Community Church Sermons
January 15, 2006
“Oh, be careful
little hands what you do!
Be careful little
hands what you do!
God is up above,
He’s looking down in love,
So be careful little hands what you do!”
Many of us here today grew
up in a time when little jingles like this old Sunday School song provided
guidance for making important moral decisions. For some, like Christian
preacher, professor and all-around good guy Tony Campolo, this very song became
so ingrained in his subconscious mind that – he claims – it almost ruined his
life as a teenager. Tony writes, "That
song! That song ruined my dating life! You know, I'd be out there in a car and
just when I'm ready to make the move, this voice from heaven says, 'Be careful
little hands, what you do.' "
Many of us were nurtured in a time when people
believed in absolutes, when right was right and wrong was wrong. The mere cross
look on your mother’s face, the raising of a teacher’s voice, the sign that
said “Not Permitted”, and even simple little Sunday School ditties like, “Be
Careful Little Hands” were usually more than enough to stir up elevated
levels of moral conscience in us that steered us toward the right and away from
the wrong.
But now the world has changed. Don’t you think so?
Sometime this month, a child
will be born in the United States and she or he will become the nation’s 300
millionth citizen. This child will be born into a world far more complex and
difficult to navigate than the world in which I was raised. Not only is this a
far more sophisticated world in terms of its geopolitical realities, expansive
knowledge-base, and advanced technological systems, but it is a world whose
moral underpinnings have been uprooted.
Some people trace this
change to the 1960’s when Joseph Fletcher wrote a book called, “Situational
Ethics: The New Morality.” I was just going off to college when that book
hit the shelves and it was all the rage on campuses throughout America. Fletcher,
who was an Episcopal priest, argued that the only thing with intrinsic value is
love, and therefore all moral choices must be determined by whether or not love
is the motive in that particular situation. So, for instance, a mother might be
justified in robbing a grocery store if it is to feed her hungry children.
I, for one, found great
comfort in situational ethics. Having spent my boyhood years, together with my
good friend Dennis Astrella, trying out as much of the “wrong” as we could
possibly get our hands on, this just seemed to be a great way to get off the
hook! Maybe things weren’t so black and white after all! Maybe there are
shades of gray! Maybe people like Dennis and me – and Tony Campolo - could,
after all, make THE BIG MOVE in the back seat of the car…so long as it was
done…with LOVE!
Some social scientists and
historians opine that the embrace of situational ethics by the Baby Boomer
generation changed America forever. The questioning of authority – civil
disobedience – the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs – freedom in sexual
expression and experimentation – all became manifestations of the new morality.
And we embraced it with gusto!
But then, when we
Baby-Boomers had kids of our own, and they took up questioning
authority, civil disobedience, drugs and sex, many of us wondered what
kind of monster we’d created! Sometimes I wish I could have taught my own kids:
“Oh, be careful
little hands what you do…!
But, of course, we don’t
live in the world of little Sunday School ditties anymore. We live in the very
real world of moral ambiguity. And especially when it comes to our kids and
grandkids, that’s a very frightening world Sometimes we find ourselves wishing
we could somehow go back to those simpler times when right was right and wrong
was wrong. Anyone here today want to take that trip back to “the good old
days?”
Let me try to dissuade you.
It’s not that it would be a
bad thing to go back to such a time of moral certainty. It’s just that there
never has been such a time!
Never.
Not in the history of
America. Not in the history of the world.
Never.
Most of us human beings are
very selective in both our memory and our morality. Yes, there was once a day
when people got up in the morning and went to work and worked hard for their
pay - well, unless you lived in a place like Boston – and you were Irish.
I.N.N.A. “Irish Need Not Apply.” That was the sign hanging outside of many
businesses back in the day when the right was right and the wrong was wrong.
And remember those neighborhoods
we lived in where everybody looked out for each other, and family values were
fostered? Sometimes, though, we forget that many of those neighborhoods had
little covenants written into the deeds promising that the house would never be
re-sold to a Jew – or, even worse – to a black.
The right was right and the
wrong was wrong - sort of.
