SERMON:The dignity of the upright person in modern society

Today our modern society is embracing more and more an upright person rather than the person seen as a tricky double dealer or a hypocrite. Most of us would like to deal or work with someone who manifests a certain degree of straight forwardness in his or her life. And of course we would all like to be regarded as such a model. Such a person is not only easy to work with or to live with but his or her ways are also predictable. Because of their straight forwardness in thought and word; we can know what they mean when they speak to us and we can predict what they are going to be doing when we separate. Upright or straight forward people are characterised by an observable wholeness of personality because of the internal harmony they keep between their thoughts, words and actions. On the other hand, hypocrites or any other type of the so-called double dealers normally lack that kind of internal harmony and they do suffer an interior conflict in thoughts, words and actions. And when we find ourselves in such a situation of internal destructive split, we become a problem to those who wish to interact with us. When we cannot trust ourselves, we do not expect others to trust us because deep down we know that we are playing games. In addition, when in such a false situation, our minds become less balanced when it comes to learning from others, to cope up in hard situations and as a result, we can not achieve our goals very easily. Although uprightness is not a topic you find at the fore front of our daily discussions, it is amazing to note how topical it is in our modern society, especially when people are choosing where to put their trust. This alone shows us that it remains an essential virtue, and one, in fact, that genuinely epitomizes the good man in our society today. Before putting our trust in someone, we would like to find out first of all if he or she is an upright person who keeps his or her words and promises. Then other details would follow after. In the Christian world, we find so many allusions to the virtue of uprightness especially in the Old Testament: “For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold His face,” says Psalm 11:7. According to the Old Testament, uprightness is a rich and complex notion. It refers to integrity, justice, honesty, fidelity, mercy, and sincerity. It is a virtue which requires harmony between moral principles and personal wholeness. It transcends the human sphere since genuine uprightness is regarded as a manifestation of God’s will; and the person who is upright presents God to the world. As a consequence, God honours the upright man who honours Him: “Truly God is good to the upright” (Ps 73:1). Such a person was believed to be protected by God more than the rest: “the upright enjoys his favours” (Prv 14:9); “the tent of the upright will flourish” (Prv 14:11). In the New Testament, we have so many events where Jesus showed his listeners that he did not tolerate hypocrisy, pretence or lack of straight forwardness. There is a Biblical episode in John 6:24-35, where people wanted to play tricks with Jesus, mainly because they did not know who he is! This took place shortly after Jesus moved by compassion had multiplied the little bread and fish available there and freely fed a huge crowd. In a way very typical to human beings, some of those who had a share of that free meal wanted to manipulate the situation so that Jesus would end up repeating that exercise very often. So they worked out a selfish plan, and followed Jesus to Capernaum with the intention of flattering him into accepting to be enthroned as their king. What they really wanted was not a king but a strong protection as well as a long lasting food security. Like people in such a situation would do; they approached Jesus and told him: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Of course, this philosophy of the stomach would work elsewhere but not with Jesus. He ignored their malicious question and in a way typical of him, Jesus replied: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” When it comes to uprightness and straight forwardness in our modern society, Jesus teaches us a great lesson with his words above. When our ways are not upright and straight forward, we miss many occasions of learning, because we are then too blinded by our games to see reality as it is. And being in such false situations, we do not have the kind of self esteem which normally enables us to reach our goals as well as helping other people to reach theirs as well. Uprightness is a prerequisite for true success in our society. Ends