The Joy of the Moral Dilemma
Willie Sordillo
July 21, 2013
I was sitting at my desk several years ago when the phone rang. It was my friend, Manny, the drummer in a band we’d been playing in for 5 or 6 years. “Did you see the Globe this morning?” he asked. “No, why?” And Manny told me that a story in the paper detailed the fall of the leader of our band, a high school teacher by day, who had been turned in by a student with whom he had had an affair. Though this man had plenty of faults, neither Manny or I saw this coming.
As you might imagine, many, if not most, of this man’s friends sought to distance themselves as far and as quickly as possible, so as not to be seen to support his unethical behavior. Another member of the band, a good man with strong Christian values and the father of a high school-aged young woman said, “I’ll tell you what I’d do to him if it was my daughter he was messing with….”
But this was complicated for me. I met this man at a time of relative inactivity for me as a musician, a couple of years after the break-up of a Latin band I’d been in for 10 years which had been my full-time job. During the two years which followed, I’d been a mostly stay at home dad, and I was anxious not only to play more music, but to make the transition from a Latin musician to a jazz player, which required starting over in many ways. After meeting at a rehearsal we’d been independently hired for and playing one song together, this man turned to me and said, “I need you for a jazz gig on Tuesday.” That vote of confidence, in addition to the instant musical connection between us, meant a lot. To top it off, when I got to the gig, I found that I was the only white musician in a band of otherwise African Americans, which represented the opening of a door which has made my life infinitely richer in the years that have followed. Plus, he had gigs! Lots of them! He gave me plenty of space to play in his band, and I learned a lot from the experience. There was strong mutual respect and friendship between us.
Now I found that I had a moral dilemma to deal with: Do I follow my natural inclinations and the lead of so many others and keep a distance from this guy, or do I try to find a way to stay in relationship without sacrificing my standards of right and wrong, risking the taint of association?
Both of our scripture readings today address right and wrong behavior. In the Hebrew Scripture, we’re presented with what, at first reading, looks like a pretty straightforward guide for living in accordance with God’s will. All we have to do is follow this recipe and we may “abide in the tent of the Lord.” It seems simple enough until you really think about it: Who among us hasn’t at some point taken reproach at our neighbor- especially if we interpret “neighbor” in the broad sense of all of our fellow travelers on earth? Who has always spoken nothing but the truth from their heart; and aren’t their times when an untruth is kinder or less damaging than the truth? And should we really despise the wicked? Doesn’t that contradict what we’re taught elsewhere in the Bible? As I read this passage carefully, I come to the conclusion that rather than a straightforward guide for right living, this is more of a riddle which points to the extreme difficulty- if not impossibility- of living a life worthy of God. And the distinction between right and wrong is often not at all clear cut.
In the passage from Luke, Jesus, as is his way, turns things upside-down once again, confounding our usual view of right and wrong; I mean, really, don’t we identify with Martha, who’s doing all the work to make Jesus feel welcome and is then scolded for not being more like Mary, who lays around at Jesus’ feet lapping up pearls of wisdom? Is this the example of justice we’re called to?
To be fair, if we place this passage in its historical context and in relation to the preceding Bible passages, there’s more going on than meets the eye. Nevertheless, it remains that both of today’s readings lead us to conclude that there are no shortcuts to determining right behavior in all circumstances. How, then, when faced with a sticky moral decision, do we know how to act? Where do we begin a faithful process of discernment?
We can start by turning to God in prayer and listening to what God has to say to us. We do our best to discern God’s will, and trust that we’ll know it when it feels right. This seems like an honorable, time-tested and wise way to go, and I recommend it!
But, it doesn’t always work. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, I’m sure, are convinced that they are acting on what God has told them to do. I’m just as sure that their actions are not based on anything the God I believe in would ever lead them to.
Another guideline might be, “As long as I’m acting out of love, I’m acting rightly.” This, I think, gets closer to the truth, as it provides an answer to those, like the members of Westboro, who exhibit an incomprehensible absence of love and compassion, even as they believe they are following God’s call.