In those days women would
stay home and take care of their families - even if her husband came home from
work and beat her up. It was her moral obligation to stay with him. It was the
right thing to do in the day when the right was right, and the wrong was wrong.
Both memory and morality
tend to be very selective. And not only here in America, and not only in recent
generations. Even the world of the Bible is not Mayberry RFD.
When angelic visitors come
to Lot’s house in the city of Sodom, the men of the city try to take them and
rape them. Lot protects the visitors, and he is touted as being righteous. But
do you remember HOW Lot tried to save the visitors? By offering the men of the city his
daughters instead. In a similar story in Judges 19, the woman offered in place
of the man is gang-raped all night and killed. Biblical
morality is almost always more favorable to men than it is to women. And
certainly, morality in the Bible selectively favors the Hebrews over all other
people. Innocent people are randomly butchered on the pages of the Old
Testament because they are not the chosen race. Generations later, when the
same rationale was used by Nazi Germany – this time as a “Final Solution” against
the Jewish people - the world called it what it is - a holocaust.
As much as we wish we could
find a time and a place where right was right and wrong was wrong and everybody
played by the same rules, we will never locate such a time and place. Not in
the Bible. Not in America. And certainly not in the world that will soon
receive the 300 millionth citizen of our nation.
So how can we guide such a
child in the right ways to live? How can we help our own children and
grandchildren find their way? How can we find a new morality that is not the
ambiguous situational ethics of the ‘60’s, and is not the “sort of” selective
morality of the good old days?
Well, let’s begin with
Jesus. When Jesus came among us, there was born into our world a truly new
morality. You will not find in Jesus a morality that excuses sin and
irresponsibility. Neither will you find in Jesus an ethic that favors men over
women, rich over poor, insiders over outsiders, Catholics over Protestants,
Jews over Muslims, or even Americans over …well, say Canadians who – you know –
recently said they are morally superior to Americans. Ey?
And in the Gospels there is
an amazing story about Jesus revealing this new morality. One day, Jesus is in
the company of people just like you and me – Baby Boomers who tend to be
morally ambiguous, and traditionalists who tend to be morally certain. Someone
in the crowd points out the moral superiority of the Scribes and Pharisees who
devote their lives to fulfilling every detail of the Law. And they are very
good at it! So what will Jesus say? Will he say, “Ah, those Pharisees are
just too strict, and they need to loosen up and get a life!”? Or will he
say, “Man, those Baby Boomers are just too loosey-goosey and need to get
more strict!”? What will Jesus say? Where will he come down on the subject
of right and wrong?
Well, listen to what Jesus
says: “Unless your righteousness EXCEEDS that of the Scribes and Pharisees,
you will never see the Kingdom of heaven.”
In other words, “You who
live with moral ambiguity…you’ve got to catch a higher vision! And you
traditionalists who want everything to be black and white…you’ve got to go
higher, too!” In the coming of Jesus into our world, ALL of our moral
systems are found to be inadequate. We are called to a NEW MORALITY!
And Jesus gave this new
morality a name. Do you know what it is? He called it, “The Kingdom of
heaven.”
I believe that the first
step in teaching children about morality is teaching them what God and we are
trying to do in the world. We are working to create a world that looks like heaven!
Now this is not the heaven
“up there” where you go when you die. This is the kingdom of heaven Jesus
preached about establishing here on earth – a kingdom of justice and mercy – a
kingdom of peace and life! Isaiah 65 describes this kingdom as a world in which
there will be no more weeping or crying – a world where never again a baby will
die in its infancy – a world where people can grow old gracefully and never be
discarded – a world where people are safe in their own homes – and where
everyone has enough to eat. This is the prophetic vision of a world in which
the lion and lamb lay down together, and where swords are beaten into
plowshares and the nations learn war no more.
Every week we pray with
Jesus, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done… on earth as it is in heaven!” Building
the Kingdom of heaven is the goal of our lives on earth as followers of Jesus.
In situational ethics, you
can justify a mother robbing a grocery store to feed her hungry children, but
you cannot have the kingdom of heaven so long as either children are
going hungry or mothers are going around knocking off Piggily-Wiggily stores!
That scenario does not belong in the Kingdom of heaven!
