The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY (Retired)
One of the things that frequently shocks me is the fact that so few people
are willing to study a topic, think about it, and make a decision based on their
best understanding of the problem. Most people seem to feel it's easier to
simply accept what they were taught as children, and not bother to study or
think about topics that are perhaps not clear to them, or topics they consider
uncomfortable or difficult. Of course this leads to a lot of prejudiced opinions
and ideas, which they then hand on to their own children and perpetuate the
problem.
There are many examples of this, and we do not have time to do an exhaustive
study of all of them today. But, let's take one topic that is very much on
peoples' minds nowadays. What are we to think of people who don't work for a
living?
Most of us grew up being told that people who did not work for a living are
morally corrupt. We were told that these people were lazy, and would rather take
what they could get easily...welfare, unemployment compensation, or prey on
honest workers by various con rackets.
And now we are in an economic crisis, where many people have lost their jobs,
many companies are closing or have already closed, and we see more and more
people on the street corners with signs reading "Will work for food" or "Need a
job" or something similar. Perhaps somebody in our own family has been laid off,
or lost their job because their company shut down permanently.
This has, of course, forced us to re-think what we were taught as children.
We perhaps have worked faithfully at our job for many years, and all of a sudden
we are told that the company will shut down permanently on such and such a date.
Does this mean that we, WE OURSELVES, are morally corrupt, lazy,
good-for-nothings? Of course not. If we use our minds, we understand that we
never really thought about this before, just accepted the opinions that were
passed down to us from family and teachers and society in general. But now we
know: good people can lose their jobs through no fault of their own. It doesn't
have anything to do with character or morals. In most cases it is all about the
economy.
So we have to accept that we were wrong all along in our thinking, wrong not
to investigate the facts and form our opinion based on facts rather than on
"what everybody says."
This is true about many things in our lives. We now know that alcoholism is a
disease, not a weak moral character. We now know that homosexuality is not a
choice, but a matter of our hormone balance. We now know that many people get
into the drug culture not because they are immoral to begin with, but because
they are poor, have no education, no way to get a good job, and this is the only
way they can make some money to live on. And whether one votes Republican or
Democratic usually has little basis in the way one thinks, and quite a lot to do
with how charismatic and attractive the competing candidates are.
Today's reading from Deuteronomy tells us that we are to obey God. We have
his word, his law, in the Bible. And we have the teachings of his prophets. The
trouble with prophets is simply that there are true prophets and false prophets,
and we are often tempted to believe what is comfortable to believe, even if it's
what we hear from a false prophet. Maybe we believe it because the prophet is
persuasive, or handsome, or has a great preaching voice. Maybe we believe the
teaching of the prophet who asks us to make fewest changes in our lives and
thinking, or to live in a way that is easiest or most agreeable for us. Maybe we
believe the prophet who says what we want to hear, what we wish were true.
But God makes it clear: a true prophet tells the truth. And how
do we know the truth? We have to listen intelligently, learn what we can about
the topic in question, pray about it, and then judge...not on the basis of what
our parents taught us, not on the basis of what some teacher's or politician's
opinion was, but on the basis, the best we can judge, of what is true, what is
honest, what is right according to God's Law. And this often means that we must
accept hard truths we often do not want to hear, or would prefer not to have to
think about. So be it. But this is what God asks of us, in fact, what he demands
of us...a passion for the truth, because God himself is true. Amen.
