"Love: The Source of a ClearConscience"
August 31, 1997
Song of Solomon 2:8-13; James 1:17-27
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"Let your conscience be your guide."
I was amused by Jeff MacNelly's cartoon "Shoe" theother day. Shoe, the editor bird, was asking columnist `ThePerfesser' where he had come up with his expense account. `ThePerfesser' answered, "I let my conscience be my guide."Shoe's response, "I see your conscience took the scenicroute."
Conscience: what is it? Is it the stuff of cartoons, with tinyversions of ourselves popping up as angels or devils on ourshoulders fighting over right and wrong? Is it a little voiceinside us that tells us what to do? Is it the "gutfeeling" that something is just or not (to which I'm alwaystempted to respond that it's possible someone is making adecision based on indigestion)? Could it be what one small boyanswered, "Something that makes you tell your mother beforeyour sister does"?
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that conscience derivesfrom the Latin "with knowledge." Thus, conscience isknowledge within one's self, inward knowledge or consciousness,internal conviction, moral sense. Philosophers and theologianshave argued where the conscience is seated, whether it is theresult of natural law or the divine image. Dietrich Bonhoeffergrappled with this in his Ethics. Bonhoeffer's point is thatconscience comes as the result of disunion, both with God andwith self. The voice that is there is always looking forwholeness, looking for what is right and good, which can only befound in relationship with God. Right disposition, rightrelationship leads to right actions; that's the bottom line.
Conscience, then, doesn't just happen -- it must be formed anddeveloped. From early on this has been the struggle in coming tothe sense of `true religion,' that is in seeking the properbalance between internals and externals, between law and gospel.What Jesus confronts in Mark's Gospel are people with malformedconsciences. Where relationship should be, there are only rules.It's the classic case of dealing with those who are trying to dothe right thing -- for all the wrong reasons. James addressed itin his letter and you see it time-and-again in Christian history.We're always grappling with rules, with how we get the externalsto reflect the internals. "It's not what goes in. . . .butwhat comes out that defiles. . ."
Even a cursory glance at a newspaper, magazine, or televisionthese days will make one realize that many consciences arefollowing the scenic route, that the struggle continues. Not longago I was given a copy of an editorial entitled "ModernMorality" from the June eleventh "Wall StreetJournal." Here are the opening paragraphs:
In the same week than an army general with 147 Vietnam combatmissions ended his career over an adulterous affair 13 years ago,the news broke that a New Jersey girl gave birth to a baby in thebathroom at her high school prom, put it in the trash and wentout to ask the deejay to play a song by Metallica -- for herboyfriend. The baby is dead.
Welcome to morality in late 20th century America, where what'sright
and what's wrong is anyone's guess on any given day.
What we hear in this editorial is what we hear from RichardBennett and countless theorists and writers addressing theunraveling of the moral fabric of society: a lack of virtue, apaucity of conscience. Yet, there is still the yearning, which Ihope goes beyond the simple titillation of the media, for what isright and good. For a stand like that taken by the author LillianHellman, who said, "I cannot and will not cut my conscienceto fit this year's fashions."
Quite simply, rules and regulations just won't do it.Augustine understood what the Lord was saying that things comefrom within, from the human heart, when he said that the sum ofChristian morality was "Love and do what you will."Years later the American Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards (whowas perhaps one of the most brilliant minds our nation hasproduced) also explicated this in his "Treatise on ReligiousAffections." His point was that love is the source of theclear, the good conscience. Love doesn't change, it is, as Jamessays, "the implanted word that has the power to save yoursouls" coming from God "with whom there is no variationor shadow of change."
The love Augustine and Edwards talked about is not self-love.Edwards made the distinction between loving someone for who theyare rather than what they can do for us as the standard ofself-love. Nor is it the sense of self-preservation or "fireinsurance" which so often accompanies"religiosity." I find the foregoing well illustrated inthe story of the desert-dwelling monk hurrying along with twoprecious buckets of water. "Where are you going Abba?"one of the brothers calls after him. "I'm going to go putout the fires of hell to see who really loves God for himselfalone," he replies.
The implanted word has to grow within us . . . we must fall inlove with God for himself, not because we're afraid of where wemight go, so that the desire we hear in the reading from the Songof Solomon is our desire. That reading is only allegorical to apoint, to the Israelite mind there was no difference between lovepoetry and the love relationship with God. We find the samealmost erotic language in the writings of Christian mystics and,believe it or not, Puritan spiritual writers. Why? Because theywere in love with God.
Bonhoeffer stresses that when we fall in love with God throughJesus Christ, then we're finally able to love ourselves andothers properly. All because we have come to a point of unitywhere our conscience is finally at a point to respond in realfreedom and to act accordingly. I found an article in theJournal-Sentinel's religion section on the "God squad"of the American Psychological Association most interesting.Researchers are discovering that those who are taught religiousvalues early on are less prone to depression and other mentalproblems. Good that they're finding this out -- Christians shouldhave been demonstrating it for years.
True religion, a clear conscience doesn't come from makingsure that we've kept all the rules and regulations, nor does itcome in thinking we're free to act as we please. The Christian'sfreedom is always a freedom to, not a freedom from. This tensionbetween human works and God's grace is one that has beenperennial and the great Congregational thinkers could encompassboth poles.
William Perkins found two types of people reprehensible --those "that would have nothing but mercy, mercy" andthose that "have nothing in their mouths but the law, thelaw and justice, justice." Richard Baxter similarly wrotethat "our righteousness, which the law of works requireth .. . is wholly in Christ, and not one grain ourselves . . . Butyet ourselves must personally fulfil the conditions of the newcovenant and so have a personal evangelical righteousness."
The standard of love, in Augustine, in Edwards, in Bonhoeffer,in every source I've found, is always Christ and his action ofultimate self-giving: the cross. He has shown us what love is andin our love for him we will seek to act as he has.
How do we measure up to such a standard? We don't. We don'thave to, either. As Baxter said "wholly in Christ, not onegrain ourselves." Our task is to open ourselves, to respondas God wills. That's our personal fulfillment of the newcovenant. Will we struggle in the process? Yes. Will we sometimesfail? Yes. Peter, Paul, James, all the great spiritual guides,you, me, every Christian struggles with the response -- and withfailure to meet it. What is important is just tryingover-and-over to love God and love each other; trusting God'sgrace, acting accordingly. When we fall we get up...at least ifwe're falling forward, bruised though we are, we're makingprogress!
So, "love and do what you will." Allow yourconscience, formed in the image of God's incarnate Word, to beyour guide and you will know "religion that is pure andundefiled before God, the Father." You will also know thetruth of Ben Franklin's statement: "a clear conscience is acontinual Christmas." Amen.