In traditional morality, you
can get all worked up about sex sins. Oh, how we love to think that morality is
mostly about what goes on in the back seat of a 1957 Chevy. And yet, while we
focus so obsessively on sexual morality, we somehow cannot find nearly as much
time or energy to pay attention to the ostracism of people suffering with AIDS,
or the inability of poor people to have adequate medical care, or the terrible
consequences of children who are denied access to a good education. You can
have personal morality without social morality, but it would not be the Kingdom
of heaven!
Jesus came to build a new
kingdom – the world you always wanted for yourself and your children and your
grandchildren! “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…on earth as it is in
heaven!”
So the first step in
teaching Jesus’ new morality is teaching our kids about this hopeful and
life-giving new world we’re joining with God to build.
Then, we might want to
engage our kids in thinking about what behaviors will be helpful in bringing
that world into being.
Our reading from First
Corinthians begins with Paul pointing out something that we all need to
understand. “Everything is permissible,” Paul writes. In Paul’s world –
as in ours – you can find justification for just about any kind of behavior!
Anything goes. I mean, even suicide bombings can be justified in the minds of
some. And we Christians have a unique problem with this because we are no
longer bound to the Old Testament Law. We have been set free from the Law by
the grace of Jesus Christ. Our sins can be forgiven. And people in the early
Christian churches took full advantage of this newfound freedom. Some were
sexually promiscuous. Some spent their lives suing everybody who came along.
Others went off on wild alcoholic binges. Still others let their greed run wild
by taking economic advantage of other people. Paul wrote this letter to the
Corinthians partly to deal with such problems. And the Christians did these
things because they knew the Law was not what justified them anymore. They were
justified by grace through faith in Jesus! And by Jesus’ shed blood, their sins
were forgiven! And some of these whacky Christian people figured that they
could actually bring MORE glory to God by sinning as much as possible, and
giving Jesus lots of things to forgive them for!!! Dennis Astrella and I
would’ve joined that church in a heartbeat! This is why Paul, in Romans 6:1
asks, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may
increase?” And then Paul answers his own question with a thundering, “NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So listen to the apostle as
he helps us take hold of Jesus’ new morality. “Everything is permissible,”
Paul writes, “but not all things are helpful.”
Christian morality, I
believe, means aiming our lives at building the Kingdom of heaven by taking up
behaviors, lifestyles, thought-patterns, and attitudes that are helpful to
God in this great enterprise! And the flip side of that is to put away
behaviors, lifestyles, thought-patterns and attitudes that are no help at all
in building heaven. We are to find ways to be helpful!
Many years ago, our family
was vacationing on Cape Cod. My father and mother rented a
bicycle-built-for-two. Off they went for an afternoon’s ride. Well, when they
returned, my father was soaked in sweat, completely out of breath, and just
about on the verge of a heart attack! He gasped, “That is a lot harder than
it looks! It actually felt like I was pedaling the two of us all by myself!!!!”
And that’s when my mother got this terrible look on her face! She didn’t know
she was supposed to pedal!
Do you know that you’re supposed
to pedal, too? God has called us into a joint venture that is going to result
in the Kingdom of heaven! And you and I can be helpful to God in the
words we speak, the actions we take, and the lives we live.
And one more thing. Paul
writes at the end of the chapter, “…honor God…”
If we aim our lives at the
Kingdom of heaven, and focus our efforts on being helpful to God, how will we
make the daily decisions that form the basis of Jesus’ new morality?
Perhaps by asking a simple
question: “Will this honor God?”
Will what I say to the
cashier at Wal-Mart bring honor to God? Will how I respond to the teacher at
school bring honor to God? Will the way I relate to people who are poor, or
hungry, or estranged, or ostracized by others bring honor to God? Will what I
do in the back seat of that 1957 Chevy bring honor to God?
The coming of Jesus calls
you and me to a new morality. It is a higher morality than we’ve ever known
before. It is called the Kingdom of heaven.
May the child to be born
this month as the 300 millionth citizen of our nation – and all the children of
the world – one day realize the dream God and we share:
“Thy kingdom come, thy will
be done…on earth as it is in heaven!”