Faith Venture

So, how many sermons or homilies have you heard on ethics where the speaker will inevitably get to, “money can’t buy happiness”? Michael Norton, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, decided to try some experiments. He started with Canadian university students and eventually took the research global.

He spoke at a TED conference (Google it, you hear some great short talks and learn a lot). Let him describe his results.

Oh, the answer is yes–but only if you spend it on others.

Here’s a link to the video.

I was listening to Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek, talk last weekend about commitment to serving the poor and disadvantaged. He suggested reading Isaiah 58 every day for a month. Among the things that God says is, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”

This message came just after I had listened to at least three talks over the past couple of weeks from people who had visited “third world” countries recently. The reports included descriptions of the results of modern corporations moving manufacturing and production operations to these countries that have corrupt governments with few regulations. Nothing prevents the companies from taking shortcuts in processes. They dump wastes into rivers resulting in water unfit to support life. People were thrown off land that had supported them perhaps for generations and who now had no food and no means of support.

As a manufacturing professional, I’m grieved that we take advantage of people so easily and flippantly. Ethics apply everywhere. In fact, ethics is also good business. Being careless with waste and environment is a sign of sloppy, wasteful thinking. Actually, long term profits and success result from doing just the opposite of managers who take the easy way out.

Most of us will not be making those decisions. The question remains, when faced with decisions or choices about whether to grab a short-term easy benefit or whether to help other people in the long run, I, for one, hope that I choose the latter.

And for reinforcement, I’ll be reading Isaiah 58 daily for the month of May. Just to write it in my mind.

I’ve been involved with athletics for many years, even though I’ve never really been a “jock.” But I’ve worked with hundreds of young people teaching them about how to referee soccer and how to grow up (I hope). But there has been a lot of coverage this year about egregious moral problems with college athletics (gasp!). I know, that’s hard to believe. But the charges of sexual abuse garnered more headlines than the games at times.

The New York Times published an article citing some lawmakers’ needs to pass more laws. That always seems to be the human response. Years ago, there was a comic strip entitled “There Oughta Be a Law.” The purpose of the law? Make people behave in an ethical manner. I think that has been tried–and found wanting.

God tried laws to train His people so that they would become the light of the world. Instead, they found the laws inconvenient, at best. It just didn’t work. Paul wrote about that in Romans. We need the Laws written in our hearts–that is, we need to make them a part of our life. We live the ethical life that God wants for us.

All it takes is for one ethical person to stand up. Will I have that courage when it counts? Hope so.