"Whatever Became of Ethics"
  G. Lloyd Rediger 

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 2:4-9, 15-18, 3:1-13, 22-23; Psalm 1; Isaiah 55:9

HYMNS: “God of Grace & God of Glory;” “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life;” “Open My Eyes That I May See”

APOSTOLIC GREETING
One of the most important things Christians do is make decisions. Of course, everyone makes decisions ... hundreds every day ... when to get up, what to have for breakfast, how fast to drive, what music to listen to, how to do our work. Most of our decisions are subconscious, unless we make an effort to be consciously aware of particular decisions. But our focus this morning will be on decisions which are intentionally “Christian,” that is, making choices which conform to what we know of God’s purposes and what we learn from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Let us note here that we are not presuming that all Christians believe the same things, or that Christians are the only people who have ethics, nor that Christians have all truth. We are simply examining a way of making decisions which fits Biblical teaching and the model of Jesus Christ. We are searching together for ways to make what we can call “Christian decisions.” By using the term Christian decisions, I mean choices which combine the best of our religious beliefs with a sense of responsibility for the consequences our behavior produces. This seems so obvious, and good.Yet we must remind ourselves that it requires spiritual, mental, and physical disciplines.

This is not be a sermon about our sinfulness. Nor is it my intent to induce guilt trips. Rather, with the guidance of Scripture and God’s Holy Spirit, I pray that we may take this time together to review our decision-making habits and understand how to bring them closer to what Jesus taught. And I pray that we may find new freedom to make our choices more easily and enjoy the blessing of God on such a life. For God promises to forgive us when our decisions are wrong. Jesus promises to be our mentor. And the Holy Spirit has been promised to us as our spiritual consultant. Aren’t these reasons enough to lead a more relaxed life and enjoy making choices?

But whatever became of ethics—that human process of establishing morals and values? Even though some social critics decry the loss of morality and ethics, in reality, ethics is as present in society as ever. But it has changed form radically. People still try to “do the right thing.” They still have values and standards. Yet there is serious compartmentalization taking place, a disconnect between what we say we believe and the decisions we make. In previous generations we called this hypocrisy. Now we subconsciously assume that our choices need not necessarily conform to what we say we believe.

Here is an example. Recently, at a large gathering of Christian young people, one of the speakers asked listeners to raise their hands if they would lie to avoid a bad situation. Nearly all hands were raised. Then he asked if they believed that lying was wrong. Again, nearly all hands went up. He then pointed out the disconnect between beliefs and practice which this vote indicated. And he suggested that we have entered an era of relativity, where most people don’t think what we believe matters very much when it comes to every day choices. This, too, is ethics. But is it Christian?

Now, what about these consequences of human behavior we are emphasizing this morning? Why have the consequences of human behavior become a vital consideration for life together on this planet? The answer, in its simplest form, is this: There are now so many human beings, living so interdependently, that we are forced to breathe each other’s pollution, drink each other’s contaminations, eat each other’s toxins, and pay each other’s bills. It is this recent development of having to pay for each other’s bad habits which is getting our attention. For if we keep on with the self-centered beliefs that we have a right to do whatever we want, we will soon be unable to pay all the medical, educational, and political bills this produces. Perhaps we can find ways to reconnect our beliefs and our consequences. After all, the Bible is full of examples to guide us.

How do we make our decisions, if not in obedience to the Bible and Jesus? I’m glad you asked! For that is what this sermon is about. The way we now make our decisions is not typically by reviewing our religious beliefs, but by assessing what will happen if we choose one option over another. We can compartmentalize our beliefs in a part of our minds separate from decision-making. Thoughtful people now see that this mental ability human beings have can be used to escape accountability for the consequences of our decisions. Most of us do it so often that it has become normal thinking and behavior, even in the church.

These are somewhat shocking statements for some church members. Yet, when we take time to think about our decision-making—at home, on the street, at work or school—and if we are honest with ourselves, we see that we do really make our decisions on the basis of consequences rather than religious beliefs much of the time. Our religious beliefs are still important, but mostly on Sunday. We know we can do better than this.

Let’s turn to our Scripture lessons for guidance. In the Old Testament story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, we can see the stages of our decision-making. Remember that when God created human beings, God placed them in a beautiful garden to live. It was safe and privileged. God said they were free to eat of the trees and enjoy this beautiful place as their home. But God also told them that they should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For if they did, they would die.

Adam and Eve lived an idyllic life for awhile, until they got bored and began to wonder about this one tree and what it would be like to eat of it. And when they chose to eat its fruit their minds changed radically. They now understood the difference between good and evil. And ... they died. What really died, of course, was the idyllic, privileged way of life they had been living. Now God pushed them out of this Garden of Eden, into a life where they had to make difficult choices all the time, in order to survive. This is the real world, where we must live with the consequences of our own, and everyone else’s choices and lifestyles.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the story of human moral development. It’s the way each of us grew up. Many of us were born into a world where someone took care of us as we explored our world. All the consequences of our behavior and choices were taken care of by people who were bigger than we were. But then one day we began making choices which nobody could fix for us. And sometimes we remembered the moral lessons we learned while we were being protected. Typically we learned two major messages about making choices: that there were good and bad choices and that all choices had consequences. Then we had to make a major choice about how to live the rest of our lives—would we work hard to learn how to choose good instead of evil, or would we just do what seems like a good idea at the time? This is the question we are all asking here this morning, in some form. And it usually has something to do with decisions we have made this week, or are anticipating this next week.

