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I was once at a preaching conference where the guest preacher was a fairly well­known pastor from Georgia, who could have done pretty well as a stand-up comedian. 

The Right Thing: What Would Jesus Do? - II Samuel 11:1-5; Matthew 4:1-11 ­October 21, 2007 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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I was once at a preaching conference where the guest preacher was a fairly well­known pastor from Georgia, who could have done pretty well as a stand-up comedian. One of his recurring lines was, "Everything I tell you is true; but this next thing is really true." We preachers chuckled, because we know that stories and quotes and sayings come down the preaching pipeline all the time. And probably by the time you hear it, it has been repeated in hundreds of sermons, and altered and improved every time. So, who knows how much is true, and how much is really true?

I've been told that this quote I'm about to give cannot be really true. It's about Mark Twain visiting Las Vegas. Mark Twain, I'm informed, died in 1910; Las Vegas took off in the 1940s. So, odds are, what I'm about to say is true, but not really true. But I like it anyway. It seems that Mark Twain visited Las Vegas (maybe not really), and then he wrote this: "They've got dancing girls and wild parties and shows here. This is no place for a Presbyterian, so I no longer am one."

The best humorists have a way of couching the painful truth in funny disguise - and Mark Twain was one of the best (that's really true). If he said anything resembling that quote, he was presenting a painful truth that would go something like this: when good encounters evil, good surrenders. And that's what I want to address today as I continue to talk about doing the right thing, making the right choices when the pressure is on.

Our scripture story from the Old Testament today might be the flip side of last week's story. Last week's hero was Joseph, who, when he was being seduced by his master's wife, refused to give up his moral character. This week's figure is David, who peeked at Bathsheba when she is bathing, and then commanded her to be brought to him. As a result, she became pregnant with David's child. When the king discovered it, he arranged to have her husband, Uriah, killed in battle, so he could have Bathsheba all to himself. Clearly David disgraced himself, and the, throne, and the nation. If we were going to adapt Mark Twain's quote to David, we might say, "This was no place for a righteous king; so, David no longer was one." When good met evil, good surrendered.

And isn't that what we are conditioned to expect? That we will be helplessly attracted to what is forbidden? When I was youth there was a line of commercials that I wondered about. It would show someone getting out of the car and walking away, leaving the keys in the ignition. And the announcer would say, "Don't help a good kid go bad." Obviously, that is a wise idea. But the thought I kept having was, "So if somebody steals my car -- (This is not really true; I was probably only ten years old at the time) - but if I had a car, and somebody stole it, it would be my fault? I made a good kid go bad?"

The idea is, if the temptation is there, a kid will go bad. Good will always surrender. Adam and Eve will always reach for the forbidden fruit. We know that it is so often the case. But what we might forget -- because the headlines and the experiences of life make us hopelessly cynical -- is that temptation can be resisted! You don't have to cave in. Here's some headlines you will probably not read this week: High School Kids Notice Keys in the Ignition of a Hot Car, and Simply Walk By. Or, Two People Attracted to Each Other Decide to Honor Their Marriage Commitments Instead of Committing Adultery. Or, Public Servant Does Good Deed in an Election Year and Refuses to Take Credit. (Well, okay. Let's not get carried away.) These are not the kind of headlines that will sell many papers. But I believe they are really true; happening all the time. People resisting temptation. It's possible; but we need have a level of character within us that will prepare us to do the right thing when temptation arises.

That's why the Bible tells us that before Jesus could begin his ministry, he had to deal with the temptations he would encounter along the way. Out there in the wilderness, when Satan came to tempt him, Jesus was physically and emotionally weakened. But he was ready spiritually. He was armed with scripture; he was armed with prayer; he was armed with an honest and humble grasp of who God was. A few years back somebody started a "What Would Jesus Do?" campaign; it was hugely successful. When you get into a situation where you have to make a moral choice - where good and evil are duking it out - you can ask is, "What Would Jesus Do?" If you prayerfully consider that, more often than not, your heart will know the right path. And the first thing we might say about Jesus is that Jesus didn't go into that wilderness spiritually unarmed. Scripture, prayer, worship, humility - those are the shields he used against Satan.

