“Whatever happened to fair dealing and pure ethics and nice manners? Why is it everyone now is a snake in the grass?  What ever happened to class?” Those are the lyrics from a song in the musical, “Chicago.”

But, oh my, don’t they describe life these days? Whether it’s politics, the media, the internet, or just the way people treat each other every day.  We’ve all seemed to have forgotten what it means to have class.

Jesus stated it best in Matthew 7:12—“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”   

This should be our guideline in big and small ways. Politicians, including the leadership in the White House, think nothing of calling other people names, telling stories and lies, and generally behaving like a bunch of unruly children.  The media races for the bottom in its search for the most salacious gossip. The internet is full of false stories and phony websites, so no one knows what is true. And social media is just plain crude.

“What ever happened to class?” I’ve heard people say they believe in “plain speaking”, when what they mean is they will share whatever pops in their head, with no thought of how it affects others. We grab parking places, squeeze ahead of each other in line, and spray the air with profanity whenever we choose. “What ever happened to class?”

Our society bombards us every day with the message that we should care only about ourselves. “You owe it to yourself”, we hear in ads about vacations. “You deserve the very best”, we hear from people selling products.   Jesus’ teachings run exactly counter to that idea. The mark of a Christian is the love we show for one another, not the expectation of what we get or what we deserve. “You shall love the Lord, with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Two simple sentences. Two difficult tasks.

To love your neighbor is a necessary addition to the first commandment, because if you despise people -- God’s creations - - you then despise God, the Creator. Too often, we change that word “neighbor” -- it becomes words like “foreigner”, “enemy”, “outsider’. And once someone is on the outside, they become easier to forget. The most natural thing about human beings is their instinct to love those who are extensions of themselves -- their families, their friends, their nation -- and to ignore, or even despise the rest of the world. The love you and I are called to move toward is a difficult kind of love. We must move through wilderness times, on broken legs, and through times when we only catch glimpses or hear whispers from beyond the wilderness.

It won’t be easy. It is not easy to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, when much of the time we have all but forgotten that God exists. The final secret, I think, is this; that the words, “You shall love the Lord your God”, become in the end -- not an order-- but a promise. The promise that, on the weary feet of faith, and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love God at last, as from the first God has loved us.

And when we come to Love God, then we will come at last to truly love each other. Then maybe, we can again have “Class”.