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Choosing Right from
Wrong Has Become More Difficult
1. Because ancient
codes of behavior in family life and relationships tell us how to act, but the
circumstances on which those standards were based have changed.
Changing
Circumstances challenge ancient standards
(Examples)
•“Be
fruitful and multiply” was a word to the human race when the population of the
world was 50 or 60 million. Now it is 6 billion and we are pushing the ability
of the planet to support this growing population.
•If
reproduction is no longer the primary reason for the bonding of men and women in
families, the rules that govern those relationships may also change.
•Women
were until recently seen as inferior to men and treated like property.
•How
does a view that sees women as equal to men and capable of doing what men have
traditionally done alter relationships politically, economically, and
interpersonally?
•How
has our ability to extend life expectancy and improve the quality of life for
older persons changed life priorities?
•How
has a “smaller world” with instant communications, world wide travel and
international economic interdependency changed the rules for international
relations and business?
Ancient principles
may remain valid but how to apply them is endlessly perplexing.
Choosing Right from
Wrong Has Become More Difficult
1. Because ancient
codes of behavior in family life and relationships tell us how to act, but the
circumstances on which those standards were based have changed.
2. All the cultures
of the earth are coming together and as we compare different beliefs and ethical
standards the result is ethical confusion.
When our population
was more homogenous and shared a dominant religious tradition, a popular
consensus on what was right and wrong was possible. Today we have not a single
right against a single wrong but many competing systems so that finding our way
is difficult.
Choosing Right from
Wrong Has Become More Difficult
3. The speed of life
today and its demands leave little time for thinking about whether what we are
doing is right or wrong. People like to have the roadway clearly marked. Today
we can go astray not because we want to but because we are confused about what
the right way is.
I believe most of us
are involved with faith because we care about doing what is right in our
personal and public lives. Christ is the shepherd of our souls, but often
deciding how to apply Christ's message to the particular decisions we have to
make leaves us confused. Today I want to lift up six practical tools we can use
to sort out the right and wrong.
You may think the place
to begin is with our conscience. I don't think conscience is the most useful
guide because people have done terrible things conscientiously. Paul of Tarsus
led the Jerusalem community in stoning Stephen with a good conscience, convinced
that this murder was necessary. Sometimes because the training behind our
conscience is over severe, our conscience condemns us mercilessly for things
that are actually of little importance.
The first tool
I would use in seeking right from wrong is the wisdom tradition. A great body of
human experience is available to us in the common sense that is shared by all
cultures. The book of proverbs is filled with this wisdom.
"Treasures gained by
wickedness do not profit. A slack hand causes poverty. Hatred stirs up strife
but love covers a multitude of wrongs. Rash words are like sword thrusts but the
tongue of the wise brings healing." This wisdom is not the property of one
religious tradition but is common to all of them because it is based on human
experience.
We do not posses common
sense automatically. Good homes teach it and it is available in the book of
Proverbs and other wisdom books. We can gain it by becoming a keen observer of
what works and does not work in life.
A lot of the bad
decisions we make may not be obviously morally wrong, they are just plain silly.
A second tool
you might use is the golden rule. "Treat others the way you would like to be
treated yourself." This is the rule of good sportsmanship. We do not take
special favors for ourselves that we would deny the other players. The rules
need to be equal for everybody. The question to ask your self is, "if everyone
acted with the same principal how would life be?"
This test can be applied
to situations like whether to cut into a line at the theater or cheating on your
taxes. The question is not does everyone do this? The trick is to use your moral
imagination and say if everyone does this what happens to the common good? Is
life better? If the answer is "no," don't do it no matter what others may do.
Ask yourself: How would I feel if someone did this to me?
A third tool
is the test of foresight. If I do this what will the long term consequences be?
It is said that every time someone picks up one end of the stick, they pick up
the other as well. Some times this is an easy exercise. What happens down the
road if I smoke cigarettes? It doesn't take a genius to see the answer. Do some
research. Look around at those who have smoked for thirty years and see what
cigarettes have done for them. We need to ask ourselves, if we keep burning
fossil fuels the way we are today and if the people now in the developing world
emulate us, what will the future be like? When you are asking these questions I
think it is important not to engage in miracle thinking. Well we are doing this
but somehow down the road there will be a new technology that will rescue us.
This sort of answer is just a way of avoiding facing what you are doing. I'll
over eat today, but somewhere out there is a diet that will fix me up by next
spring. Simply take today's behavior and project it out ten or fifteen years and
if you don't like the results its time for a new path.
A fourth tool
to use is the test of publicity. What if everyone knew what I was proposing to
do? Take your actions out of hiding and expose them to the light of day. Can
they stand the light? Things that cannot stand some light are not healthful.
God sees all things
and one day we will answer for them. Jesus gave us this test saying, "There is
nothing that is hidden that will not be brought into the light; nothing that is
secret that will not be disclosed." Mark 4:22.
Phillips Brooks, the
great preacher, taught this to young people.
To keep clear of the
need of concealment, to do nothing that might not be done in the middle of
Boston Common at noon day, - I cannot say how more and more that seems to me to
be the glory of a young person's life. It is an awful hour when the first
necessity of hiding anything comes. The whole life is different afterwards. When
there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects not to be
touched, then the bloom of life is gone. Put off the day as long as possible.
Put it off forever if you can."
I think about how one of
the finest names in the accounting business, Arthur Anderson, was brought to
ruin, because they thought they could hide Enron's debt problems behind false
reports. How many of us think we can hide what we do and have it never
discovered, while all the time the secret like acid is eating away our soul.
A fifth tool
we might use to sort out right from wrong is the test of our best selves. This
best self is deeper than conscience. We have many selves in us. We have a greedy
self, and a fearful self. We have a passionate self and a careless self. Deep
down in every one of us I believe is our true self. God made us for certain
purposes and these are written on our hearts. Psalm 139 says, "It was you who
formed my inwards parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Your eyes
beheld my unformed substance. You wrote the book on what I was to be when my
life was not yet in existence." Vs. 13, 16 I think if we listen closely to our
hearts, like a musician who knows when a wrong note is hit, we will know when
we are violating our true purposes. Louis Pasteur was in Paris when the Germans
besieged it in 1870. He wanted to fight, but he was not well. His friends told
him to leave the city. He was stubborn but finally listened to his heart that
told him he could best help his country someother way. "Unhappy France, dear
country,"he wrote to a friend, "if only I could assist in raising thee from thy
disasters." Sixteen years later he found a way to preserve milk which brought
millions of dollars into the French economy and has benefited people
everywhere. The fifth tool is to ask your self, is what I am going to do a
reflection of my best self?
The final tool
you can use to discern right from wrong is the test of our most admired person.
St. Paul often urged his new Christian disciples, "What you have seen in me, do
these things." Follow my example. This is finally the test of what would Jesus
do? To follow this test we need to know Jesus well.
Since Jesus may seem
distant to you. Ask yourself who else do you know who lives out his qualities?
What would they do? Carry your behavior into the presence of the Lord and judge
it there.
If we apply these tests
there are not many issues that will not be sorted out in their nets. If the
answers we get are contradictory view the list as a hierarchy.
Seek what is right and
best in life.
In this Sermon I
acknowledge my debt to Harry Emerson Fosdick's Sermon on Right and Wrong.
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