Category Archives: Ethics
The Dishonest Manager: Choices and Consequences
One of the most puzzling scriptures to me has always been Luke 16:1-13. Recently, I got some insight into what I think Jesus was saying.
The master was firing a dishonest manager for squandering his property. So the dishonest manager cut everyone’s debt to the master in half in order to be welcome in their homes when he no longer had a job. It then sounds like the master approves of what the manager has done “by being shrewd as the children of this generation are so that he will be welcomed into their eternal homes.” But then Jesus goes on about being trustworthy in the small things, so you will be trusted in the large. And from there he says that no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and wealth.
To me the overall message is, “If you think this life is all there is, then you might as well beat the worldly at their own game. Be shrewd: get jobs through kickbacks, win rich friends with insider tips, charge exorbitant prices, use other peoples’ retirement funds to cover your mistakes, do whatever it takes to get money and power in this life.
But if you want eternal life with God, watch out. That changes everything. Because this life is short and riches are uncertain, but the love of God is eternal and trustworthy. You have to decide. What is your bottom line? God or money? This life or eternity?
As much as I believe in the unconditional love of God and that hell would be never learning to love, I can’t get around the obvious fact that we do constantly make choices and the small ones lead to a pattern of life long ones and they have consequences.
I also know that some of us are weaker than others, seemingly from birth, but I know that faith opens a reservoir of both strength from within and external coincidences that help us make choices to give, rather than take because of our own neediness. We never become perfect, but we grow toward our individual potential, by turning to the reservoir of God’s love when our neediness keeps us from loving others. As we learn how to do this more and more in all circumstances, our cups can run over with love.
Jesus wept for his people because though he loved them with all his heart, he was unable to reach them to free them from the limits of the values of this world and lead them to that reservoir of grace for all circumstances.
Smart or Intelligent? Moral or Ethical? Religious or Spiritual?
11:27am
Being smart and being intelligent are different in practice. Being smart is more about the present moment and the practical, being intelligent is about learning from the past, so humanity can live both free and humanely in the future.
Morals and ethics are different also. Morals are about not doing evil, while ethics are about not achieving reasonable goals evilly. Morals are immediate and personal. Ethics are long term and social.
Ethics question whether an end, particularly the goal of our personal happiness, justifies means that hurt people and that set precedents for corrupting society.
In trying to pass down values for a changing world, I want to challenge my descendants:
1. Morals: Don’t do it if you don’t want those you care about to read it on the front page or see it on U-tube.
2. Ethics: Don’t do it if everyone else also doing it will make the world less humane and not a place you would want your grandchildren or loved ones to have to survive.
Obviously we need both smart people and intelligent people. We also need moral people and ethical people.
Unfortunately, the smart and the intelligent, like the moral and the ethical, often end up politically opposed to one another. Neither realizing that issues aren’t either /or. Instead, what is needed is serious dialogue in order to find a balance in the tension of opposites.
But that kind of openness requires spirituality, not religion. And spirituality is very expensive personally. Spirituality is on a whole other level than morality or ethics or religion. It’s about becoming and being, not doing or achieving.
It’s described in Matthew 5: 3-11 I am paraphrasing:
Graced are the poor in spirit for they can be open to God. (When not filled with self importance, we have room for God within.)
Graced are those that accept the pain of loss for they will find the Comforter within. (Sorrow, not escape, leads to the Spirit.)
Graced are those who do not need to own or have power over anything for the joy of everything is theirs. (Then we are free to window shop the world, enjoying its beauty and other people’s joy.)
Graced are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for Jesus will come and abide in them.( When we recognize our own unworthiness, we can accept Jesus as our righteousness)
Graced are those who recognize the log in their own eye, for they will know how unconditionally God loves them.( And then we can love the unloveable.)
Graced are those focused on God, for then we see Him everywhere.
Graced are the peacemakers because no cause, nation, or person owns them, then we belong only to God.
Graced are those persecuted for Jesus’ sake, for we know Jesus.
Graced are the falsely accused and rejected, for then we are free to please only God.
Spirituality is foreign to us, because it is paradoxical and few of us have had any training in grasping paradox.
We’re faced with having to lose to win and having to die to live. And that takes grace more than smarts or intelligence,
and it takes grace more even than morals or ethics. And opening to grace takes admitting we need it. That’s the leap of faith that jump starts our spiritual journey.
God of the Universe, we are yours, take us and give us the grace to become the people you created us to be. We cannot do it on our own. Give us the righteousness of Jesus, so we will know the depth and breadth of your love, and fill us with Your Spirit to guide us on our journey back home to you. Amen