Let’s turn to Scripture again and recall the simple, poetic first psalm in the book of Psalms. We will read it together again shortly. But for now let us recall that the writer of this psalm answers our daily question about how to put our beliefs and our choices together. He says, “Happy (blessed) are the persons who delight in God’s laws, and live by them all day long. For they will be like healthy trees planted by a river. They will prosper and bear much good fruit.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Then why is it so difficult sometimes?

Some years ago a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, named Martin Seligman, did an experiment which has become well-known in clinical circles. It may help us see our decision-making from another perspective.

Seligman was a young graduate student at the time. He was interested in studying human motivation. In those days such experiments were often done on animals. The researcher developed a psychological theory based on what he saw animals do in his experiment.

Martin Seligman built what he called a “Shuttle Box,” for his experiment. This wooden box was big enough so he could put several puppies in the box, and they would have plenty of room to move around. He divided the box into two halves, with a wall between the two sides just high enough so the puppies could jump from one side to the other. He installed an electric grid in the floor of one side of the shuttle box so he could send a painful electric charge through the floor of that one side. Then he selected several puppies from the supply of lab animals. He put them all in the side of the box which had the electric grid in the floor. Then he pushed the button which sent an electrical charge through the floor. Immediately the puppies began to jump around and howl in their discomfort. Now Seligman noticed three kinds of behavior among the puppies. Two of the puppies began to look around for a way out. They discovered that they could climb over the wall between the two sides of the box, and get out of their misery. Two other puppies were running around the electrified side of the box pushing against the wall with their noses, first in one place, then another. But when they noticed that the puppies on the other side were no longer suffering, they climbed over the wall also. However, the last two puppies hardly moved. They just hunkered down and whimpered, making no attempt to escape their pain.

Seligman was curious about these last two puppies who made no effort to escape. So he and a colleague looked up the history of all the puppies. They found that the first two puppies, the ones who explored the box till they found a wall they could climb over, had never been in a lab experiment before. Then they found that the two puppies who kept pressing their noses against the walls of the box had been in a previous experiment in which they could shut off the electricity in the floor by pushing a panel on the wall of the box with their noses. The last two puppies had also been in a previous experiment. In their experiment, both sides of the box were electrified. So even if they jumped over the wall to the other side, they would still receive painful electrical shocks.

No doubt you are already making the connections between the behavior of these puppies, and our human behavior when we have to make choices. But let me tell you the rest of the story.…

Seligman and his colleague ran this same experiment several times. The results began to change. For the dogs who had first learned to jump over the wall to safety began to jump the wall more quickly when the electric current was turned on. The puppies who had tried to push against the wall with their noses before jumping over to the safe side, now stopped pushing their noses against the wall when the current was on. They quickly jumped over the wall to safety. But the two puppies who just hunkered down and whimpered kept right on with this futile behavior. For the lesson they had learned in a previous experiment told them that no matter what they did, they could not escape the pain. Their “learned helplessness,” as Seligman called it, continued until Seligman and his colleague gently reached into the box, picked them up, and placed them on the safe side. Over several days they continued to help the whimpering puppies from the painful side to the safe side. Finally, their help paid off, as these puppies learned to climb over the wall to safety all by themselves. Then all the puppies were safe and happy.

Now ... make the leap with me from the experimental lab to this congregation. All of us make decisions every day—individual decisions and decisions made together. Some of the decisions are painful, some joyful. But all of them have consequences—individual consequences and shared consequences. Our first reaction in decision-making is to avoid painful consequences. We may try different methods till we find one that works, hopefully, for all of us. Other decisions have to do with complex issues, such as: “What will be the most comfortable choice?” “What will bring the most benefits?” “What will move us towards our goal?” And then come even more complicated questions, such as: “Who gets to control the decisions and the consequences?” “How do we handle the consequences when our decisions do not please everyone?”

Ah ha! Now comes the politics, the power plays, the pouting, the vengeful conflicts. But not necessarily. For in the church of Jesus Christ we have learned other responses besides those natural, human responses. We have a Bible full of guidelines to aid us. We have the life and teachings of Jesus Christ to point the way. And we have pastors and elected leaders to guide and support all of us together. At least, this is how it is supposed to work. The reality is that each of us is learning every day how to put our Christian beliefs together with our decisions. Though sometimes we flounder in the community of faith, we are learning week after week how to get over the wall with good decisions. And for those of us who have some difficulty, there will be someone to lift us over the wall until we can handle it ourselves.

We began with a question, “Whatever became of ethics?” We have answered that human ethics has changed in recent years. We answered that all human being must go through stages of learning how to choose the good over the bad. And we have answered that in a healthy community of faith we learn how to do this together, for the benefit of all, and in faithfulness to our Creator. Thanks be to God!

Now let us summarize the lessons of this worship service by taking our pew Bibles and reading Psalm one together.…

“Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
Or take the path that sinners tread,
Or sit in the seat of scoffers.
But their delight is in the law of the Lord,
And on His law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
Which yield their fruit in its season,
And their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
But are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.”

May God give us ears to hear and understand. Amen.

Copyright 2000, G. Lloyd Rediger. All rights reserved.