Beloved Community Through the Eyes of Integrity
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
October 5, 2025
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Today, at the Meetinghouse we are celebrating World Quaker Day! Next Sunday, after Meeting for Worship we will be having a letter-writing campaign to make our voices heard in ending the death penalty in Indiana. I hope you will join us. Today, I am continuing my message series, Beloved Community Through the Eyes of Integrity. The scripture I have chosen to support my message is from Proverbs 11:3 from the New Revised Standard Version.
The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.
This morning, I want to begin by sharing a couple different stories. The first is from one of my favorite TV Shows. Yes, you might be surprised that a Quaker minister would be fond of the classic. T.V. show M*A*S*H. At one time during my childhood, I owned a M*A*S*H t-shirt, camo-shorts, Kaki green socks and boots. I remember watching re-runs of the show every day after school, and still remember watching the farewell episode the day after my birthday in 1983 - I was 10 years old and in 4th grade. I guess since I struggled with Indiana history at the time, the Korean War was easier to grasp through humor and syndication.
Actor William Christopher was best known for playing the Catholic Priest, Father Mulcahy, on M*A*S*H. Christopher sadly passed away on the last day of 2016. In the book, Craddock Stories, it tells about the episode, “Nurse Doctor” which was written by Jim Strain. In the episode Father Mulcahy becomes attracted to one of the nurses in the unit. The feeling is mutual, and Father Mulcahy is sorely tempted to break his vow of chastity. The episode is about the struggle within Father Mulcahy to decide what to do. In the end he keeps his religious vows and stays true to his promise to God.
Strain had a difficult time selling this episode. The creators of the show loved the drama created by Father Mulcahy’s internal struggle, but they hated the ending. They asked him to change it to “make it more realistic.”
He asked them what would make it more realistic, and they responded, “He goes for the nurse! He disavows the priesthood! Don’t you understand what people want?”
Strain refused to change the script and the show finally relented and purchased it as it was written. (And you can watch it on Hulu today)
If you watch popular entertainment, listen to music, or watch the news you will likely conclude that Strain’s trouble selling a story about someone staying true to their values, in spite of temptation, is not an isolated incident. Our American culture and the media often seem intent on only showing us the negative side of human nature.
However, those of us living in the real world know that not everyone lies, cheats, and steals. People from all walks of life have their integrity tested every day and most of them make the difficult but correct choices.
The problem is not that these examples don’t exist, but that we so rarely hear about them.
Since I was a tennis player in high school and college, and love to watch a good match of tennis on T.V. every once and a while. I still remember in May of 2005 American professional tennis player Andy Roddick playing Fernando Verdasco, of Spain, in the round of 16 at the Italia Masters tennis tournament in Rome, Italy. Roddick happened to be the number one seed in the tournament and a heavy favorite to win the match and advance.
Roddick, one of the top players in the world, was at the top of his game. Indeed, just one month later he would make it to the finals at Wimbledon before losing to Roger Federer.
Roddick dominated as expected and had triple match point when something extremely unusual happened. Roddick couldn’t return Verdasco’s hard second serve but the linesman called the serve out and awarded Roddick the point and the match.
With the crowd cheering Verdasco ran to the net to shake Roddick’s hand and congratulate him on his victory. However, Roddick knew something that the linesman, the umpire, the cheering crowd, and Verdasco himself didn’t know. The serve had not been out, but had hit on the line, making it in.
Roddick could have kept this information to himself and accepted the victory. Indeed, honor calls are not expected in tennis. Instead, he informed the umpire that the ball had been in and offered to show him the mark on the clay where the ball had hit to prove his point. The umpire reversed the call and awarded the point to Verdasco.
Having been given a second chance Verdasco made the most of it. He came back to win the game, the set, and the match giving him a highly improbable victory, especially considering not long before he had been standing at the net ready to concede.
Sportswriter Frank DeFord estimates Roddick’s honesty cost him at least “tens of thousands of dollars;” perhaps much more if he had gone on to win the tournament. Integrity was clearly more important to Roddick than either winning or money. Andy Roddick lost a tennis match that day but won something much more important, and in the process set a great example of sportsmanship for competitors everywhere.
I picked these two examples both because they were rare examples of integrity in our world today and because they were about subjects that I enjoyed in my own life.
