Tag: ethics

Develop a Virtuous Ethic (Matthew 7:15-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (New Living Translation)

God has always been concerned for ethical virtue. And Jesus was always careful to take that ethic and help others identify it and apply it.

Virtuous ethics was well-known in the ancient world, especially thanks to the Greeks and Aristotle – who espoused that a person’s character is the determinative factor in discerning the extent to which that person is a good person.

For Aristotle, ethics includes moral virtues such as courage, temperance, compassion, generosity, honesty, and justice. The person in whom these moral virtues are to be found as steadfast dispositions can be relied on to exhibit a good character, and therefore, is able to make morally correct actions in moral decision-making situations.

For Jesus, religious legalism was a clear outward sign of the lack of inward moral virtue. Bad religion was a result of bad character. Therefore, everyone ought to beware of the religious leaders who exhibited stifling religious legalism.

Nothing can choke the heart and soul out of a person’s true spirituality, and hinder the development of virtue, like the legalist who teaches a precise extra-biblical list of do’s and don’ts.

For many folks, it seems easier to live by the list than to pursue the harder road of developing the character qualities needed for a solid and virtuous religious ethic. Christian discipleship involves growing into spiritual maturity and allowing a seasoned character to shape how we make decisions. 

To do so, we must patiently and consistently follow in the way of Jesus, which is the way of grace and of life.

Today’s Gospel lesson is Christ’s conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount. It is a sermon that sets forth the values of God’s kingdom and devalues the core of legalistic thought. 

I define legalism as a compulsion to spell out, in great detail, how everyone is to live a godly life; purposely going beyond the stated commands of Holy Scripture so that all persons can know exactly what they are supposed to do in any situation.

The problem with this approach to the Christian life is that godliness is merely an outward expression of our ability to hold to the list. It really has nothing to do with cultivating a virtuous ethic of life.

“Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see.”

Jesus on the legalist (Matthew 23:3-5, NIV)

The legalistic way of life and religion feeds human pride and boasting; it goes against the inner heart values of humility and meekness in Christ’s Beatitudes. The teaching of Jesus ends up getting lost in trying to do everything right or perfect.

Jesus, through the Sermon on the Mount, led the crowd to a point of decision, letting them know they are at a crossroads. There are two alternatives: Choose the way of life as expressed in Christ’s teaching, or else choose the way of destruction through the legalistic list. In order to press the crowd toward the necessity of choosing wisely, Jesus used metaphors to make his point.

False teaching in the form of legalism is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Be wary of people who seem pious and sincere, yet who do not quite pass the smell test. After all, Satan himself, the Apostle Paul once said, masquerades as an angel of light, appearing righteous, yet, is intent on deceiving many. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

So, how do we recognize a wolf who spiritually and emotionally devours people, and has no intention of helping but harming? Look at the fruit of the tree. 

Jesus is the good tree. Christ advocates for a searching of the heart. This leads to the result of righteous fruit. The bad tree is also seen by its fruit. Anyone who fails to live the Beatitudes of Jesus will be seen by the rotten fruit of boasting and pride.

False teachers tend to believe they are above others. After all, they are experts at keeping the list of do’s and don’ts! Yet, a false disciple will always be shown by their profound lack of grace, gentleness, and genuine humility. They inevitably advocate for holding to their brand of religion and keeping the unscriptural list. The absence of true righteousness and justice in their lives eventually results in their being cut down and thrown into the fire.

For Jesus, there is no riding the fence between the two alternatives presented – and it is a matter for him of life and death. The way of Jesus leads to life, good fruit, entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and stability. The other alternative ends in destruction, bad fruit and fire, exclusion from the kingdom, and being ruined.

The sobering reality of Christ’s teaching is that many people can be deceived with a devil’s bargain: “Take the nice handy legalistic list and you will become godly. Here are twelve principles to change your life. Follow these rules, pray this prayer, give your money to this, and all will be well.” It is, however, a highway to the grave.

The false teacher proclaims himself a “fruit inspector” and then goes on to judge everyone by his own contrived legalistic list. So then, there is a need to repent of religious lists, political agendas, and teachings which ignore and demean Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.

One of the telltale signs of holding to a conjured list is when we are not honest with one another about our struggles. The bald fact of list-living is that we cannot fulfill it. So, when we know we are not measuring up to the list, the temptation is to keep up appearances as if we are doing just fine. 

List-living eschews showing any weakness or imperfection:

  • I cannot admit my sin to anyone because the list pronounces me a failure if I do. 
  • I cannot enter a deep and prolonged grief over my loss because the list says I need to stay strong. 
  • I cannot profess my doubts about God because the list says if I doubt, I am not a real Christian.

