3/7/65

What is Right and Wrong?

Scripture: Matthew 5: 13-24.

Paul Hammer, in his meditation on page 4 of today’s church bulletin, directs our attention to the meaning of the word “sacrifice.” To many of us, this word means “giving up something.” But, more literally translated, “sacrifice” means “to make holy” or “to make whole.”

The Lenten season is a good time to remind ourselves of the sacrifice Christ made for all of us. The preacher at last Wednesday’s Union Lenten service reminded us that “God so loved the world --- all of its people --- that He gave His Son -- that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but should have eternal life.” [John 3: 16]. And if Christ gave all of himself in sacrifice for all of us -- to make us whole -- shall not we who are his followers give ourselves in similar wholeness --- completely to His service? This may well be a major thought for us to wrestle with in this Lenten season.

But whoever gives over His life to the service of Christ, in an effort to live in His spirit, is going to be concerned not alone with an act of devotion or an attitude of loyalty. Any disciple faces the question of what is right or wrong in the light of his Christian faith and practice as a disciple. And so I suggest that we think on this for a while this morning.

There has been moral confusion in many periods of history. And ours is one of those periods. During a good deal of the history of our own land, there has been rebellion over the standards of right. But there has seemed to be recognition that there are standards. Now there are various voices in the world that proclaim a new belief that traditional morality is gone. Several such voices are heard in England. One of the controversial volumes for recent reading is Bishop John Robinson’s book, Honest to God. In his chapter on “The New Morality,” Robinson says: “There is no need to prove that a revolution has broken out in morals --- The religious sanctions are losing their strength; the moral landmarks are disappearing beneath the flood; the nation is in danger.” ---- “The wind here” in England, he say, “is a gale.”

It was one of the writers who replied to Bishop Robinson, another Englishman, Sir Richard Livingstone, who remarked: “When I was young, there were still moral fences. Admittedly, they did not always prevent trespass, but at least we knew the fences were there. Since then, most of the fences have gone.” Robinson puts forth the idea that traditional morality is gone. Few are impressed with the notion that something is wrong, or right, because God says so. People, he says, no longer even accept Jesus Christ as a great moral teacher. Jesus meant to bring love -- not law. Nothing can, of itself, always be labeled wrong, or right. Nothing is prescribed except love. Of course it is at this point that Bishop Robinson appears ready to rebuild. No rules or moral law --- only love.

Well, we might shrug if off by saying, “That’s England. A lot of Englishmen have lost touch with the church, and the church with them, for a long time. But that does not apply here.” And then we read a magazine article on “Sex in the United States.” Or some college student presses the inquiry farther and farther, with relentless persistence. “What is wrong with extra-marital intimacy,” she says. “After all, it’s natural, isn’t it? And if it’s natural, why isn’t it right?”

Or someone says, “I don’t see anything wrong with lifting a couple of items from a chain store counter. Of course it’s a bit chancy. The manager and the police may be real stuffy with the one who is occasionally caught. But it is no worse than a kind of game.”

Our self-confidence about standards in our own land is shaken up by the endless headlines of political scandals, scandals in labor unions, or in sharp fraudulent business deals. We are aware of a rise in obscene literature; we are accustomed to sensuous movie ads; we are constrained to be “open minded” about a lot of things wherein the pertinent question appears to be not, “Is it morally right or wrong?” but rather, “Will it make people healthy and happy?” --- without being too particular about which people are to be happy. We wonder about it -- and well may we wonder.

Once in while we hear the thoughtful voice of experience, like that of Will Durant, the historian, who finally decided to speak out. He spoke in this wise: “Most of our literature and social philosophy after 1850 was the voice of freedom against authority --- the child against the parent, the pupil against the teacher. --- I shared in that individualistic revolt (says Durant), but now --- I wonder whether the battle I fought was not too completely won. Let us say, humbly but publicly, that we resent corruption in politics, dishonesty in business, faithlessness in marriage, pornography in literature, coarseness in language, chaos in music, meaningless art.”

Some of our critics say that the churches and Christians are so afraid of appearing moralistic that they have ceased to be even moral. Not everyone is caught up in the swing away from moral standards of right and wrong. But we are all affected by it.

Some will say: “This is nothing new. There have been other cultures that have assumed that nothing is, in itself, to be labeled wrong, that it is only in the way one looks at it. The Roman Empire went to pieces over it. England was rife with it in the days before the Wesleyan revivals.

And corruption is not new. You have only to look back over accounts in our own land to be reminded.

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Not too long from now, we shall be eager to open the old cornerstone of our present church building and look for a box containing various papers deposited therein. It will be interesting to find what light may be thrown on our history as a congregation by what was deposited there more than a half century ago. Some of us have wondered if there were a cornerstone box in the foundation of the old west-side church that was torn down a couple of weeks ago. But none has appeared there thus far.

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But now let us turn to a report on a copper box removed not long ago from the New York Times Building as that structure was torn down. Sealed in the box had been a copy of a 1904 edition of the Times. What were its 60 year old headlines? There was trouble in the Far East and in Panama. Commuters on the Erie Railway complained of congestion. Broadway box-office practices were under fire. Brooklyn police were chasing the Mafia with little success. Editorials were being written about the perils of smoking cigarettes.

Turn from newspapers of our day, and of 1904, to accounts of a couple of thousand years ago in the Bible. People of those days, like people of every age, faced moral temptation and pressure. But, at the particular point where the moral pendulum swings today, the searching question seems to be: “Are there any rules, more than I choose?”

William Irish, to whom I am indebted for much of this day’s thought, suggests that this moral relativism threatens youth today, and that it is no less the concern of adults whose world has put money-making above morality, exploited sex, and put up with all of the thinking and practices that undermine wholesomeness.

