Several naval ships at sea on maneuvers encountered foggy weather. The visibility became so poor that the captain of the battleship remained on the bridge to keep an eye on all the activity. Shortly after sunset, the lookout reported, “Light bearing on the starboard bow, sir.”
“Is it steady or moving astern?” asked the captain. The lookout replied, “Steady, sir.” This meant the ships were on collision course. The captain then shouted to the signalman, “Signal that ship. ‘We are on collision course. Advise you change course twenty degrees.’ ”
Back came the reply, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.” The captain, by now a bit annoyed, said, “Send this message. ‘I am the captain of a battleship. Change course 20 degrees now!’” Back came the flashing light’s reply, “I’m a seaman second class and this is a lighthouse!” I wonder how the captain felt as he swiftly changed course. Probably no more embarrassed or humiliated than Peter did. As we heard in last week’s gospel, Jesus had called him a rock. Now he is being compared to a stumbling block. “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.”
In effect, Jesus is telling Peter and us to reject the world’s way of life and live instead by God’s way. We just heard Paul tell his listeners, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” That was the message Pope John Paul often preached during his long pontificate.
The Holy Father was often criticized for not changing his views on contraception, abortion, sexual morality and consumerism. However unwelcome his messages were, Pope John Paul acted as a modern day prophet, reminding us of the need to follow God’s will for our own well being and to ignore the secular values of our times. Being a prophet takes courage, but if the prophets in our midst don’t speak up, our world will no longer be a safe place.
Do we even consider the question of God’s will whenever we personally make a moral decision or value judgment? If not, by whose standards then do we make our daily choices?
We should give ourselves time and space to become better aware of God’s standards and will. I for one would never claim to be more aware of God’s will then the man whom our Church regards as the vicar of Christ yet many people do, choosing to ignore his prophetic messages. Acting like a lighthouse for us, the pope cannot change the course of God’s ways, while you and I can change ours. The choices we make can us move closer to or away from God. Following God’s will has always been a challenge, perhaps even more so today than ever before. Looking around, we can see ample evidence of a vanishing sense of morality.
The notion that living together before marriage is not wrong is a common attitude shared by engaged couples. The view that adultery, listed in scripture as one of the gravest of sins, is wrong has also faded away. The same could be said for abortion. The desire, unfortunately, for personal pleasure has surpassed commitment in the minds of many.
A nationally known ethicist, asked to teach a graduate course at a prestigious business school, was stunned to discover that he could not present ethical situations to the students because they possessed no moral basis to judge the cases. Their single standard for evaluating was, “Is it profitable?” What is the point of making a profit in this life, Jesus asked, if in the end we lose it all?
Another example that comes to mind was the recent efforts of a prominent senator, who happens to be a doctor, to secure federal funding for stem cell research. Although he recognizes the embryo as a human being, he argued with his colleagues that if parents do not want these unborn fetuses, they should then be used for medical research. On the surface, his idea sounds good, but would you seek treatment for a disease that includes the sacrifice of fellow human beings? Given such a choice, I hope you would say, “Get behind me, Satan, you are trying to make me trip!” More than once, Pope John Paul lamented the loss of objective truth and its universally valid principles of morality. At World Youth Day in 1993, he said, “To educate without a value system based on truth is to abandon young people to moral confusion, personal insecurity and easy manipulation. A serious moral crisis is already affecting the lives of many young people, leaving them adrift, often without hope and conditioned to look only for instant gratification.”
Twelve years later, can we say the situation has improved any? Unfortunately, much of our society still has little sense of morality or ethics. As Catholics, we are challenged by this gospel to understand the meaning of God’s morality, one that, like a lighthouse, has never changed and never will.
By virtue of our baptismal promises, we are called upon to live by God’s standards not human standards. For the bottom line is this: when we reject God’s standards for living morally, we are allowing Satan to dupe us into rejecting God.