The Moral Code of Scrooge [Advent 2A - Matthew 3:1-12]
The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Matthew 3:1-12
The Moral Code of Scrooge
Grace, Waterford
‘Tis the season…of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas
Carol. At this point in history, it
is, I believe, scientifically impossible to avoid the basic framework of the beloved
1843 novella during the month of December.
The story of Scrooge and his ghosts has been endlessly re-told and adapted. In addition to the printed page, Old Scrooge
has been on the screen since 1901, in what I can only imagine, was a highly
ambitious, significantly condensed, six-minute retelling of the story. Since then, there have been dozens of additional
adaptations – all longer than six minutes.
You can watch versions featuring Bill Murray, George C. Scott, Mr.
Magoo, Mickey Mouse (my own nostalgic favorite), Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones,
Dr. Who, the animated Ghostbusters, Barbie, Dolly Parton, Mr. Belvedere, and,
of course, the Muppets – to name just a few.
My family has even attended an impressive live stage show starring a
cast of hand-carved wooden puppets.
The story is enduring because the basic message is
timeless. Greed is bad; generosity is
good. By the end of the story – on the
page or on the screen – it is clear that Mr. Scrooge is a better person than he
was at the beginning. Bad guy to good
guy. And, as the audience, we are convinced that we ought to follow in Ebenezer’s
footsteps; we should strive to be better, to be good and giving. His ghosts allow us to avoid our own spooky
visitors.
If that alone is the lesson of the story, that is a good
lesson. But recently, I stumbled across
an additional interpretation that I found quite interesting. It was suggested that a deeper critique in
Dickens’ story is not that Ebenezer Scrooge is a bad person – not even at the
beginning. Instead, he is a miserable person
with an exacting and merciless moral code, one that is rooted in fear, one that
has strangled his willingness to be generous or show empathy.
There is some pretty convincing evidence of this, of the
suggestion that Scrooge was not simply greedy, but lived by a devastatingly strict
moral code. Now, having a moral code is
not a problem, of course. The issue in
the story is that Scrooge then sought to impose his harsh morality on others –
without condition, consideration, or empathy.
He did not see himself as a bad person, but as a disciplined
person. He was a disciplined person in a
world of people he considered carelessly undisciplined. And because his discipline served him well –
it did protect him from his fear of being broke – he reasoned, it should be
universally adopted. His evidence was,
that unlike so many of the people who surrounded him, he was not hungry; he did
not live in poverty.
In a particularly greedy moment in the story, Scrooge refuses
to let his long-suffering employee, Bob Cratchit, throw another coal on the
fire. The audience is flabbergasted at
what appears to be a heartless restriction.
That is, until one remembers that Scrooge is working in that same frigid
office. He is not cozied up to a warm
fire in an executive suite while his employee suffered. The office staff burnt through the day’s
allotment of coal too early; now must they endure the rest of the workday in
misery. Scrooge is just disciplined; he
doesn’t borrow from the future. And he
is imposing that discipline on his feeble staff; he is teaching Cratchit to
live within his means. Tough love.
In another cruel moment, Scrooge demands that his staff work
on Christmas. That seems like a callous
and greedy maneuver. But again, notice
that Scrooge was not planning on taking the day off either. He was going to be at the office on Christmas
too. He only expects of others what he
imposes on himself.
This same inflexible worldview is why he will not give to
charity in the story. It is not that he
is heartless or even greedy, at least he would not consider himself heartless
or greedy, but that the rest of the world needs to learn to live like he
does. His gift to the world is the
example he sets. His rigid lifestyle has
afforded him stability. And while it
required significant sacrifice – of friends, and joy, and happiness, and warmth
– at least he is not poor. It is a
choice – one that not many, including the author, would choose. But also it is a choice that Scrooge believes
everyone should choose – because it has worked for him. At least that is what he tells himself.
And if I am being honest, what I have often told myself. I don’t know about you, but I am frequently
tempted to impose my own values, morals, ethics, and opinions on others. Because they all make perfect sense to
me. For example, I grew up with
financial instability and insecurity, and so I understand Scrooge’s fear. I too have a hard time spending money. I know what it is like to lose a house or a
car; my family went through that when I was a child. And so since I was little, I have always held
onto money. Not because I am greedy, but
because a part of me is always scared that I will not have enough. And now I do have enough, so I can tell
myself that my penny-pinching works for me – even if it sometimes annoys other
people.
My fiduciary responsibility was not the only thing shaped in
my youth, so was my moral rigidity. I
grew up in Pentecostalism. And so I grew
up with a very strict moral code of personal holiness. There was a long list of restrictions. And I took them very seriously. In many ways, looking back, I appreciate the
discipline that my church valued and instilled.
I avoided a lot of stupid youthful mistakes. But also, it can make me judgmental and
merciless. Once, when I was around
thirteen, I refused to sit at the same table at a restaurant with a visiting
uncle because he was drinking a beer with his lunch. And I had been taught that that was
wrong. And I still regret the shame and
embarrassment that must have caused my uncle.
All of this to say: I don’t think the Pharisees at the river,
in today’s Gospel, were necessarily bad people.
They just lived by a strict and exacting moral code. And it worked for them. It served them well. And because it served them well, they imposed
it on other people.
Because that made sense to them. They were strict because the Law was
important. They knew, from the book of
Deuteronomy, that bad things happen when the Law is broken. They remembered that people were sloppy right
before the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in 586 BCE. And so they were strict, and for the sake of
the nation, they imposed their trusty strict moral code on others.
On other people like Jesus.
Jesus was not as careful as they were and that made them nervous. Jesus healed on the Sabbath; that was against
the Law. Jesus touched lepers; he wasn’t
supposed to do that. Jesus ate with
sinners and forgave sins and was loose with his love. And it was all dangerous. And it made the Pharisees nervous. Because what they were doing was working –
the strict moral code was working. It
was a sacrifice and it was harsh and sometimes it hurt people, but it was
stable; it was reliable.
But it prevented them from growing. And it strangled their fruit. They were strict and disciplined but there
was no room for love or mercy or kindness or goodness or peace. Not even God could find wiggle room in their
moral code.
The Pharisees didn’t get three ghosts. They got John the Baptist. His message of repentance was their intended
to be their wake-up call. It was a call
to change. Which must have been a
shocking message to them. Because they
weren’t bad people; they weren’t doing bad things. They were following the rules. But what they lacked was a change of
heart. It was easier to love the rules
than it was to love all those messy people.
It felt safer to recite doctrinal arguments than to fall in love with
the great mystery we call God.
But Jesus made it clear that the rule that matters most of
all is love – love God, love people.
That is how we change the world into something more like the Kingdom of
God. Not by imposing our rules, morals,
and opinions on others, but by bearing beautiful fruit. People are hungry and desperately looking for
something good in this world – for the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: for
love, for peace, for kindness, for goodness, for mercy.
In this season of Advent, as our region is blanketed in long
hours of darkness, I think often of a word of wisdom spoken by Madelyn L’Engle,
“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by
telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a
light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source
of it.”[1]
Only Love will save the world. In the end, this is the lesson Ebenezer
Scrooge learned. It is a lesson I am
trying to learn, too.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1283811-we-draw-people-to-christ-not-by-loudly-discrediting-what
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