For several decades the Episcopal Church has been in a tailspin nationally. Average Sunday attendance nationwide has declined to around 60 per church, which is below the level to support one full-time rector. The majority of mainline Protestant churches have serious financial difficulties. Very few church leaders seem to be getting serious about growth. Grace Episcopal Church in Muskogee is surrounded by big growing churches, yet our growth seems to just plod along. If we choose to let things get us down, it would be easy to be pessimistic.

But just before Christmas I noticed one of the most hopeful things I have heard in a long while. The report came from a Harvard Business School professor’s studies about a hotel on a different continent owned and run by a deeply religious family from a non-Christian religion. In spite what seems to be huge cultural and religious differences between the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai and Grace Episcopal Church in Muskogee, I found the report incredibly positive, hopeful, and reason enough to be optimistic about our future. The optimism in this story, however, blooms from the ashes of a tragedy.

On November 26, 2008, terrorists attacked several locations in Mumbai, India. One of the attack sites was the Taj Mahal Hotel, where gunmen walked into the lobby and started shooting. In the midst of chaos, panic, and terror, ALL of the employees of the hotel risked their lives to save the hotel guests. Kitchen employees formed a human shield to help guests evacuate. They lost their lives as a result. The telephone operators were evacuated to safety, but chose to return to the hotel so they could call guests and tell them what to do. Waiters, room cleaners, and busboys, who knew all the back exits for the hotel, chose to stay in the building during the siege until their guests were safe. The general manager of the hotel lost his wife and two sons in a fire set by the terrorists. In spite of his terrible loss, he stayed at the hotel, helping guests get to safety.

Often, during a crisis, one or two heroes will emerge who risk their lives to help others. But in the case of the Taj Hotel, something much deeper was going on. These employees risked and some of them lost their lives in selfless acts of kindness and mercy to help people they did not even know. They did not think of themselves as heroes. In fact they were selected for and trained for their self-giving character.

A Harvard Business School professor happened to be working on a project at the Taj Hotel about nine months after the attack. He kept hearing stories and references to these incredible acts of mercy and kindness, so he decided to study the hotel to see where this extraordinary behavior came from.

A main thing was recruitment. When the hotel looks for low level employees such as maids and bellhops, they avoid big cities and turn to small towns where they develop relationships with local schools. They ask school officials to hand select people with qualifications the Taj Hotel is looking for. They do NOT look for students with the highest grades. They are recruiting for personal characteristics such as respect and empathy. They recruit for respect and empathy because those human values are very difficult to teach. In the same way, they do not hire hotel managers from the top business schools because those graduates are primarily motivated by money. Instead they look for managers from second tier business schools, again screening for personal integrity and empathy.

This is a highly unusual strategy in modern day India, where earning top grades and attending top schools is a national obsession. The Taj Hotel does the opposite of the rest of India. Instead of recruiting for top grades, they recruit for positive character traits.

The Taj Hotel is owned by an enormous conglomerate company which is run by an extremely religious family. They plow two thirds of their profits into a charitable trust for use in social justice projects. The hotel and all of the operating companies run by this family have a fine reputation for customer service. For example, when a hotel guest compliments and employee for any action, the hotel management rewards the employee behavior within 48 hours with a gift, cash, or even a promotion.

In a very real sense, the hotel employees on that terrible day in 2008 were performing the behaviors they were selected for and trained to perform. In other words, there was a system in place that selected for and formed people to behave in positive ethical ways. The hotel was a community that enabled and sustained positive ethical behavior.

In a very real sense, isn’t that what we strive to do at Grace Episcopal Church in our Sunday school and all of our Christian formation activities? We form children and adults around the Golden Rule. What we strive to produce at Grace is positive ethical behavior.

Many of you have been attending Grace Church much longer than me. You can look back at the generations and count all the kids you have seen grow up here. You know that most of those young adults have turned out very well with healthy productive families of their own. You know that many of them are active in giving back to their communities. They are the living fruits of our labor and God’s labor here at Grace Episcopal Church.

It took a Harvard Business School professor to demonstrate that positive ethical behavior can be instilled in an entire organization. If you have attended Grace for any length of time you have observed that already. We have been doing that for more than a century.

Nathanael asked Jesus how he knew him. Jesus replied that he saw Nathanael under the fig tree. After his confession of Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus said, “You believe in me because I saw you under the fig tree? … You will see greater things than these.”

Grace Episcopal Church has contributed so much value to the lives of children and adults for generations in this community. What we are called to do now is to grow and share that love. Jesus calls us too. And we will see even greater things.