Yet, still, this is not a fool-proof measure. In fact, when I confronted my band-leader friend about his behavior, his initial response was, “But we were in love.” He failed to see the bigger picture, the inequality in the relationship, the abusive aspect of it, and instead justified his behavior in the name of love, which I’m sure felt real to him.
And as every parent in this congregation knows, and everyone who will become a parent at some point will learn, we love our children more than we love ourselves and want their lives to be better than our own, and in that context, we make hard decisions every day; and we get it wrong a pretty good percentage of the time. Some of these wrong decisions are inevitable no matter how faithfully made; but it’s important to remember that though we may tell ourselves we’re acting in the best interests of our child, we are not immune to making decisions based on our own considerable self-interests. Sometimes we may say yes when we should say no because it feels better to say yes, or it’s easier than holding the line, or just because we want our kid to be happy, and making them happy feels like love. We find a way to talk ourselves into the easier decision, justifying it as an act of love. But sometimes love demands that we take the harder road.
Does all this mean it’s impossible to make right decisions, to earn a place in “the tent of the Lord?” Are we doomed to a life of failure and sin?
Well, yes and no. I think it does mean that it’s impossible to be perfect, to live a life without mistakes, or even a life without sin. But I don’t believe we’re called to be perfect as much as to strive to be as close to perfect as possible given our mortal state, and in the process rise to the level of “good.”
And I think we can also make a very sharp distinction between “committing a sin” and making a “wrong choice” in good faith. There are many definitions of sin, but the one I feel most comfortable with is that sin is a turning away from God. Or as Gregory of Nyssa put it, “a refusal to grow.” In other words, sin means having a pretty clear idea of what’s wrong and what’s right in a particular circumstance, and choosing the wrong way anyway. And this distinction means that when we’re simply wrong, but have been faithful in our discernment, we need to forgive ourselves make amends if necessary, and move on; and when we sin, we need to recognize it, atone, and work harder to avoid repeating it.
So what can we do when faced with a moral dilemma? We start by accepting that faith is not about certainty- in fact, uncertainty is the twin sister of faith. For me, faithful discernment is a lot like jazz improvisation: You put something out there, a note, a phrase, a cry, a plea…..you listen for the response; you take all of the information you have before you; you sift it through all of your prior experience and knowledge; you apply your judgment and your keen desire to find the one, right, beautiful note, the one that calls to you at that exact moment in time, and you make a leap of faith, knowing that there’s risk involved. You know that sometimes you’re going to play a wrong note or too many notes; or you’re going to fail to react in time or play a note that clashes with someone else’s note. Or maybe just play a note that isn’t technically wrong, but doesn’t really take you anywhere, and leaves you wanting.
But in taking that risk, you also live into the possibility of transcendence, of profound, inspirational beauty beyond words, of finding the note or the phrase you didn’t know you were capable of playing; of reaching higher ground. And when that happens, you experience indescribable joy! You remember why it is you got into this crazy game to begin with, and you see the 10 times before this when you got it wrong and wanted to quit as the necessary practice for this one, big payoff.
When we’re faced with a difficult choice, sometimes we’re going to get it right, and sometimes we will fail, even when being as faithful to God and as honest with ourselves as we can be. As in jazz improvisation, we hope that over time, we’ll learn to get it right more often than not. Sometimes we’ll give in to temptation or do the easy thing or the thing we think we want more than the right thing while ignoring the consequences- we’ll go for the high, squealy note that
we know will get an audience reaction instead of playing the more conservative, but musically sound choice. In some cases, and this is often true of parenting, we may not know for a very long time, perhaps many years, if we’ve gotten it right.
But once in a while…once in a while, through the risk we’ve taken, through faithful discernment and our insistence on making the right choice instead of the easy choice, we may unexpectedly reach that note we didn’t know we had in us; that note that brings us to a place of ecstasy. And we are humbled by its shimmering beauty, our resentment at being so challenged transformed to pure gratitude.
And when we get it wrong, we hope our audience and our bandmates will be forgiving; we hope for grace. With God, there is always grace. There’s a second chance to find that right note, and a third, and a fourth and fifth and sixth… Grace. Amazing grace. Amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me.
Amen