IN PRAISE OF COMMON VIRTUE John M. Buchanan
Luke 3:10-18 : Broad Street Presbyterian Church

May 16, 1982 Columbus, Ohio 43205

Most of the ethical dilemmas which trouble us have to do with the extremities,
not the mainstream, of life. Most of the moral quandries which catch our imagination
are located out on the edges, not in the middle where we do most of our living. Whether
to bear an unwanted child or to have an abortion; whether a convicted murderer should
spend life in prison or be executed; whether a nuclear bomb should be dropped in
retaliation, in anticipation, or at all; whether a critically ill person should be
kept alive by heroic medical technology or allowed to die......those are extremely
important questions. There is a sense in which our culture determines its essential
nature by the way it responds to them. And there is a sense in which the relevance
or irrelevance of any religion is revealed by the way it deals with the important
moral questions of the day.

However, the simple truth is that most of us will not have to make an ethical
determination in those critical areas today, or tomorrow, or this month, for that
Matter. The truth is that, while we are accountable to meet the moral ambiguity of
our age head-on, and while Presbyterians have always felt called to be deeply in=
volved in critical ethical questions, we will not personally have to make a definitive
decision about many of the particularities. We will, however, have to live in relation-
ship with other people, today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of the month, for that
matter. We will have to pay bills, buy groceries, practice the piano, go to work,
and live in various kinds and levels of human community. We may not be called on to
decide whether or not to drop the bomb. But we will surely decide to be kind or rude,
thoughtful or thoughtless, dishonest or candid, a number of times before this day is
out. Religion ought to account for that as well as the dramatic moralities. Thus, a
sermon in praise of common virtue.

Two literary episodes caught my imagination recently. The first is recounted in
Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Palm Sunday. The title refers to an invitation Vonnegut re-
ceived and accepted from St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Manhattan to preach a
sermon on Palm Sunday. Once a year the church invites a member of the artistic --
literary community to be in the pulpit. Vonnegut calls himself a God-fearing agnostic,
not an orthodox Christian. From the pulpit of St. Clements he said, "I am enchanted
with the Sermon on the Mount. Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea
we have received so far. Perhaps we will get another idea that good by and by - and
then we will have two good ideas...." (p.325) Vonnegut, who has a great deal to say
about war and violence and sex and marriage, believes that the fundamental human
problem is loneliness, "If things were right," he writes, "nobody would have to go
on a hopeless quest for friendly strangers, which is what most Americans have to do.
Massage parlours come to mind, bus stations and singles bars."

In addition to Kurt Vonnegut's celebration of a simple morality my imagination
was caught by the lesson for the day. In St. Luke's introduction of the mature Jesus
at the beginning of his ministry, there 1s a seldom-noticed episode involving John
the Baptist. John's role in the drama of the New Testament is forerumner. He saw
himself, apparently, as the "voice of one crying in the wildermess" promised by the
prophet Isaiah centuries before. “Prepare the way of the Lord," that ancient voice
had warned and that is what John was saying to crowds of people along the banks of
the Jordan River, at the edge of the wildemess, about the year 30 A.D. John told
whoever would listen that the Lord was coming, that salvation was about to become a
reality in front of their very eyes. Part of what is about to happen, John said, will
be an accounting, a judgment. Like the good fire-breathing evangelist he was, John
issued a sharp warning that unless there was a dramatic change in the way people

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were living, the Lord's coming was not going to be a very happy day.

John persuaded his listeners that his diagnosis of their situation was accurate:
that they were in deep trouble. They asked next what all of us would ask in that
situation: "What shall we do? What can we do about the situation?" But Jehn's
response to this highly critical question is rather curious, ordinary really.

What shall we do? - "If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If
you are a tax collector - don't cheat. If you are a soldier ~ be a good soldier;
don't steal and don!t: complain."

That strikes us as almost superficial. John's advice soumds like a series of
platitudes, moral cliche’s. What do you make of it? Jchn had an opportunity to
propose radical iffe-changes. People were virtually begging him to redesign their
lives, to prescribe far-reaching alterations in the way they were living and he said,
in effect, --‘carry on. Doe whatever you are doing, well, Do it honestly, fairly,
with kindness."

I was involved in a college commencement recently and, as is usually the case,
heard a lot of speeches. Tf was utterly fascinated with one: with a charge to the
graduates by a professor they chose, the Head of the Education department. He de-
livered the simplest speech I ever heard. He said three things. He said.,..."leam
more than you now know, bacause what you know isn't really very much. Forget about
money for awhile: learn some more instead." He said, "Don't forget your family."
And he said, "Stay healthy.....don't drink too much and don’t make yourself i111 with
stress." And he said, “send your chiidren to Muskingum College." and he sat down. I
thought - the same thought surely as those anxious souls on the banks of the Jordan
listening to John - "Is that a1] there is. Don't I have to do something extraordin-
ary and strenuous? Doesn't the occasion call for a radical departure from all that
ig past?"

And then it started to become clear. Common virtue isn't easy. Maybe it's more
difficult than extraordinary virtue, in fact. Maybe we ought to talk more about the
ordinary virtues,.....hard work, excellence, integrity, kindness, as well as the more
heroic.