Many of us, may have a hard time doing what Jim Strain or Andy Roddick did because too often we struggle with integrity in a variety of ways.
You may feel pressured by others at work, in relationships, or in social situations to act against your values. For example, a supervisor may ask you to overlook an unethical practice, or a friend may encourage you to mislead someone.
We have been taught this pressure or temptation from a young age. Remember the cartoons with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other – that was almost always about the character – Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Huckleberry Hound, Rocky and Bullwinkle – having a crisis of integrity.
Integrity is a struggle when you experience inner divisions between what you know is right and what you want to do. This pull of temptation can cause you to act out of self-interest, even if it contradicts your values.
As well, some of us are conflict avoiders or people who simply want to "keep the peace" (please note this is different than the peace we talked about last week).
This can lead us to be dishonest or withhold the truth. Choosing safety over integrity in a tough conversation can cause internal distress. We might even initially recognize a misstep we made or said, but then hide or deny it to keep it from others. This "disintegration" of our thoughts, feelings, and actions creates a lack of wholeness in us.
Some people struggle when they mistakenly believe that having integrity means being perfect and never making a mistake. However, integrity is a process that involves owning and learning from your missteps, not hiding them.
Let me take a moment to remind us of the attributes of integrity that are key for us as Quakers.
Honesty and truthfulness: Being truthful in words and actions, with no pretense or deception.
Consistency: Having a consistent, unwavering, and uncompromising adherence to one's moral and ethical principles.
Wholeness or completeness: Having a "whole" character where external actions align with internal values, even when no one is watching.
Accountability: Taking responsibility for one's actions, errors, and inactions.
Ethical conduct: Guiding decisions and behavior according to a strong moral framework.
Some consider integrity the umbrella of all the other S.P.I.C.E.S.
Simplicity, Peace, Community, Equality, and Stewardship must have integrity as their foundation.
And that means that integrity is also foundational to achieving the Beloved Community.
Dr. King emphasized that the means used to create change must be as just and loving as the desired outcomes.
This means that when we are called upon to be activists, leaders, and even informed citizens, we should respond with integrity and use ethical and nonviolent methods to promote justice, rather than resorting to hypocrisy or abuse of power. There is enough hypocrisy and abuse of power in our world, today.
At the last Prayer Action that Stuart Mora organized in Greenwood, I saw activists, leaders, and informed citizens responding with integrity and using ethical and nonviolent means to fight the injustices and abuses of power that are facing us here in Indiana. There was love being shared, music being sung, people supporting one another from a variety of different backgrounds, much different than what we were standing up against – ICE raids and deportation, proposed for-profit detention camps where inmates have no rights being erected, and people of color in our communities being discriminated against.
If we are working to build and support a beloved community here in Indiana than it must be built on integrity, which I believe fosters trust among its members.
I was just talking to someone the other day and I said, Do you know your neighbors? And they said, “I don’t trust my neighbors.”
If we cannot get to know and trust our neighbors – or we are unwilling to try – we cannot build the Beloved Community. Too often we spend time judging our neighbors from the comfort of our own homes, but not really knowing what they actually think or believe.
Someone else recently told me that they don’t trust their neighbors because of how they voted. Are there no commonalities that we have with our neighbors when they voted different than us? Are we simply willing to isolate ourselves from others to hold our opinions?
I rarely talk politics with my neighbors, but what I do is listen to them, I’m there for them when struggling, and I’m willing to help them out when they need it. It sometimes confuses them when they find out the things I believe and why. And yes, I am willing to tell them if they ask – just as I would with any of you.
Folks, it is easier to resolve conflicts peacefully, affirm differences, and work collaboratively on difficult issues, when we trust, are honest, and accountable to each other.
Here is where it gets a bit more complicated. I believe accountability also must be for past and present injustices. This is necessary for healing, reconciliation, and building a more just future. We cannot simply wipe away the history of what we did to the First Nations People, the African people, the Asian people, those with Aids, the elderly, the LGBTQIA…and the list could go on. We must at the least acknowledge what has happened, and that it was just as much a part of our history even if we were not alive.
How many people know Quaker Friend, Lucy Duncan? Lucy is the co-founder of reparationWorks (a great organization), Duncan often speaks on integrity in the context of racial justice. For Duncan, integrity involves confronting difficult histories and metabolizing the pain of reckoning with past wrongs to find a path toward healing and reparation.
