The London Telegraph reports (July 10, 2013) that most children in Great Britain will be born out of wedlock within three years because of the decline in marriage. According to the 2011 census the number of marriages has fallen to 45 per cent - the first time since the census was started in 1801 that married couples have been in the minority. More people are single, reflecting the growing numbers who have chosen not to marry, while more unmarried people live with their partners or are in civil partnerships. There is concern about children growing up in unstable households.

A bride, who teaches in an elementary school in Brunswick, Georgia, told me that only one child in her class had a father and a mother living together. They did not understand why she would be getting married since their mothers were either single, or had boyfriends who came and went. My grandson asked us how long we had been together and was amazed at our longevity since, he told us, that the maximum for most people to remain married was fifteen years. We have seen the number of weddings at the Chapel decline.

The recent debate over same-sex marriage has changed the historic understanding of marriage from a sacrament of the church for the purposes of safeguarding the sanctity of sexual intimacy and the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord to a civil right of love between two consenting adults.

What is good and right and true? Who determines what is good and right and true? Is it the courts? No. They determine what is legal, what is just, what is preferred by individuals and society at the moment. They are not always right. They usually speak for the majority of public opinion. But the majority may be wrong. Laws change. Courts reverse themselves. What may seem right to a majority on the courts may be reversed on appeal, or by a later court. True justice for all may be an ideal not a reality. Yet moral relativity: what is good for me, to enhance my pleasure or the happiness of the greatest number (Utilitarianism) cannot work if it does harm to others. When do our free actions interfere with the freedom of others and harm society? Where lies the ultimate criteria to judge what is the good, the right and the true? St. Paul addresses this question of what is good and right and true in Ephesians 5:8-14. He contrasts the condition of the early Christians, who lived in a society of great immorality, where there was much impurity and greed, with what they had become in Christ. "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is the light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: 'Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" You are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. The light shows us what is good and right and true. Find out what pleases the Lord, that is what is good and right and true. Just as the sun is the source of light on which all physical life depends, so God is the source of moral light, the ultimate criteria of all moral law. This moral light exposes the deeds of immoral darkness. It shines a searchlight upon them so that everything is made visible, nothing remains hidden. Wake up, open your eyes, see the good, the right and the true, as distinguished from the bad, the wrong and the false. Christ will shine his light upon you so that you can see and live in the light.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness." (John 8:12) "God is light, in him is no darkness at all...if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:5,7) Christ shines his light upon our lives, our world, our actions. He makes everything visible so that we see, in his light, what is good and right and true. He came to wake us up out of sleep, the sleep of complacency and indifference, the sleep of moral relativity. We are summoned to let Jesus shine his light upon our world. What do we see?

Jesus said to his disciples, "Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light." (John 12:35,36) Where do we find this light today? "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." (Psalm 119:105)

We are to find out what pleases the Lord who is light. We are to let the light of Scripture shine on our world to make everything visible. We are to wake up and see what is good and right and true and what is bad, and wrong and false. The light of Christ, as seen in the Scriptures will show us the good, the right and the true. Can we honestly affirm a behavior that it is good and right and true in the light of Christ and the teaching of the Scriptures he came to fulfill?

Jesus came not to abolish the moral law of the Scriptures, but to fulfill them. He said, "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:19) He expounded the second table of the Ten Commandments and applied them to the motivations of our hearts in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7). They still are relevant and binding on us today: our duty to our neighbors to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us; to love, honor and help our parents and relatives; to show respect for all life and protect the weak; to work and pray for peace; to honor marriage; to be honest and fair in our business dealings; to be good stewards of our possessions; to speak the truth, and not mislead others by our silence; to resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; and to rejoice in the gifts of others.

This fruit of the light is the basis for a prosperous and just civil society. It is the reason why Western civilization has flourished. It provides the moral foundations of the rule of law which we enjoy. We inherited it from the light of the Scriptures, as fulfilled in the teaching of Jesus. We are called to reflect this light in our day - to be as the moon is to the sun, to bring light into the darkness of immorality, impurity and greed.

Christians can fall asleep to avoid having to face up to the difficulties of having to make a witness in the community. Preachers can fall asleep because they are not willing to confront the erosion of moral values in their congregations. Many churches, like that of Sardis, "have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up. Strengthen what remains and is about to die...but if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief." (Rev.3:2,3)

St. Paul urges us to live as children of the light. Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and praise your Father in heaven." (Matt.5:14-16)

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