SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 2008

THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

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Dear Friends in Our Lord Jesus:

Here is a question that ought to disturb every one of us: Why is it so hard for young people to be honest?

Consider these shocking statistics:

* Rutgers University a few years ago surveyed 6,000 college

students attending elite universities and discovered that 67

percent admitted to cheating on a regular basis. Business

majors were the worst (87 percent cheated) while majors in

the humanities were the "best" ("only" 63 percent cheated).

* A TIME magazine study several years ago revealed that

75 percent of teenagers admitted they cheat regularly at

school.

These reports should startle us. All of us -- from pastors to politicians, parents to police officers, professional leaders to professional athletes -- should be outraged by these findings.

We SHOULD be outraged. But we're not. On the contrary, so many of us have grown so comfortable with our own fanciful flights of dishonesty that we have become desensitized to the growing dishonesty among our children and grandchildren. We have become so accustomed to "fudging" on tax forms, using "creative accounting" in business reports, and telling "little white lies" in interpersonal relationships that we have blinded ourselves to one of the major causes of the continuing decay in our nation's faith and morals. We are forgetting how to tell the truth.

St. Paul reminds us (Ephesians 4:25-32) that our lies, our dishonest dealings, and our misdirected anger do not accomplish the works of the Lord in our lives. In fact, they do just the opposite. They "give the devil a chance" to break us down. Those who have given themselves to God are called to be representatives of TRUTH, not falsehood. And we must rely on God to sustain us in everything we do.

-- The Very Rev. Dr. Steve Sellers +