As Lucy emphasizes, we may need to build completely new systems that are just and equitable, rather than simply patching up old, broken ones. The attribute of integrity guides this process, ensuring that new policies and practices are built on a solid foundation of moral principles and ethical decisions – not hypocrisy and abusive power.
Now, more than ever we are being called to live our values in this nation. As Quakers we are being called to live from our S.P.I.C.E.S. or Testimonies – these are our values that I believe both strengthen our communities, while also helping instill a foundation of moral character that is so lacking in our culture and world, today.
So, what are some challenges in applying integrity in the journey toward Beloved Community?
I have already talked about navigating conflicting values, resisting pressures to compromise, and confronting systemic injustices.
I also believe the effort to build a just and equitable society is going to requires courage, consistency, and a willingness to confront hypocrisy, both in institutions and within oneself. And that also means right here at First Friends.
Folks, we live in a world today, where speaking out against injustice or unethical behavior often carries risks, including career damage, social exclusion, or even personal danger. The same can be true amidst a religious community.
Yet, the journey toward the Beloved Community requires courage to challenge the status quo, even when facing significant consequences. Our Quaker ancestors have a lot to say about this.
Actually, our history is one story after another of Friends working hard to build the Beloved Community for their time and for our future – and their work is a call to us to continue what they started. Just go read the stories of Friends:
John Woolman – who refused to use products made by enslaved people and became a vital voice that carried Quaker sentiment toward abolition.
Anthony Benezet – a Quaker schoolteacher who wrote pamphlets and argued for the innate equality of all people and a nonviolent end to slavery.
Margarett Fell – who was a powerful advocate for women's roles in spiritual leadership.
Gordon Hirabayashi – who defied the military curfew and exclusion orders that led to the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Mary and John Tinker – who challenged their school in 1965 by wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The resulting Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines, became a landmark decision protecting student speech rights.
William Tuke – who founded the York Retreat asylum – which pioneered humane methods of treatment for the mentally ill and became a model for psychological care.
And maybe someday, our children and grandchildren will read of
Carol Donahue and Brad Jackson – whose work with Changing Footprints not only put shoes on people’s feet but gave them confidence to succeed in life.
Nancy Scott – whose work with refugee families in Indianapolis saved both lives and families from their war-torn past.
Corrine Imboden – who brought awareness to food insecurities in Indiana through Bread for the World helping change legislation and getting food on the tables of those most in need.
Jeff Goens and Jody English – who would not back down until the Governor of Indiana heard the demands of Quakers to finally end the Death Penalty in Indiana.
Stuart Mora – who organized truth-filled prayer actions that stopped the creation of detainee camps which lacked rights of the people being held, helped refocus efforts on building affordable housing, and saved people from being wrongly deported from the United States.
Folks, I believe we will leave those legacies of helping build the Beloved Community and so much more right here in Indianapolis and through our Beloved Community here at First Friends.
One of the things I notice with all these people – past and present, is that they did not and are not allowing hypocrisy or power to go to their heads, and instead they found ways or are finding ways to inspire their communities and towns, and even world to come together for the benefit of all.
So, how can you and I live our daily lives in a way that is building the beloved community through the eyes of integrity?
The 350year-old Amesbury Quaker Meeting in Massachusetts has had a long time to think about this. They also have a wonderful set of what they call “Integrity Guidelines” on their website for those trying to build the Beloved Community through being people of integrity.
I think these are practical and just what we should consider to help us live into our integrity in our world, today:
· make sure one’s words and actions flow from one’s beliefs
speak the truth, even when it is difficult
pay people fair wages for their work
say difficult things with grace and tact
receive difficult sayings gracefully
guard one’s reputation for honesty, fairness, and fidelity
take responsibility for one’s actions and the results
fulfill one’s commitments
take care of items entrusted to one
be open to ideas of others but not be too easily swayed
confront lapses in integrity in oneself and in others
give credit to others for their contributions
assess people and situations fairly and accurately
avoid spending beyond one’s means
Now, as we enter a time of waiting worship, let’s pause and consider our own integrity. To help us center down, I have provided a few queries for us to ponder.
1. Where do I struggle with integrity in my life?
2. Do I trust my neighbors? Do they trust me?
3. Where am I helping to challenge the status quo in my world?