Of course there have been some rules, and some law, that seem devoid of love or spirit --- that made life merely severe. Some of the traditional morality deserved to be questioned. I have a great deal of respect for the integrity of the great British Queen Victoria. But there developed in her time a moral standard, called Victorian, that was severe, and that was sometimes equated with Christianity. Religion, in that standard, became a serious of “don’ts.” “Don’t drink; don’t dance; don’t smoke; don’t patronize the theater; don’t play cards” --- and that makes you Christian. There was a kind of prudery that assumed that any reference to sex was bad. Victorianism seemed to say that. But the Bible does not say that. The Bible says that God made mankind male and female; that God looked upon His creation and saw that what He had made was good. And love, within the responsible commitment of marriage, is God’s good gift, with no proper place there for prudery. It is the uncontrolled yielding to impulse outside the bonds of marriage that brings so much of sorrow to so many kinds of people, which still gives us pause.

But prudery and Victorian moralism had their day. Religion, for many, became “doing the right thing.” How many people, however, do the right thing for the wrong reason. Probably you have heard of the little girl who prayed, “O God, make all the bad people good, and make all good people nice.” Most of us have a pretty good idea what she means. But is it possible for life to be well-lived only by love, and with not other commitment? By what shall we be guided if there be no moral fences?

There is the story, told in Greek writings [Plato’s Republic] of the crew of a sailing ship who decided that their pilot must be crazy because they could see him taking observations from the stars. They knew that a ship sails the seas influenced by winds and tides and ocean currents and shorelines. Star-gazing could be only a foolish impractical procedure. So they seized the pilot and shut him up in the hold; and sailed on to shipwreck. When we admit of no guide beyond the self, we sail on to shipwreck.

A man who was once an agnostic wrote of his generation of religionless people some 30 years ago. “For the first time in history,” he says, “there is coming to maturity a generation of men and women who have no religion and feel no need for one. They are content to ignore it. And they are very unhappy --- That ‘unchecked indulgence is unsatisfying’ is the unanimous teaching of all who have had the opportunity to try them in all ages ---- but nobody believes that to be true until he has discovered it himself.” How easily we seek a belief that is consistent to our lives rather than a path that demands the outpouring of our lives!

Can we believe that there is no moral fabric in the world in which we live? Can we believe that stealing is relative and acceptable so long as no one otherwise gets hurt? Can we believe that truth is relative and that, therefore, lies are innocent? Do we believe that “thou shalt not murder” is relative and not woven into any moral fabric of the universe?

Well, Jesus did not think so! He never said that there is no place for rules or law. “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it,” he said. [Matthew 5: 17]. To the woman who was taken in adultery and who had barely escaped being stoned to death he said, “Your sins are forgiven” --- but he did say “sins.” Then he added: “Go and sin no more.” [John 8: 3-11].

“Not everyone,” said Jesus, “that saith unto me, ‘Lord, Lord’ --- but he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 7: 21]. And that kingdom of which he spoke had requirements. “It was said by them of old, ‘thou shalt not murder.’ But I say to you, do not be angry with your brother.” [Matthew 5: 21-24].

The old law asked outward goodness. The new law in Christ asked even more: love for God and for mankind. It called for Christlike behavior and spirit. Christianity is a blending of both love and law. Love leads to accepting moral law. To love God means to wish to do His will.

Parents know that love includes providing rules and law. It includes discipline. Discipline does not, except incidentally, mean punishment. Discipline means structure and control. Children of any generation need to know what the rules of life are. And this is not automatic with them.

It was a psychiatrist who said that “Children need rules and discipline for emotional health just as much as they need bread and butter for physical health.” A loving parent must provide for this health. It is careless and irresponsible parenthood that allows children to come in at night when they please; eat when and if they please; help with household chores if they feel like it; go to school if they want to; attend church if they don’t care to do anything else.

We do raise our children to be independent. Our parents wanted us to be independent and self-reliant as well. But freedom comes only as it is able to be handled. And love will take the time and trouble to provide the rules and standards. We all have rules by which to live. We all rebel against them at times. But there is no substitute for control in our lives, and no true freedom without it. One thing that makes rules acceptable to a child is the knowledge that a loving parent is behind or beyond those rules -- a father and mother whose desire is that the child shall grow to greater freedom and acceptance of responsibility. So it is with us, and the Father of our lives. Loving God means doing His will. And His will is our peace. Happiness is this way.

So the moral law is there. God lets us choose between right and wrong. In choosing we may find not slavery to the law but true freedom. It was a psychiatrist [Jung, in The New Morality] who remarked that “When Christianity came into the ancient world, it set men free from the brutality and tyranny of animal impulses.” Jesus is not at war with human nature. He helps us harness and control it, and use it for God’s best interests, and ours. But Christ asks for our whole being --- the “sacrifice” of wholeness. And strangely, this is the only way to find meaning in life.

It was an English doctor who rose in a meeting of the British Medical Society not long ago and made this telling speech: “We hear much about the decay of moral standards, but we do not hear much about the way out of moral weakening through the power of Christ. When I was an undergraduate at [Oxford] university, I sat up and took notice when I saw the lives of some of my friends becoming radically different. When I made investigation, I discovered that it was because they were being brought face-to-face with a virile Christian faith. That great single discovery that I made at this university was this vigorous, living experimental religion ---- a religion that really began to work in my own life. I discovered that Christ could bring me forgiveness, and it was in him I discovered peace of mind and moral power.”

This is the real revolution that can happen in any person’s life. To be free is to be mastered by the great moral power offered in Christ. May all of us find that freedom in this Lenten season.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 7, 1965.

Also at the Wood County Infirmary, March 10, 1965