situational ethics

Situational ethics is pretty much the norm these days - too often we decide how to act based on immediate factors rather than bedrock principles. Obeying traffic laws, telling the truth, working on Sunday, are all examples of things we might decide based on convenience or benefit rather than what we really believe (or claim to).

Does it really matter? We might tell little white lies, but we’d be completely honest with anything important, right? We might speed but we’d never drive drunk or text while driving. And catching up on my work email on Sunday doesn’t mean I’d go to the office.

This morning, as I read from Luke 16, Jesus seems to be saying that these small sins indicate something more serious. In telling the parable of the manager who gets fired, he said this, in verse 10: “‘“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.’”

I can remember when a person had to have a functional family (defined in those days as a solid marriage and no known trouble in the household) in order to serve as elder. The idea was that someone who couldn’t minister to and nurture his or her own family wouldn’t be able to provide pastoral care to a whole church. That seems old-fashioned now, an unreasonable expectation, but it reflected the same truth as verse 10 above: we don’t suddenly become better, more effective people when the pressure is greater.

This is a parable primarily about money, but it still uses money as a metaphor for the things we desire in life. If we’re serious about the truth, we honor the truth always. If we’re serious about obedience to civil authority we follow laws regardless how convenient. If we really care about honesty, we don’t steal.

We act in times of crisis the way we act other times. Character is built from thousands of small, right choices made every day; it’s demonstrated in the big things of life.  But we won’t suddenly be Godly people one day if situational ethics are our normal practice.