I read a discussion about sporting events taking place on
Sunday mornings. One of the
suggestions was Christians should band together and demand no sporting events
on Sunday morning. Families should
be able to attend worship without having to disappoint their
children, or let down the other team members, and so on. It reminded me of many discussions I
have heard over the years when pastors get together or during annual
meetings and really any time the topic of church attendance or youth group
attendance might come up.
“People’s priorities are messed up.” “Nobody is dedicated to church anymore.” “ Church should be a number one
priority.”
It also reminded me of an ethics class I took in
seminary. We talked about several different approaches to ethics such as teleology, deontology, virtue ethics and situational ethics. For our final
we wrote about which approach best described our own perspective on
ethics. I don’t remember much from
this (or any other) seminary
class. So, I turned to the internet to refresh my memory and found teleology is about consequences of actions, deontology is about following
rules, virtue about character and situational ethics about context. I don’t remember much
but I do remember I wrote my paper on teleology in a large part because it was
the approach to ethics which seemed to lend itself best to public discourse and
conversation among those of differing belief systems. Anyone can consider and discuss various consequences of particular actions. But, for example, if I have my set of rules and you have
your set of rules all we can do is yell our rules at each other. Not much room for conversation.
Not only does it make more sense to utilize an ethical
system which lends itself to public discourse but it seems to me to be more
consistent with the ethic displayed in the life of Jesus. Jesus refused a narrow definition of
“neighbor.” Jesus repeatedly healed and lifted up those who were not the
traditional religious crowd. Jesus
told us to love one another, to feed the hungry, to reach out to the outcast,
and did not tell us to give them a confessional exam first. We are to care for all people
regardless of their beliefs. How
can we do that if we are focused only on what is best for Christians and speak
in language only Christians would understand or agree with?
Sure, we could all stand up together and demand no sporting
events on Sunday mornings. We
could do the "Christians demanding culture mold itself to fit us”
thing. Or we could think about why
Sunday might be an important day for all people. We could think about why a God of justice and love might
have commanded a Sabbath in the first place. Did God institute the Sabbath so we could make sure and give our weekly sacrifice of praise? Eek. Or perhaps so employers and slave
owners would not work others to
death. So that even the lowliest
could have time with their families, time to take care of their health, time to
rest.
So what if we took time to consider the coaches, umpires,
referees, and facilities managers who are forced to work on Sundays for those
sporting events? What if we
broadened our concern about the Sabbath beyond sporting events on Sundays? We could consider all those families with more than one person
working (often low wage) jobs with shifts seven days a week so that they do not have a
common day off in which to have family time. We could think about people in
serving professions: nurses, police officers and the like who are needed seven
days a week and consider how to honor and care for them. We could consider other consequences of
an economy which never takes a day off.
What if Christian concern
was not focused upon our own precious worship time but rather on the needs of
the poor, the outcast, and those with little power? What if we showed concern for families other than our own? What if we stopped behaving as though
the greatest injustice in the world is low attendance at worship?
Sorry if I sound angry and cynical again. Sometimes it is frustrating to be teleological in a world where Divine Command Deontology gets all the
press.
Gotta use these big words while I remember them. Tomorrow I will be thinking, “what was
that again? I know it started with
a 't'….”
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