"What Sort of Person Are You?"

In his 1975 book Can Ethics Be Christian? Dr. James Gustafson relates an experience that took place after midnight on a midsummer night in a bar in midtown Manhattan. Gustafson and his friend, who was an attorney, finished working on a project together. They came to the bar and witnessed a drunken young soldier not receiving the proper change from the bartender for his drink. The author relates that his friend immediately reacted to the way in which this soldier was treated, righted the wrong with the bartender and then went on to make sure the inebriated young soldier got home safely to his Long Island home, even ordering up a cab for him and paying the cab driver to take him home, insuring that he would know if the soldier was not treated properly. Meanwhile Gustafson sat and watched in awe of the actions which his friend took on behalf of this soldier-stranger.

Gustafson went on to ask some important questions about what took place. What was it that led his friend to not only help a drunken soldier in the bar, but to go the second mile to make sure he got safely home? Why had his friend acted in a way in which he did not? Ultimately, what would lead us as ethical persons to respond to the needs of others? Gustafson went on "to lift out some of the characterics of events and occasions in which persons make what they judge to be moral decisions, or engage in moral actions." What was most important for the author was to emphasize that his friend, though a very moral man, "was not a religious man in an traditional sense...He was not a reflexive man. His existence makes mockery of any pious attempts to show that in order to be morally commendable one has to be religious...He would find nothing particularly 'Christian' or even religious about what he did: its motives, its patterns of action, its consequences."

I find this story to be very provocative in many ways. As a Christian pastor and ethicist I would like to think that our faith motivates people to perform ethically. But this demonstrates that Christians do not have the corner of the market on moral behavior and activity. In fact, we may well be slower to respond than others who are not Christians. For one thing, we may well reflect beforehand on whether we should help or not, given the late-night location of the event and the drunken nature of the customer. We may well weigh the call to help our neighbor with the setting and circumstance of the occurrence. Second, we may not have the broad experience that some of our friends who are more experienced in the world have. We need to be open to learning and growing and collaborating with them. Third, doing moral or ethical deeds may be related to a basic logical sense of what is right or wrong rather than some deep-seated religious beliefs.

In my last class on ethics I asked the students to write a moral autobiography reflecting on how they came to their ethical stances and beliefs. How about you? Where do your most deeply held beliefs originate? I know mine happen to come from my Christian teaching, from the mentoring that my pastors and Sunday School teachers did for me, and from my Christian parents and grandparents. But perhaps a largely unexplored area of origin is the sort of person that I am.

What sort of person are you? Who, if anyone led you to who you are? As we reflect on these questions, as well as on what we would do in a similar situation to the one in the bar, let us give thanks for all those people who take a stand for others. Let us work to be advocates for those who are in need, seeking not to judge people, but trusting that everyone is our neighbor.