards.  Trying to squeeze out an extra buck, too many of our corporate managers take risks with our children’s lives. 

There are lots of things I like about capitalism.  Near the top of the list is the fact that it has a beautifully simple reward/punishment system.  If companies can’t sell something, they won’t manufacture it. We need to stop buying from companies that fail to protect us and our children.  Period.

During my lifetime, I have seen an enormous deterioration of ethics in almost every area of our society.  Over the years, I have had friends say, “The government is wasting my tax dollars in Vietnam or Iraq so what difference does it make if I cheat on my taxes.  I don’t agree with their priorities.” Or “My boss is making huge amounts of money and doesn’t do much work so why should I work hard?”

Such an attitude is the most immature thinking about ethics: namely, everyone else is doing it so why shouldn’t I?  We have all tell our kids not to think like that.  Why do we think and act like that? 

Many of us sit on boards of nonprofit organizations.  As board members, we have fiduciary responsibilities.  Are we fulfilling them?  Do we learn how to read and analyze the organization’s financial reports or do we just accept what we are told?  Do we ask tough questions of the staff as to what they are doing?  Do we look closely at the organization’s hiring, personnel and compensation practices?  If not, we have set the bar way, way too low for the organization.

Look what has happened to formerly stellar organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way.  They funded a lot of very important work.  But the directors and staff of the Red Cross and United Way failed to apply to their own organizations the kinds of appropriate standards and safeguards they demanded from the organizations they funded.

I know a pastor whose congregation refuses to give him a sabbatical even though he has served the church for more than twenty years.  I asked him how he felt.  He said, “Well, I decided to take a subversive sabbatical: a day here, a day there.  No one knows the difference and it all comes out the same in the end.” First of all, it doesn’t.  A day here or there is not like three months of peace and quiet.  But more important, what kind of ethical thinking is that?

Some students feel no moral qualms about submitting papers that were written by someone else.  Some faculty members have been caught with falsified resumes.  Some universities refuse to apply ethical principles to the way their endowments are invested. 

It is hard to find a part of our society where ethical problems aren’t rampant.  Is our ethical and moral behavior any worse than it was fifty, one hundred, five hundred years ago?  Wrong question.  It makes no difference what previous generations did.  That is more of the “They did it so it is ok if I do it” thinking.  We cannot critique our behavior by looking for moral equivalency with the lowest common denominator.  Jesus directed us to the highest ethical behavior. 

Ultimately, by looking around at what others are doing or not doing and then following their example, we allow the world to set our standards for us; a dangerous practice if ever there was one.  As Christians, God sets our standards.  To use Paul’s language, we are called to follow the law written on our hearts by God, not some external, human-made set of rules. 

The abolitionists followed their hearts, not society’s ethics, when they demanded an end to slavery in this nation.  Suffragettes followed an inner moral calling as they battled to obtain the vote for women.  People involved in the struggle for LGBT rights are listening to the inner, liberating call of the Holy Spirit, not the homophobic whispers of our culture.  Antiwar activists have always followed a different path than their nation’s direction.  Environmentalists follow a basic inner instinct that says, “Protect your Mother Nature.”

I think most of us understand intellectually how history’s big social justice movements have followed an ethical direction that differs from society’s trends.  I’m not as confident that we understand the need for each of us to use the same approach when we are raising kids, making decisions in the workplace, on campus and in the community.  Every day each of us makes hundreds of small ethical choices that require us to consider, “Should I go with the flow or challenge it?”

Many undergrads are competing with each other to get into top grad schools.  Law students are competing with one another to get a top ranking in their class.  If some students are cheating to get better grades, can we afford to do otherwise?  In the name of some worthy higher ethical standard, are we willing to drop a few notches in their class standing?  I hope so.  I really do. 

I am neither stupid nor naive when I say that pursuing the moral and ethical path in life gets us to the right place.  It may not be the place we envisioned.  It may not be the highest paid or most powerful place.  But it will be a place where we have a profound influence on the world.

Frankly, no one who has more influence on the world than the person with moral and ethical integrity.  These people stand out like bright beacons in the night.  Some of their names are enshrined in history books.  Most are enshrined in family histories. Either way, their mere presence in a family, organization, or nation changes everything and everyone. 

Cynthia Cooper was a 38-year-old internal auditor working for Worldcom when she discovered and exposed a $3.8 billion accounting fraud.  Sherron Watkins was a 42-year-old Vice President of Enron when she made public the massive deception in Enron’s financial reports.  Mark Felt was a top official in the FBI when he fed reporters Woodward and Bernstein the information that led to Richard Nixon’s impeachment. 

Cooper, Watkins and Felt are now famous people because they decided integrity was more important than immediate career advancement.  But there are millions and millions of others who aren’t famous—women, men and children whose lives are marked by integrity—the kind of integrity that can only be produced by making the right ethical choices day after day, year after year.

Ron Chandler was a member of Western when I arrived here in 1983.  He was a humble man who led a humble life.  He was a person of few words so I didn’t know a lot about him.  When he died, his son told me a story I have never forgotten.  When on traveling as a family, he said his dad always made them clean up their hotel room and make the beds before they checked out.  They would protest, “But Dad, maids are going to come in here and clean the room.” Ron would say, “Always leave a place a bit better than you found it.”

Ron had a higher standard for himself and his family.  It was a standard that had nothing to do with much of anything except what Ron thought was the right thing to do.  Of such single minded integrity are truly holy lives made.

In the life of Jesus, we see the gold standard for human behavior.  We can’t match it every minute, every day, every year of our lives.  But when we don’t, we should be shocked by our own behavior.  Confess our failure.  Accept God’s forgiveness.  And begin anew of the path of faithfulness.

When others fail, we should be shocked by their behavior, call on them to acknowledge and change their behavior and then support them as they strive to lead a holy life. 

Calvin called these simple steps (confession, forgiveness, and the pursuit of holy lifestyles) the process of sanctification.  It is a process filled with shocking missteps and perhaps even more startling forgiveness by God.  But it is the only road, of which I know, that leads to a life of integrity.

Let each of us examine the expectations we have of ourselves and others.  Then let us examine the expectations God has of us all.  Where there is discontinuity between God’s and our expectations, let us get to work and push ourselves a little harder, a lot harder.  The results are worth the extra effort. 

Let us pray: Good God, on this day when we baptized little Redda, fill us with high expectations not only for his future but for the future of each of us.  We can be so much more faithful than we are currently being.  To help us grow our faith, grow into our faith, fill us with determination and your Holy Spirit.  Amen.