With money… 

The habit of the heart tends to be to fix our gaze on those above us on the ladder, to those who have more than we do.  Our hearts easily become cluttered with greed and covetousness and our emotions become strained by fear and anxiety.  A first step to winning the character issues related to money is a shifting of our gaze away from those above us to those below us on this ladder — to those who have less than we do, be it at home or abroad.

Although those most familiar with John Stott cannot recall this comment in any of his written/oral work, I do have a memory of him speaking of an “embarassment test”: “If the poorest of the poor were to enter my home and leave me feeling embarassed; or, if I was to enter their home and feel embarassed — something is wrong. Changes need to be made.”  Regardless of whether the quip is authentically Stottian, or not, his teaching and his example of being generous and content with what he had, as well as of shaping a life of simplicity, points the way towards killing greed and thereby deepening character in this area.

OK — let’s hop onto the next ladder and climb a few rungs…

With sex... 

For the imperfect ladder imagery to work here, I need to tamper with this heading.  While avoiding sexual sin is part of the pursuit of holiness, we must take care not to reduce holiness just to matters of sexual sin.  Also, holiness deepens by addition, not just subtraction.  With the Spirit’s help, we separate from certain things so that we can be set apart for other things.  

So, yes, this ladder is about holiness.  How does it work?  I suspect there is a little bit of pharisee in all of us.  The habit of the heart tends to be to fix our gaze on those below us on this ladder, those whom we deem to be less holy (or righteous!) than we are.  A smugness and satisfaction about our own niceness and goodness easily takes over.  A first step to winning the character issues related to holiness is a shifting of our gaze from those below us on the ladder to those above us. 

Like the Apostle expressed it, “Follow me, as I follow Christ”.  Let aspiration go to work in our lives.  We identify the people — alive or dead, nearby or faraway — who have a ‘separate/setapart’ thing going on in their lives and we ask God to help us be like them, as they are like Jesus.  We lean into the stories of consecrated people — like the person who said “live to be forgotten that Christ may be remembered”.  What an aspiration that one is, on a rung above me, made harder not just because of the pharisee in me, but also the narcissist!

I’ve only ever taught a course on spirituality once, but one day in it I cut out a bunch of quotations from Amy Carmichael’s If, with its reflections on ‘Calvary love’ — and gave one to each student, randomly.  We sat in stillness for a few minutes.  Then one-by-one, in no specific order, I invited students to stand and read their “If” aloud.  There is a reason why I remember the experience so vividly, all these years later.  A life above me on the ladder was being described.  

With power... 

‘Everyone a follower of Jesus and a leader of others’ is a mantra worth believing and living.  But as soon as a person steps into that leadership, they come face-to-face with the issue of power.  A habit of the heart is that it is so hard to get it right!  Just as there are challenges in having responsibility ‘over’ people, wary of abusing the power, so also there are challenges in coming ‘under’ people, chaffing at the misuse of power. [NB: ‘over/under’ is not language I use, but language I hear being used].  A first step to winning the character issues related to power is shifting our gaze from the overs & unders across to those alongside us on our leadership rung.  

Sharing leadership.  Building teams.  Weakening hierarchies.  Eliminating exclusion.  Giving people responsibility (rather than tasks).  Finding ways to ‘lead without power’ (Max DuPree) and to ‘lead quietly’ (Joseph Badaracco).  Doing as two New Zealand sporting legends expressed it: Wilson Whineray (rugby), when sitting next to him on a plane — ‘surround yourself with good people’; and Peter Blake (yachting), when reading his book — ‘spread leadership throughout the organization’.