"Each Day's Becoming"--October 3, 2019

"Each Day's Becoming"--October 3, 2019

[Jesus said:] "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest is a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." [Luke 16:10-13]

Character matters.

It does.  That may sound corny or sentimental to say, but I'll risk it.  Character--the sort of person you are, the sort of virtues you embody and the principles you live by--matters more than all the money you'll ever make, all the stuff you'll ever possess, all the titles you'll ever hold, and whatever reputation others ascribe to you.  And honestly, that's because all those other things just won't last.  But the genuine answer to the question, Who are you?, well, that endures.  

Jesus said it famously once by saying, "What does it profit you to gain the whole world but lose your soul?" He doesn't just mean after death, but even right now--what is it really worth if you've gained money or power or a title or notoriety or name-recognition, but you've sold out and can't look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day?  In a culture and in a time like ours where people seem surprisingly comfortable with saying, "It doesn't matter if you are a terrible human being, as long as you've got money, toys, influence, or power," we who follow Jesus are called to offer a minority report that character actually matters. And it matters, we believe, more than having record-breaking days on the stock market or your name in big gold letters somewhere.

Now, I hope that's not a very controversial position to take. Hopefully we can all be nodding our heads in agreement with Jesus on this one, that our character matters more than "gaining the whole world."  But if that's true, then it begs another question: how do you grow or develop your character? Can your character grow, develop, and change at all? Is it all set in stone from birth?  Is it pre-ordained in our DNA--am I genetically predisposed to be a jerk or a liar, or a dependable and honest person?  Is it all a suite of pre-installed software programs in our brains?

I want to suggest that the answer is blessedly more piecemeal than that.  I want to suggest, based in part on what Jesus says elsewhere, that our character is something that can be shaped, deepened, and grown.  And in fact, not only can our character be shaped over time, I want to suggest that every choice we make does make a difference in the direction and trajectory of our character, whether we are aware of it or not... and whether we like it or not.

This is, I believe, at least part of what Jesus means when he talks about being trustworthy with a very little and then being trustworthy with much. Little faithfulnesses are how you develop the big-picture faithfulness of a lifetime. Your character isn't a monolithic block of stone, but is built and shaped moment by moment, with every choice you make.  And if you want to be the sort of person who is known to be responsible, or diligent, or genuine, or dependable, you do it by making the responsible, diligent, dependable choices in the little decisions and moments of each day, every day.  

Every time I make the choice to be reliable and available for those who might need me, that shapes me into someone who is reliable and available in the future.  And vice versa, every time I make the choice to flake out on someone, to blow them off, or to make empty promises, that shapes me into becoming a different sort of person in the future.  Character is shaped over a lifetime, like the course of a ship at sea, nudged a little bit to port and a little bit to starboard day by day on the voyage, until you finally arrive at home.  

So part of what that means is that if character matters, then every little choice matters, too, because each little choice becomes a part of me as I make the next choice and the next after that.  That means there are no choices that are insignificant in this life. There is no point at which we are "off the clock," or where our decisions and priorities don't make an impact on the sort of people we become.  When I come through for a friend in some little thing, that becomes a part of my character from here on out for the rest of my life--and when I let a friend down, even in something little, that shapes the person I become in the future as well.  When I have the option to be a help for someone else or to put my own interests first, every choice affects the sort of person I become.  When I have the choice of being truthful (even if the truth doesn't paint me in a good light) or being deceptive (to save face or hide something embarrassing), every decision I make--for the truth or for dishonesty--nudges the course of my character in one direction or the other.  I can, of course, grow and change in life and learn to make better, wiser decisions in the future, but if I have gotten myself in the habit of making rotten choices in the past, I am going to have to work that much harder to redirect my ship, so to speak, after going on the wrong heading for so long.  So we just need to let this truth sink in: there are no choices in my life where the stakes don't matter, because every choice, even on my "days off" or in my "free time," becomes a part of the sort of human being I become.  And while I may not always be at my job, I am never off the clock for being a follower of Jesus or a human being.  And character is about what sort of human I am--not only when other are watching or I am on the clock for a job, but especially at the times when it looks like no one is watching.

There's a second important implication of Jesus' point here that our little acts of trustworthiness lead to big moments of trustworthiness, and it's the fact that others are watching our small choices and little actions.  And the way we handle the little stuff determines whether others see us as people they would even consider relying on in the future.  If I am constantly too busy for the people who matter to me, because I've decided I'd rather have a night on the town than to be available for the friend who needs to talk, well, eventually my friends stop asking for my time or my listening ear... because they have seen how I don't make time for them with the little things.  If I am constantly telling my children to go an entertain themselves because I'm too tired to play with them or too busy doing my own take-home work, well, eventually, my kids will stop asking me because they will have learned what the answer will be from me (cue the opening notes of the song, "Cat's in the Cradle," while we're on the subject).  And if I am constantly saying "No" to the opportunities to love and serve the strangers God sends across my path--the homeless family who needs someone to share dinner with them, or the kids in the community looking for Sunday School, or the people in recovery who need a friendly face as they get the hang of sobriety--well, eventually, people will stop asking for your help.  And then, while you'll have all the time in the world for night after night on the town, you'll probably be left wondering if that's really all it's cracked up to be.  At some point, you'll be left wondering why life feels hollow--because you'll have gained the freedom of your social calendar, but have lost your soul along the way.

All of this is just to say that while we like to look up to our heroes and moral examples for the ways they handle the Big Decisions and Important Moments in life, what we often miss is that the people we look up to as role models have been making a lot of little choices along the way that shape their characters long before the "Big Moment" or the "History-Making Decision."  And similarly, if we are willing to grant, with Jesus, that our character matters--and matters more than our money or fame or power--then we will also have to accept that each day's choices, no matter how innocuous or insignificant they may seem, really turn out to be vitally important.  The way you end up with an extraordinary character marked by goodness, integrity, compassion, and wisdom is... well, by the extremely unglamorous path of making good, wise, compassionate choices in the ordinary situations of this day.  

That means that this day brings the opportunity to let our characters be shaped in ways that make us more like Christ... as well as possibility that we'll waste those chances.  But there's no getting away from it--what you and I do with this day and this day's choices, matters.  

Character, ultimately, is a matter of each day's becoming.

Lord Jesus, help us to see the power in the little choices we make in this day, so that our deepest selves will come to look like you.