I welcome the opportunity to deal with a subject, which has been somewhat lost in the struggle for change in the past decade.  Other words and meanings have overshadowed the word and meaning I want to lift up today.  That word is “character.”

          Words like justice, freedom, human rights, liberation, peace, and others which have claimed our attention for more than a decade, have been worthy of our time, thought, and effort.  The Bible is filled with admonitions to make these our goals in the Christian life.  And no time in history has seen more efforts made, more laws passed, more court cases handled, more money spent, more sermons delivered, more articles written, and more battles fought to bring these blessings to more people.  The fruit of these efforts has been an unbelievable success.

          But along with our successes, there have been some other fruits, the kind nobody wants.  I was shocked years ago when I read that public school teachers in Birmingham, Alabama, were allowed permits to carry guns for self-protection and discipline in the schools.  At that same time in Chicago, there were over 1,000 assaults or threatened assaults on teachers.  What was once unthinkable, today has become reality as not only are teachers being threatened but children being killed in our schools.

          Just mentioning violence, robberies, murders, international destruction of life and property is enough, for you can add your own list in these categories.  Leave your home and you wonder how things will be when you return, or if they will be.  You fear to walk down the streets at night, and even in some situations in the daytime.  In a book written some years ago dealing with the shocking things happening in our country, the author tells about the director of the Detroit Zoo hiring new security guards, not to contain the wilderness within the cages, but to protect the animals from the inhumanity of man.  But, again, you don’t have to go to Detroit to see this and much more cruelty, which we have experienced.

          I remember when shoplifting was so novel that the preacher was called to work with the guilty party and the family.  Today, it is a way of life for so many that allowances are made in the price of goods to take care of what the merchant knows will be taken.

          Political corruption continues to unfold itself.  We had come to accept the fact that there would be some, but with the revelations of Watergate, a new era seems to have begun.

          For all the good that has been done, with all the growth in concern for the worth of a human being, and all the progress we have made to improve the quality of life in the past decades, and then to have a world like the one we live in today, one must ask, “Where did we go wrong?  What happened with so many working so hard to meet the needs of human beings in our society?”

          To begin our assessment of our problem, go back with me.  It was on a Saturday afternoon, October 20, 1973, to be exact.  Five thousand fans gathered in a stadium at Waynesburg, Pa. To watch a football game between Waynesburg College and California State College.  The bands were playing, the cheerleaders were cheering, the loud speakers were blaring, and the vendors were hawking their programs and refreshments.  It was a gorgeous day, and everything was in readiness.  Well, not everything.  There were no officials for the game.  The regional commissioner’s office had failed to notify those who were to work the game.  The game was called off!

          Life today is like a football game.  We have people to officiate, and rules to play by, for the good and enjoyment of all, for the safety of the players and good times for the watchers.  But in the game of life too many players don’t want to obey the laws or play by the rules.  They want to win for themselves by any method they can use.  Even the officials are sometimes suspect, and the coaches.

          One is reminded of the time in the period of the Judges when things were bad and getting worse and the people were suffering.  At least four times in the closing chapters of the Book of Judges you can read, “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Every man was a law to himself and chaos was the fruit of this self-sovereignty.  This was Israel’s source of political and spiritual chaos.

          What we have today is a growing self-sovereignty in our country, an endeavor on the part of the honest zealots of worthy goals, as well as ruthless and evil men, to get what they want with little thought of the means.

          What happened at Watergate in Washington, D.C. was bound to happen.  The idolatry of justifying the means by the end sought has been spreading for a long tie.  As one Watergate witness discussed his case, he laid part of the blame for his actions on his college ethics teacher.  His teacher had been involved in breaking the law and justifying his actions on the basis of the rightness of his cause.  He clearly set forth the difference between what he did and what the Watergate witness had done.  But his student justified his action on the basis of the urgency of his cause.  However you may evaluate the two cases, the student was reading a lesson from what his teacher did, not what he said.

          Paul once said to the Galatians, “You were making splendid progress; who put you off the course you had set for the truth?” If I were to ask today the question, “Where did we go wrong in regard to the terrible climate in which we live, or corruption and violence, fear and moral decay,” I think I would answer it by saying that, “In our zeal for things we believe in, we lost our character, and too many of us stamped right or wrong on what we were doing by caprice.”

          David Bakan in “Idolatry in Religion and Science” cites the three sins listed in the Talmud, the Jewish collection of law and tradition, for which the death penalty was prescribed--murder, adultery, and idolatry.  Of these, idolatry was the worst.  He defines idolatry as the worship of the means toward fulfillment of the religious impulse as if it were the end, that is, fulfillment.  It seems to me that this idolatry, this justifying unlawful means to achieve good ends, has destroyed good character which has been foundational of our national and religious life.

          We can pass laws, reform legislation, set up new rules, and do many other things to force people to do right, but until we dedicate ourselves to the kind of planting that will reap character, teachers will still have to seek permits to carry guns, endure assaults, and be involved with problems other than education.  The political climate will still be poisoned with greed and selfishness.  Men will still use shocking means to get the ends they seek.  The streets will still be dangerous to walk on and houses will remain unsafe to live in.  The daily papers will continue to carry reports of rape and robberies, shoplifting, and shootings.

