Integrity.\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 We all want it, if it doesn’t cost too much.\u00a0 We all respect it in others, as long as they don’t rub it in our faces.\u00a0 But what is it?<\/p>\n
Psalm 15 is about integrity, a serious moral purpose that structures one’s life.\u00a0 Like Psalm 24’s “who may ascend the Lord’s hill?” it opens by asking who can abide in the presence of God.\u00a0 That is, it begins with a sense of connection between a person’s character and his or her proximity to the Almighty, as well as, conversely, the belief that the part of the world that spends the most time with God will be inhabited by people of integrity.\u00a0 Or put yet another way, the place in which worship occurs (“your holy mountain”) is also the place in which personal character gets built.<\/p>\n
The psalmist goes on to describe the person of integrity as the one (1) who proceeds “perfectly” (tamim<\/em> in Hebrew), which seems to mean “maturely” or “appropriately,” rather than flawlessly.\u00a0 Think of the Olympic diver who nails all the twists and flips and enters the water upright and with almost no splash.\u00a0 That’s living tamim<\/em>.\u00a0 This person also (2) “does what is right,” or “does righteousness,” or perhaps even “practices justice.”\u00a0 The person who stands before God orients her or his life toward other human beings in ways that reflect the just nature of God.\u00a0 And (3) this person speaks truth in his heart.\u00a0 A curious turn of phrase.\u00a0 It is not enough to speak truth with one’s mouth.\u00a0 Not only is there always the question of just what the truth is, and when it might be appropriate to withhold some part of it, but the more serious problem is that truth-telling can become crass or calculating when it loses its moorings in the character of the truth-teller.\u00a0 Hence the harder task of telling truth to oneself.\u00a0 Such honesty is a prerequisite of integrity.<\/p>\n The psalmist then turns to negative attributes of integrity: the virtuous, spiritually mature person avoids slander, plotting with or against a neighbor, or anything shameful.\u00a0 A notion of honor seems to be in play.\u00a0 The truth is that this concept deserves a lot more consideration than it receives in our modern culture.\u00a0 Honor is a word that has fallen on hard times, but it provides part of the glue that holds people together.\u00a0 Our need and desire to be respected by others causes us to seek morally valid lives.\u00a0 Honor displaces shame, just as it displaces self-seeking.\u00a0 Without a sense of honor, we are left only with force.\u00a0 (By the way, if you’re interested in this idea, you might like reading James Bowman’s book Honor: A History<\/em> [New York: Encounter, 2006]).\u00a0 The psalmist calls us to lives of honor.<\/p>\n Then verses 4-5 talk about relationships.\u00a0 The person of integrity chooses relationships well.\u00a0 This for me is the hardest point to be clear about.\u00a0 On the one hand, we Christians must love all and be merciful to all.\u00a0 Like God, we must not be respecters of persons.\u00a0 On the other hand, we seek relationships with others who “fear the Lord” and reject what is shameful.\u00a0 We use whatever power and wealth we have for good, not operating on the basis of fear or favor.\u00a0 We hold in contempt any behavior based on dishonest transactions (“He does not take a bribe against the interests of the innocent”) and are disturbed by anyone, especially leaders, who appeal to fear, hatred, suspicion, or any unworthy human behavior or attitude.<\/p>\n Does the psalmist overdo this attitude?\u00a0 Some people would find him or her a bit too aristocratic or hifalutin.\u00a0 Maybe so.\u00a0 But I don’t think so.\u00a0 It makes more sense to me to read this psalm as a call to clarity of purpose.\u00a0 We Christians ought not indulge our passions for superiority, our longing to succeed by helping others fail, our desire to wallow in fear and hatred.\u00a0 These are all human passions, and as humans we are subject to them.\u00a0 But on the other hand, as people who have been privileged to worship the God of all the earth, we dare not allow them to master us.\u00a0 Something to think about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Integrity.\u00a0 What is it?\u00a0 We all want it, if it doesn’t cost too much.\u00a0 We all respect it in others, as long as they don’t rub it in our faces.\u00a0 But what is it? Psalm 15 is about integrity, a serious moral purpose that structures one’s life.\u00a0 Like Psalm 24’s “who may ascend the Lord’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n