Have you done anything immoral in the last week? Most of us have, though some of us find it hard to poke about in our memory and admit it. And some of us are so blind that we fail to notice even obvious temptations.
These days, when the theme of morality comes up in Christian circles, nearly everyone thinks of sexual morality. But morality is about loving God and loving our neighbours, and covers a wide area of our activity. Did we give up our seat to that old person on the bus? Were we impatient with the customer ahead of us in the checkout queue? How do we react to those we see stumbling in the street in search of their next injection?
Morality is simple, yet never simple. A modern writer on Christian ethics has described it as the search for "what is truly good for human beings, that perfects our nature in its integrity and wholeness." Jesus' summary of the Law, and the Golden Rule, that we should do to others what we would want others to do to us, are a good deal clearer than that! But the modern definition at least ties the idea of morality to God's will for us - the will for us to be perfect, and to restore those parts of us which are damaged by sin.
The Old Testament Law did not make anyone perfect, did not set anyone free. Already in Old Testament times, the prophets recognized that its aims were too ritualistic. "I want your love, not your sacrifices", says God (Hosea 6:6). People could find favour with God quite outside the Law: Naaman, for example, is cured because of his faith, not because of his observance of any law. Paul makes this point in his letter to the Romans. Non-Jews could still do good because the goodness of the law was written on their heart - they were 'a law to themselves' (Rom. 2:14)
Jesus stressed the same point. Human needs came before mere ritual. There was nothing wrong with working on the Sabbath if the end result was healing - or even staving off the pangs of hunger. What harm could it do to eat pork? It was the thoughts of our hearts that made us unclean, not the food we ate.
Simple, yet not so simple. For who is to say what is good and what is not good? To leave the question to our own conscience, informed, one hopes, by prayer and study, is one answer, but is dangerously subjective: how can we know we have got the right answer? Might we not be influenced by our own circumstances, by our own backgrounds? And how can we pass our answers on to other people?
But an objective approach is equally dangerous. Times change. If one generation simply passed its moral values to the next, we would still have slaves. Who in 2006 would light up a cigarette at table when invited out for dinner without asking permission? And sensitivities change from place to place - eating a bar of chocolate in the street gives offence in some countries, and doing it in a bus would earn you a stiff fine in Singapore!
The whole aim of morality, as the modern definition above says, is towards 'perfecting our nature'. "You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect," said Jesus to his listeners on the Mount (Mat 5:48). But this perfection comes only through God's own grace, through the perfect love shown to us in Jesus. We cannot reach this perfection on our own, but only with God's help.
To seek God's grace, we can study God's word, we can listen to the wisdom of past thinkers in the church, we can discuss issues with each other. On some issues we will disagree. So here is a thought. The poor are always with us, as Jesus said. Let us examine our consciences, and ask ourselves what we should be doing about it. We may well disagree with our neighbours about what is best to do, but while the poor are still with us, and still poor, we shall not have 'perfected our nature'. For without the poor, God's will cannot be done. Only with their inclusion can God's Kingdom come.
HD