My response and recommendation to legalistic list-living is this: To hell with the list! 

Instead, give praise to Jesus Christ who has given us the way of grace! For it is grace which transforms hearts, turns lives around, and provides genuine joy and satisfaction. If grace is not the answer, we are not asking the right question. The tree of life has an abundant supply of gracious fruit.

The greatest anti-legalistic prayer we can pray is the tried and true ancient prayer of the Church: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Leave and Go (Genesis 8:13-19)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.

God spoke to Noah: “Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives. And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that swarming extravagance of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth.”

Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the Earth—left the ship family by family. (The Message)

The ancient story of Noah recounts a devastating universal flood—a story that began with problems akin to those in our present contemporary world. (Genesis 6:5-7:24)

Violence, in the days of Noah, had become so common and widespread, that the very heart of God was pained.

The Lord saw how evil humans had become on the earth. All day long their deepest thoughts were nothing but evil. The Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and he was heartbroken. (Genesis 6:5-6, GW)

So, God decided to bring judgment, and laid plans to rid the earth of humanity. To start over, God instructed Noah to build an ark to preserve his family and a few of every animal species.

And then, it rained, day and night, for weeks on end. The flood destroyed everything. Yet, God remembered Noah and all the animals, and the waters eventually receded. Noah sent out a raven, and then a dove, to see if they could find land.

Finally, the day came when they could step out of the ark, and the Lord told Noah to step off the big ark of a ship, set the animals free, and start repopulating the Earth.

There are, indeed, a lot of ethical questions that bubble up for us as readers about the entire flood narrative. Why kill everyone, including children too young to know better, and animals who apparently weren’t the problem to begin with? And, if things are so bad, why spare anyone or anything? After all, people started the violence, and they don’t seem very changed after the flood. What’s up with that?

Yet, honestly, just asking those questions puts us on some supposed high ground of morality – something we cannot claim – as if we know better than God.

Perhaps we humans still do not yet have a collective sense of our depravity, that is, of our awful potential for acts of violence (both physical and psychological) as well as our penchant for saying and doing nothing in the face of such evil. We keep offloading the issue onto God, as if the Lord is the problem.

Keep in mind, that by God’s grace, the Lord promised to never again destroy the Earth, as in the days of Noah, and still preserved a remnant of humanity. Yet sadly, that hasn’t stopped us humans from keeping up our violent and destructive ways. Throughout the whole of human history, we seem to have to keep learning the same lesson over and over again: that our actions (and in-actions) have far-reaching consequences for both us and all the rest of creation.

The violence humans do to one another and the violence we do to the natural world come from the same place in the human heart. A good and wise God created us good. And although we are capable of great evil, as the flood story says, and as we know every day, God means for us to be transformed.

God promised not to destroy the world. Now it’s our turn to promise the same.

How can we keep such a promise? I believe we can do it by being obedient to leave the ship and step off the ark. In other words, it’s important that we leave where we presently are, and go where God calls us.

Realizing a better world, a changed life, and a blessed Earth involves our movement to leave something behind, and go to a place we’ve not been before.

The Lord said to Abraham:

“Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1, CEV)

God said to Moses:

“I have heard the cry of the people of Israel. I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them. Now, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you can bring my people Israel out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:9-10, GW)

And, as a result of Moses obeying God, Pharaoh (eventually) said to the Israelites:

“Get out, you and your Israelites! Leave my country; go and worship the Lord, as you asked.” (Exodus 12:31, GNT)

Later, God clarified the instructions for heading to the Promised Land:

“Leave this place, you and the people you brought out of Egypt, and go to the land that I promised to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to their descendants.” (Exodus 33:1, GNT)

Jesus instructed:

“So, what if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you? Leave your gift there and go make peace with that person. Then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24, ERV)

Jesus said to his disciples:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)

Why does God repeatedly tell us to leave and go? Because we tend to hunker down in our entrenched ways of bigotry and idolatry, which are the fodder for human violence, and refuse to see other people created in the image and likeness of God.

Leaving and going opens us to the possibility of connection, and thus, love. And love is the heat source which melts the polar ice cap of hate and violence.

Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give me grace to leave malice and wickedness behind, so that I may go and serve you in truth and holiness, through Jesus Christ, your Son, my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Learn to Live Well (Micah 7:18-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
The Prophet Micah exhorting the Israelites to repent by Gustave Doré (1832-1883)

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
    and passing over the transgression
    of the remnant of his possession?
He does not retain his anger forever
    because he delights in showing steadfast love.
He will again have compassion upon us;
    he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
    into the depths of the sea.
You will show faithfulness to Jacob
    and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
    from the days of old. (New Revised Standard Version)

In a world obsessed with constant and rapid change, it is refreshing to know that there is a God whose essential character, attributes, and way of being in the world never changes.

