Making right choices is really the stuff of life. Choosing between right and wrong, greed and integrity, people and things. And occasionally, between life and death. In all decisions, we pray to God for the wisdom to do the right thing.
The word of God carries us back to King Solomon in the tenth century before Jesus (the 900s). Solomon probably was twelve or fourteen years old when he came to the throne, was clever with affairs of state and built a splendid temple in Jerusalem. Tradition attributes 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs to him.
In today's passage, God appears in a dream to Solomon, saying: ask me for something and I will give it to you. Surprisingly Solomon doesn’t ask for power or wealth or health. No, he wants the wisdom to know the right thing to do.
Paul in his letter to the Christian community in Rome writes: “All things work for the good for those who love God.” In light of daily news, we might surmise all things are not working for the good. But Paul, the faith-filled disciple of Jesus, who trusted in God's presence in his life especially as he encountered hardships in his ministry, urges us to fix our eyes on eternal life in relationship with God. God, Paul proclaims, ultimately will transform us into a new kind of spiritual embodiment just as God transformed Jesus.
Paul may be asking whether we're fixing our eyes on the ultimate prize: looking beyond this earthly horizon to the heavenly horizon. Start that life now!
In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus continues the theme of choices. In his first parable, a farmer plowing someone else's field hits a clump that turns out to be a buried treasure. He thinks, “Finders keepers.” He sells everything he has to buy the field so that he can claim the treasure as his own. In the second parable, a merchant is like the treasure hunters in our own time. They spend their entire lives searching for more earthly riches that will guarantee them security. Here, the merchant finds a pearl so magnificent that he sells all he has accumulated in life to buy that one pearl.
Jesus says to us in these parables, “carpe diem,” seize the moment. Make the right decision. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
So much for making right decisions.
But what about the decision maker? Solomon, for example, despite his mighty accomplishments, appeared to have character flaws. He countenanced non-Israelite religious practices, launched expensive building projects, imposed high taxes to pay for them and conscripted work gangs to build them. Those policies created widespread discontent that split the kingdom into two after his death.
Right decisions presuppose men and women with character or integrity. Character defines who we are at the core of our inmost self. It's an ethical reality. Centuries ago, the Hebrew psalmist spoke of King David as a great (though not perfect) leader who guided his people with integrity of heart and skillful hands.
Leadership also requires courage. Whether it's starting a new business, battling a life-threatening disease, getting married, struggling to overcome an addiction, or engaging in community service, life demands courage to move beyond our fears and self-doubts to achieve something worthwhile.
The most common phrase in the New Testament is “Do not be afraid.” The most common phrase in the Old Testament is “Be not afraid.” The phrase appears more than a thousand times in both testaments, so God may be trying to get that message across to us.
Finally, leaders have a “can do” attitude. They know what they want, why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others so that they can galvanize them into action. They're optimists; they get the facts; they're enthusiastic and self-confident, and their confidence instills confidence in others.
At different times in life, all of us are called to be leaders: as professionals, business people, parents, citizens in a community and volunteers in an organization. But in the final analysis, you may ask what is the most important ingredient of leadership? Character? Courage? A “can do” attitude?
Here's how one American hero put it to the cadets at West Point:
“Your character, that’s what's important in leadership. I tell cynics who scoff at character to go out and look at the leadership failures...in this country in the last 100 years. (They) were not failures in competence; they were failures in character. Greed, lying, prejudice, racism, intolerance, sexism, hate, immorality, amorality–none of these things are competence failures. They are all character failures. You see, leadership involves things like ethics…a sense of duty…a value system…morality...integrity. And that is why character is what counts in leadership. Integrity: that is the linchpin in all of this.”
If you want to be inspired by a list of wonderful virtues, explore Rudyard's Kipling's poem “If.”
Yes, seek always the right thing to do — not what is fashionable, not what is merely acceptable, but what's right. And having found what's right, as the slogan says: “just do it.”