What are the shields you carry into tough spots? What are the values you have nurtured in your character? Last week I suggested that we might find a list of such values in Philippians 4: 4-9, where the apostle Paul writes, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable ... think on these things." This would be a pretty good list of values to

carry into the wilderness.

Let's just take a brief look at a couple of these. The first one is "whatever is TRUE." This may not always be the case, but it would seem to me that a pretty good indicator that something you are doing is not a good path is that you have to lie about it, or hide it. Adam and Eve, with the serpent's help, talked themselves into eating the forbidden fruit, convincing themselves that there was nothing wrong with it. But when God came by, they hid themselves. They knew what they had done. Someone has said that the first casualty of war is the truth. That is because war calls forth so much from the darkest side of humanity that it rarely stands the test of honest inquiry. One of the verses of the Bible that proves true again and again is that the truth will set us free. That's why the Twelve Steps begin with an honest admission about yourself; it's why therapy so often has to go into hidden places from the past; it's why we as citizens should grow more and more fearful the more secrecy our government claims it needs to do its job. What would Jesus do? Perhaps the image we could turn to is that of Palm Sunday, where Jesus rode boldly and openly into Jerusalem. No hidden agenda; no secrets. Everything in the open. And if you are in a situation where your first question is, "How do I cover this up?" or "How do I get out of this?" then probably you are not doing the right thing.

"Whatever is JUST!" says Paul. Isn't that another test question you can ask yourself if you are wondering what the right thing to do in a given situation - - is this fair to everybody? Does it violate somebody's justice? In the currently running movie Michael Clayton, a high-powered corporate lawyer brings the multimillion-dollar case he's been working on for years to court, and suddenly sits across from the victims whose lives his clients have ruined, and realizes he can't go through with the case - it's not fair and right. It doesn't pass the test question of justice. Think about that question. Your boss wants you to overcharge a customer - is this fair? A governmental policy favors one segment of the citizenry, but leaves millions behind - is this justice? You have a great story to tell behind somebody's back - is that fair to them? The examples abound, of situations we might address more fairly if we just ask the test question of justice.

Is it HONORABLE? That could be a good test question. Maybe what you are thinking of doing is something you'll never have to lie about, or something that doesn't directly violate someone's justice. But does it honor who you want to be when you look in the mirror? And does it honor your relationship to God? Does it honor creation? At our church camp at Casowasco there are signs over the sinks asking you to turn off the tap water while you're brushing your teeth - it saves a couple gallons of water. And I stand there and think, "Okay, there are industrial processes that use millions of gallons of water. And I'm going to affect anything by turning off this tap water for two minutes?" But ever since I saw that sign, I do it. I turn off the water- because it honors the gift we've been given. It honors the earth; in my mind it honors someone somewhere who has to walk for miles to get a jarful of clean water.

Is it PURE? Am I going to walk away from this feeling dirty or violated or less principled? Is it PLEASING? Does what I am contemplating doing add to the beauty and the richness of the world I and others live in? Is it COMMENDABLE? Would people I look up to commend this action and think more of me for taking it? These are test questions that can help to guide us at the critical moments of moral decision-making, fleshing out that ultimate guiding question - what would Jesus do? We can't always know what the right thing is to do. And even if we know it, we can't always predict that we'll do it. Sometimes we have to be ready to just pray from the heart, "God help me. I can't do this without you right now." Thank God there is grace in the heart of God that guides and strengthens and forgives and restores us. But if we feed our character with truth and honor and purity and these other things Paul lifts up, we can go a long way toward knowing how we'll respond.

Victor Frankl was one of those who survived Nazi Germany, and then became a voice of wisdom and moral strength for the human race. He wrote: "We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last pieces of bread. They may have been few in numbers, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

What way do you choose? When the chips are down, when the right choice cries out to be made, when the fiber of character is tested - who will you be? Where will you find wisdom and strength? How have you prepared yourself to do the right thing?