Fhat was done publically, by the way, recently in a way that surprised everyone,
The most acclalmed motion picture of the season was "Chariots of Fire.” It's popu-
larity was due, in part, I believe, to the fact that it celebrates common virtue. The
characters are extraordinary people to be sure: two British sprinters in the 1924
Olympics: one the son of Lithuanian Jewish merchants, a Cambridge student: the cther,
a Scottish divinity student, son of missionaries to China. But the subject of the
movie is common virtue, dedication to personal excellence, uncompromising integrity
and the magnificence of the individual human spirit when under the compulsion of
devotion. Eric Liddell, the Scotsman, has to struggle between two very strong at-
tractions ~ the mission field and the olympic games. After winning a race in a
Highland game, he reveals his joy in running. His sister pretests and urges him to
forget running and devote himself to the mission. The moral choice between being a
missionary and an athlete would seem to be clear. Extraordinary virtue would seem to
lie in the aiission field. His father, however, very wisely counsels, "You can praise
the Lord by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection. Run in His name...and let
the world stand back in wonder." Later, after he has made his decision to pursue the
olympic games, Liddeil says, "I believe God made me for a purpose. But he also made
me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure. To win is to honor him."

Common virtue is celebrated again in the movie when Liddell refuges to run in the
100 meter dash because the heats will be held on Sunday. In a meeting with the Prince

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of Wales and the British Olympic Commissioner he, very simply, honors God more than
King, Comtry, or Sport, The audience watching the movie, I felt, wants him to com
promise, is almost audibly pulling for him to soften his strong moral stand and run
the race. It is a laboratory experience in the difficulty of common virtue.

In recent years analysts of our culture have pondered the spectacular pupu-
larity of jogging and distance ruming, at the very time the ethicists had decided we
were becoming very soft morally. There are, I suppose, a host of reasons for the
recent popularity of running as a favorite American pasttime. Among them surely is
the fact that running is hard work, and in spite of a culture dedicated to elimin-
ating discomfort of any sort, deep inside nearly all of us is the conviction that
there is something essentially good about working hard and extending oneself. Johnny
Kelley, for those not familiar with the important names in distance running, is a
74 year old man who has run in 51 Boston marathons. He won in 1935 and 1945. Time
Magazine interviewed Mr. Kelley recently in relation to an article on the fact that
the Boston marathon will no longer be a strictly amateur event. Kelley said- "I'm
as confused as all get out - when I was young people did hard things for the pure joy
of doing them." Let me add quickly that running a marathon is a very hard thing to
do, even if there is a monetary prize at the end of it. But Mr. Kelley was ex-
pressing the basic human attraction to common virtue and its difficulty.

In praise of common virtue, then, when people asked him what they should do to
prepare for salvation, John the Baptist said something like "carry on." Do what you
are doing well, honestly and kindly. In celebration then, of the significance of
ordinary morality: of hard work, of pushing oneself to one's own limits, of getting
out of oneself every ounce of capability: in celebration of the Christian signific-~
ance of the ordinary...of kindness and gentleness, of fair play and compassion and
thoughtfulness.

It may be that common virtue is the greatest challenge of all. Roman Catholic
theologian, Karl Rahner wrote, "To keep on through duil, tedious, everyday existence
can be more difficult than a unique deed whose herolsm makes us run the danger of
pride and self-satisfaction."' (Meditations on Hope and Love, p. 23) That prompted
me to think, frankiy, of Albert Schweitzer, twentieth century saint, who was
satisfied with nothing less than direct service and personal involvement with in~
digenous people in Africa and who has been rightly and properly celebrated for that
exanple, But Schweitzer always makes me think of all the others who shared a bit of
his vision but stayed home to pay the bills. Whatever the church is able to do in
the world; in Africa, Asia, or nationally through the agencies of the denomination,
or Locally through this particular congregation, is due not only to heroic and dramat-
ic sacrifice by a few, but equally because many people go te work and earn a living
and pay their bills and then give money - unnecessarily, generously, but undramatical~
ly.

Karl Rahner believes that life is always maneuvering us into a position where
common, simple virtue is not easy. I think he is correct. We have thought long and
hard abeut the big issues, but we have not acknowledged the simple fact that the
hardest moral choices, and certainly the most common, are close to home. To be honest
when paying taxes, to be kind to a spouse when you feel tired, to attend a meeting
you said you would attend, to do a job you agreed to do, to keep faith - to be loyal,
to keep your promises and vows, these are the ethical concerns we contend with every
day. ‘phey are not easy, They are net very dramatic. They often do not pay us much
by way of reward. Who, after all, ever was recognized for being honest with the IRS
or attending a PTA meeting, or being attentive to a boring friend.

The truth is that common virtue is not common at all: that self discipline,

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honest effort, loyalty are the truly heroic virtues. The truth is that something akin
to that is basic to the Christiam Gospel. Jesus Christ called people te be disciples
in the world in common, ordinary, life.

Rahner takes us into deeper waters by suggesting that:

“God is the one whom we meet, even though perhaps without naming
him, and unconsciously, when we dare to be foolish, when we avoid conflicts
and power struggles that we had a chance of winning: when we love without
the initial certainity of being loved in return; when we remain true to
our convictions even to our disadvantage." (ibid., page 25)

Jesus Chriat came among us in the common place, the ordinary. The whole, in-
credible proposition we call Incarnation is the idea that in Jesus of Nazareth, the
creator and redeemer God hae walked among us: that in the ordinariness of that human
life all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. At its best, the Presbyterian
response to that proposition has been equally ordinary: not in cloister, monastery or
cathedral, but in o..dinary human lives lived honestly and compassionately in the
world. Not everyone can or should obey Jesus Christ dramatically. Not all can or
should go to a mission field...

The common life is the place where most of us must make some sense out of things,
where all the meaning we can ever hope to enjoy must be established. It is most
certainly where I see Christian life lived out ~ in honesty, caring, generosity,
loyalty. God blesses that. God's son came to live Ike that. God is pleased and
honored when common virtue is celebrated, And God's Kingdom comes, the Bible suggests,
when ordinary people live extraordinary lives of honesty, faimess and kindness.

AMEN,

God of mercy, help us to see the simple, clear truth. Give us strength to live with
decency and consideration; to give you praise by doing well, what we are called to do:
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

AMEN,