If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? – Job 35:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 14, 2012): Job 35

I am wondering if we need to re-evaluate our own concept of morality. At the very least, we need to come to a better understanding of it. Too often, our idea of morality is often just a list of rules. This is what we do; this rules our behavior. And depending on where it is that you live, the answer to the moral questions will be different. In some areas, a person who commits suicide by blowing himself up in a public space where those that are considered to be the enemy gather is considered a moral act. In most other places of the world it is an immoral act. In some parts of our world, morality is covering a woman totally from head to foot. But in other areas of the world it is more likely to be seen as a choice, and a choice that is not based on some idea of right and wrong. And as long as morality remains as a list of do’s and don’ts that we really do not have any understanding of, then what is moral will remain somewhat arbitrary.

I think there has to be two questions that need to be dealt with in regard to our view of morality. The first (at least the first that I am going to mention) is what effect does the action have on creation? If we can accept that God is the creator and that he has expended effort in the forming of his creation, then part of morality has to deal with the effect an action has on creation. That means that the ecological questions that we battle with in our society are really moral questions because they deal with the effect of man on creation. And if human-kind is the pinnacle of God’s creation (and I know ecologists that would question that idea), then anything done for or against human-kind would be the height of morality.

But there is a second question, and maybe a more important one. It is the question that Elihu is asking of Job and his friends. Elihu’s question is this - how does your action impact God? And Elihu believes that sin (or immoral action) must have an effect on God. And I think he is right. In fact, sins effect on God was the reason for the third commandment that God would later give to Moses – “you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God” - or maybe more commonly “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” We have mistakenly thought that this commandment has something to do with swearing. But the literal meaning of the verse is that we will not do anything that will cause dirt to stain the name of God. To do that would be immoral.

There are a lot of things that we don’t think are serious that cause dirt to fall on the name of God. Every time we gossip, or talk badly about the church; every time we don’t trust God for something, or when we refuse to see the good in another person, then we go against the morality of God. And Elihu was like a lot of us. While he asked a good question, I am not sure he was able to really think about the answer – or apply the answer to his life.

     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 36