One Thing: 17th Sunday OT

I’d like to talk today about integrity. Integrity has to do with wholeness, oneness, harmony. If you like, it’s about consistency. We usually talk about integrity in the sense of moral integrity, which is whether someone’s actions are in harmony with some kind of moral code. If we say someone has integrity, we mean that this person lives out a moral code consistently. It may even be a moral code we don’t entirely share; we might still honor the integrity of the person who sticks to that code. You might say, “I think she made the wrong decision, but I admire her integrity.” Being a hypocrite is a failure of integrity. Being corrupt is a failure of integrity. Going back on your word without adequate reason is a failure of integrity. All these things damage our moral wholeness. All of them involve us in some disconnect within our character. It doesn’t all line up. It’s in disharmony.

I think we’d all agree that integrity is a top-shelf character trait that a person should strive for. It’s one of the things that define a person’s character and quality. You might imagine someone saying “she’s a great person but she does have a short temper” or “he’s a great person but he really struggles with gossip.” You won’t ever hear anyone say “she’s a great person but has no integrity.” See what I mean?


Integrity isn’t only about moral integrity, though. It’s about wholeness more generally. Buildings have integrity if they’re well designed and if the parts are in harmony, making a sound and understandable whole. Philosophies have integrity if they are consistent and coherent. Boats have integrity if they are sound and whole and don’t sink.

So all of the above was laying groundwork for a question: Does your life have integrity?

Does it all hang together? Is it whole and harmonious? Do all the parts line up in some sort of consistent and coherent way? Is there a oneness to your life?

Or, on the other hand, are you fragmented and disconnected? Does your life feel less like a harmonious symphony and more like a lot of noise?

The truth is, we can all identify with each of these, and find ourselves somewhere in the middle. We have certain over-arching commitments that guide everything else: our Faith, our families, our friends, maybe a profession. These things can act like organizing principles that make sense of the rest of it. You might follow a Mom around all day and see her do eight million random things, but they’re all ordered to one goal. They’re all notes in one symphony. It might be crazy and complex, but it’s absolutely ordered and it absolutely makes sense.

But that’s not always the case for us. We all sometimes feel disconnects in our lives, that we’re just dealing with things, one thing after another, and sometimes it doesn’t all seem to fit some great pattern or cause. The craziness and complexity don’t have that unifying principle. We feel pulled in a hundred different directions, with no good way to choose. We can’t see the score of the symphony, we’re just blasting out whatever note seems to be getting us by right now. That sense of disorientation, discombobulation, disharmony, randomness… that’s the sense of longing for integrity in your life. Wishing for it to make sense, to have meaning and purpose.

Can that wish be fulfilled? Can we have lives of real integrity, lives that are ordered with full consistency, lives that make sense in all their crazy parts? Can our lives be about one thing that everything else supports and is in harmony with? Is there anything big enough and satisfying enough to be that one thing?

I mentioned parenthood already because I think it’s the closest thing on earth. That’s because a parent’s life is mostly centered around being a parent. Most things are part of that. But everything? Is there really nothing at all from dawn to dusk that is about something other than raising those kids? And what about after they’re raised, what’s life about then? No, parenthood is a very big thing, and for many of you it’s nearly everything, but it’s not quite everything. It’s not the one thing. Neither is a career, however noble. Neither is a friendship, however deep.

So can we find the one thing that will bring integrity, wholeness to our lives? Suddenly I’m picturing  Jack Palance holding up his finger at Billy Crystal, but I did a 90’s movie reference last week and let’s not overdo it, eh?

Jesus tells two quick, simple stories about people who found their one thing. Everything else fell into order under it. That guy sold everything he had to buy that field, to attain that treasure. What kind of treasure is that? This guy sold everything, his whole life’s work, his whole livelihood, to buy this one perfect pearl. What pearl could be that perfect?

Solomon had just that question put before him by God. “Ask me for anything,” God said, and that’s a question you really want to get right. You’re not going to get another shot at this. What’s Solomon’s one thing? He did well. It wasn’t riches or power or influence or popularity, but Wisdom. Was that a good choice? Sure. As the story unfolds we see the fruits of that good choice. But as the story ends, we find Solomon fallen and broken. His effort at integrity ultimately failed. Solomon’s life is one of the greatest personal tragedies in the Bible.

Jesus’s stories raise the burning question, what treasure is that valuable? What pearl is that desirable? What can be the one thing that makes sense of my life, the one thing in which I find true integrity, wholeness? If I’m going to somehow bring all these random notes into a symphony, what’s going to be the conductor?

Ah. That probably already struck you as the wrong question. A conductor can’t be a what. A conductor can only be a Who.

In these simple, short parables of our Lord, there is so much hope. There is so much good news here. You can find that treasure. You can find that one thing. Your life doesn’t have to be a series of one thing after another, crisis management, getting by, getting through. Your life can have integrity. It can have harmony.

What’s your one thing? I’m sure you can easily guess what I would say if I answered that question from the pulpit. But it doesn’t work if it isn’t your decision. Find some quiet today or this week. Take some deep, slow breaths. Those hundred directions you’re being pulled, tell them they’re going to have to wait. And don’t move until you’ve answered the question, until you know your one thing. Not from a book or a sermon, but from within your own heart where God will speak to you. Then do whatever you have to do, with integrity, and with the deep peace and joy it brings.


Repeat as necessary.

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