“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?
Sometime soon, a child will be born in the United States and she or he will become the nation’s 336 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 D., 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 D. 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 my 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 Baby Boomers embraced it with gusto!
But then, when we 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 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 person.
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 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 336 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 – have been known to say they are morally superior to Americans.
Ay?
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 God’s people 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 struggling with mental illness, 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. I
n 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!!! My buddy D. 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 336 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!”
Leave A Comment