The Lord is a God who is faithful, always keeping divine promises to people. God is pleased to show steadfast love and kindness through extending forgiveness. And because the Lord values pardoning human transgressions, God always looks sin square in the eye – not ever sugarcoating iniquities – and puts it down like a rabid animal.

In the prophet Micah’s day, the social and communal sins of the people were legion, leading to a great deal of injustice. Wealthy landowners creatively and unjustly seized property in order to feed their continual greed for more; false prophets went about preaching a positive future of peace, even though the poor became poorer through no fault of their own; and the nation’s leaders abused their power by fleecing the people of what little they had to begin with.

In short, dishonest business practices, dressed up by leadership as the path to prosperity, stirred up the just and right indignation of God. An assurance of pardon comes, yet only after there is confession of sin.

In this present contemporary era, we have our own legion of social sins which must be identified, confronted, confessed, expiated, and replaced with virtues that foster life and happiness.

Today’s way of doing business – whether in the corporate world and even in many faith communities – is to embrace an unholy ethic of more, faster, and better.

“Wait,” you may push back, “that doesn’t sound to me like anything bad.” And I would respond by saying that this is evidence of how far into our sin we have become, that we cannot distinguish our unjust practices from legitimate just practices.

Behind many contemporary business “ethics” are compulsions to beat the competition at all cost, obsessions with more money, and a lust for power and control. These are not practices helping people to live well.

More

In ancient Egypt, Pharaoh’s massive industrial complex was built on more – more pyramids and buildings, more wealth, more power and influence. Behind the “more” is usually old-fashioned greed. We want more market share, more numbers, more options and opportunities, more control.

Yet, what if the people doing the “more” are already tired, weary, and have given what they can? Like the Israelite slaves in Egypt, making more bricks translated to more wealth. And if it takes a literal whip to make them do more, then so be it.

Many modern workers put up with the “more” mantra only because they need their jobs and fear losing them if they don’t keep a ridiculously high level of production. And if anybody complains about it, they immediately get labeled (by the people in power) as not being grateful.

Faster

I once worked a job where a manager would occasionally and literally stand over my shoulder and time me with a stopwatch… sheesh… and I worked another job in which there was a quota for every day; we had to keep pace because production was king.

You don’t need to be in a factory for the clock to be the taskmaster. I don’t know of anyone who is hounded by a boss about time to experience contentment, peace, and rest. Speeding up to meet a quota or deadline only promises to create the necessity for more change, done faster.

None of this makes for a good life; and I would argue that it doesn’t make for good business either. It only produces empty and vacuous people who sacrifice themselves on the altar of work.

We are finite creatures with finite time and resources. We are not inanimate machines without a soul.

Better

One of the manifestations of valuing speed and productivity is also expecting fewer mistakes – because imperfection slows the wheels of progress. This is where people begin to be treated like machines instead of humans. And they become expendable; if they don’t do better, they get replaced with someone else.

Furthermore, this push to do better is often why workers are told to keep their problems at home and not bring them to the job. This has had a terrible impact on individuals, their families, and their relationships.

Forced compartmentalization has the effect of breaking down integrity and creating disparities. People’s very normal struggles cannot be shared with anyone but a professional counselor, therapist, or pastor. Their feelings and emotions become privatized.

Giving someone a list of resources might make management feel better, but it does little to actually help a grieving person who is right under their nose. Depression sets in because the person’s experience and emotions have been implicitly invalidated, leaving them with a sense that they’re meaningless and are a burden on others.

More, faster, and better – continually pumped into society’s bloodstream – is only making the world anxious, depressed, and with no energy to keep being yourself, that is, if you even know who you are anymore after such a pace of work.

What If?

Instead of more, faster, better, what if we…

  1. Embrace an unforced rhythm of life which recognizes the values of slowness, simplicity, and satisfaction?

2. Ask people to be themselves, to live life at a pace that’s doable and enjoyable?

3. Expect workers and people everywhere are to rest and adopt Christ’s easy yoke?

4. Take up the mantle as God’s people to be a counter-cultural movement of relationships which emphasize grace, love, mercy, patience, peace, joy, and spiritual support?

5. Put our energies into the careful construction of souls, instead of draining the spirits of people through unrealistic expectations?