          A good question to ask is, “How do we reap character?” The Scripture reminds us that “out of the heart are the issues of life.” Jesus said, “”Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Character has its birth in the heart committed to God.  This is the place where we start if this is the place from whence the issues of life come and where our treasure is to be found.  This means we cannot fashion character ourselves.  The Pharisees tried to be good, obeyed laws and lived moral lives.  They obeyed laws and were harsh on people who did not obey them.  They added all kinds of traditions and rules in order to be able to interpret the laws, but Jesus described them as “whited sepulchers” and dirty cups.” So, outward obedience to the law in itself will not fashion character.

          We must start with hearts and minds committed to obedience to God.  Then under the guidance of his Spirit and his teachings, we practice and develop habits which are approved by him.  As he says, “The good man out of the good he has accumulated does good.” Character is an assemblage of good habits which become a part of our inner being.  There is an old saying, “We sow a thought and reap an act, we sow an act and reap a habit, we sow a habit and reap a character, we sow a character and reap a destiny.”

          You practice loyalty, helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, kindness and reverence, and the more you practice these, the stronger you become in them.  We become what we habitually think, believe and do.  We make our habits and then our habits make us.  That is our character.

          Character making is a long time occupation.  Every time you choose to do right, you accumulate something good in a good heart.  Character is the sum total of what you have been doing for a long time.  This is what keeps you when temptation comes to do something wrong.

          Harold Walker in one of his books tells of a day when a young woman came into his office.  She was disturbed and unhappy.  Suddenly she asked, “Can you give me any good reason why I should not have a love affair with a married man who works in the office where I work?”

          “What’s holding you back,” he asked.

          She broke into tears as she said, “Everything I thought and believed to be right is holding me back.”

          When Jesus said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and thieves do not break through, nor steal,” he was not calling for us to make preparation for dying, so that we have a good life hereafter.

          That is one way to look at it.  But the larger understanding of this is that it is a call to become something now, to accumulate character that will bring out good things from a good heart.  That’s good for now and for hereafter.  Laying up treasure in heaven means building moral power, integrity, trust in God, habits which strengthen Christian ideals, and something inside that stands when all else falls.

          Character is what controls a man when nobody else is looking.  It’s what a boy or girl is when he has been trusted and no outside authority is forcing him or her.  There is a story I used a long time ago about a boy who came home from school, and was asked by his mother, “Were you good and did you behave today?” He gave a positive answer, but she, knowing her son, had doubts.  She asked again, “Are you sure you were good today?”  He replied, “Mama, you can’t be bad standing in the corner all day.”

          You know it is an old story because they don’t stand in the corner in school anymore.  Today the method will not work because the corners are not big enough for all of the students, or the larger percentage of them.  But more importantly, we need to be working for character, for inside control.

          Character is what kept Jesus coming back at Satan in the wilderness temptation with “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Character is what kept Joseph in the face of the temptation in Potiphar’s house down in Egypt.  Character is what drove Daniel into the lion’s den rather than to violate his conscience.  Character is what brought Job through all the hardships and sufferings of this life.

          In addition to the shortage of character in our country today, there is an attitude on the part of many who have ideals, and good character that what others do is their business and is approved.  I have the feeling as I talk to some young people, that they condone or approve things which they themselves would consider immoral.  They feel that one should be free to do what is right for himself.  Thus the power of influence and group morality is missing.  “Every man does that which is right in his own eyes” with the approval of his neighbor, even though the neighbor may consider it wrong for himself.  The fruit of this is the breakdown of morality, which endangers all of society.

          Such approval is out of character with the attitude they have toward many of our social problems and the teachings of the Scriptures.  God calls a person not only to obedience to his laws, but to use his influence to bring others to obey his moral teachings.  When the woman taken in adultery was brought to Jesus, he was kind, tender and forgiving.  He accepted her, not for what she was but for what she could become.  But no one can assume that she did not realize that Jesus disapproved of what she did.  “Go and sin no more,” he said.

          Karl Menninger in his book, “Whatever Became of Sin?” says, “Pressures upon individual integrity in the face of group attitudes are particularly burdensome for children.”

          Studies of the family by Urie Bonfenbrenner when he was at Cornell University tended to show that the average child of ten in the United States has already developed a non-self-condemning attitude towards cheating.  The child is, in fact, taught by his surroundings that it is unrealistic to maintain standards of honesty that are ridiculed by his friends and ignored by his elders.  Exemplary characters which are the most powerful influence in education, are too weak to offset the evidence of his daily experience of how other people “get by.”

          When Jesus said, “”Lay not up treasure on earth but lay up treasure in heaven” and when he said, “The good man out of the good he has accumulated does good,” was saying, “Grow Christian character, “ for “by your fruits you shall be known.”

          In the past years we have analyzed, we have scrutinized, and we have “conversationalized,” and searched in depth for the meaning of the Christian life.  We have tried to find answers to why we should do this or that until we have lost the power to walk in some of the simple things, without which there can be no justice, freedom, human rights, and security.  What we need is good men and good women, good boys and good girls, who have and are accumulating the simple qualities of trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfulness, courtesy, kindness, friendliness, obedience and reverence.  “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” and you will have “treasures on earth, “ Christian character.

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