6. Sought to live a simple life, without the need for more?

7. Learn to be satisfied with what we already have?

8. Rid ourselves of financial language to communicate with one another? (e.g. “invest in eternity,” “be an asset, not a liability,” “pay your debt to society,” etc.)

For the Christian, transformation isn’t dependent upon praying more, reading more, giving more, or serving more. Spiritual growth isn’t realized overnight; it takes time, in fact, a lifetime. And change isn’t about trying to be better, since our identity is already firmly in Christ.

My friends, you and I are enough. Transformation of life is the result of becoming open and receiving the grace of God in Christ. If we want forgiveness, we must face the sin of our world in all of its deceit, degradation, and damage.

Let’s not find ourselves on the other end of God’s ire because of unsound practices which dehumanize others. But let us accept and adopt rhythms of life that are consistent with being human and caring for others. That’s what the prophet Micah was looking for.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

Encouragement to Be Faithful (2 Timothy 1:3-7)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Orthodox icon of St. Timothy
Orthodox icon of St. Paul the Apostle

Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again.

I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you. This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. (New Living Translation)

Every individual person I meet is interesting. Everyone has a story. Each person has values which are important to them.  

The Apostle Paul had quite the story of conversion to Christianity. And so, he understandably had a high value of passing on the faith to reliable and competent persons who would then do the same. Timothy was one of those persons, a protégé of his mentor Paul.

Paul reminded Timothy of his identity, rooted in a faithful family, and encouraged him to tap into that robust spirit which resides within him. The Apostle encouraged him to fully express that spirit without fear or timidity.

For example, I care about kids. Children are a high value to both me and my wife. When meeting and engaging a family for the first time, we will inevitably talk to the child before addressing the parents. We care about any issue in the world which has to do with children – and we have a strong sense of morality concerning children because we love kids.

Be faithful to your calling, and to the values and ethics which undergird it. Whatever is important to us is where our sense of morality and ministry lie.

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”

Jesus (Matthew 6:21, NLT)

Everyone is moralistic because everyone cares about something. And we will live and die by our code of ethics, grounded in the values we most cherish.

In Holy Scripture, although there are hundreds of laws in the Bible, the highest standard of ethics and morality is contained in just a few chapters: The Ten Words (Commandments) found in the Old Testament chapter of Exodus 20; and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount found in the New Testament chapters of Matthew 5-7. 

These few chapters can be distilled into a few short ethical phrases:

“Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

This means that every teaching found in the Bible comes down to love. (Mark 12:30-31)

Throughout the history of the church, the highest ethical values have always had to do with knowing and loving the Creator, Sovereign, and triune God – Father, Son, and Spirit – and the majesty of people who are created in the divine image and likeness.

The movement and trajectory of Holy Scripture is that a good and benevolent God makes and keeps promises to people. Even when they fall and try to create small petty worlds of their own, a gracious God is active, wooing lost people to return to the spirit which resides within them.

Therefore, the Bible is an unfolding drama of redemption in which a loving God goes out of the way to bring back straying, hurting, helpless people. (Luke 15)

Which is why, for me, attending to the inner soul, teaching people the words and ways of Jesus, and providing spiritual care to others is a very high value. I love God, and I love people. It’s easy to understand, then, why I treasure the following:

  1. Practicing solitude, silence, and other spiritual disciplines.
  2. Connecting with God daily in contemplative prayer and meditative Bible reading.
  3. Paying attention to hurting people and bringing them grace, mercy, faith, hope, love, and gentleness.
  4. Seeking to act with civility and respect toward others I disagree with, or just don’t like very well.
  5. Engaging others who don’t share my values of faith in God.
  6. Praying and hoping for people to be healed and whole.
  7. Pursuing the common good of all people, no matter who they are.

My deep conviction is that the care of the soul is just as important as the care of the body; that attention to exercising the mind with Holy Scripture is just as important to overall health and well-being as cardio workouts and sensible eating; and that the hope of the world resides with knowing Jesus Christ (and not with a lesser hope that wishes things will work out in the end if I’m sincere to my personal ethical beliefs).

Paul wanted Christians to engage in the care of souls, to fan into flame the spiritual gifts which already lie within us, even if they may seem dormant or non-existent.

So, be faithful to who you are, to what you have been called to, and especially to the good news:

For there is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time. (1 Timothy 2:5-6, NLT)

Great God and Father of all, remember the multitudes who have been created in your image but have not known the redeeming work of our Savior Jesus Christ; and grant that, by the prayers and labors of your Church, they may be brought to know and worship you as you have been revealed in your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.