Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, September 20, 2026
It is corruption that is on my mind this morning. Corruption. We seem to be living in a world that is soaked in corruption: that’s how it seems to me.
And I can’t talk about this without straying a bit into politics. But ultimately, my message isn’t about politics. It’s about the human capacity for selfishness and sinfulness.
It seems like every day we read about big league corruption in the news. Federal contracts are given on a no-bid basis, and they are given to donors of the ruling party. Members of Congress grow wealthy on stock trades for which they have inside information. The children of high officials take advantage of their connections to make millions — or billions — of dollars. A foreign prince donates an expensive airplane for the president’s personal use. Criminals are pardoned and we learn they, too, are donors to the ruling party. This is big league corruption, on scales of money or participants that we may never have experienced before.
When we speak of “corruption” today we generally mean a kind of theft that is accomplished by collusion and paperwork rather than by brute force. It is theft accomplished by taking advantage of special access – taking advantage of others, not treating them equally. It is accomplished by kickbacks and bribes, by no-bid contracts, by sweetheart deals made in darkness, by insider information, by shell corporations and by bitcoin. It is generally what we call “white collar crime” to distinguish it from housebreaking or purse snatching.
It is mega-corruption we are seeing today But that mega-corruption doesn’t have anything to do with us, does it? We’re not engaged in it, we ordinary people, and we’re not benefitting from it. We p[ay our bills; we pay our taxes. I am talking about wrongdoing that is not what ordinary people do because ordinary people don’t deal much in shell corporations or insider trading or bitcoin. I am talking about the corruption of those in situations of power and wealth. We’re on the sidelines. Or are we?
How is it, I wonder, that we come to live in a time when there is so much of this big league corruption? Why do we see so many headlines that suggest this kind of corruption? Why now? What conditions have allowed this big league corruption to flower? What soil has it grown in? I wonder about this.
And so I find myself wondering if it is something about our ordinary, everyday assumptions and values. Perhaps we as ordinary people have come to be too accepting of smaller, ordinary, everyday versions of these kinds of corrupt practices: looking the other way, helping ourselves from common stores, taking gifts for favors in return, engaging in the quid pro quo, finding and not returning something that does not belong to us. Have we brought this on ourselves?
What do we expect of one another, I find myself wondering? What do we expect of ourselves? Do we expect selfish behavior or generous behavior? Do we expect one another to be our “brother’s keepers?” Do we hold ourselves to the standard of “the good Samaritan?”
Speaking just for myself, I know that it is all too easy for me to slip into favoring myself, thinking first of myself, and suspecting others of always favoring themselves, thinking first of themselves. Isn’t this the broad door to corruption, a world where everybody is just out for themself? Something’s missing? Someone else took it, I find myself thinking! Only later do I find where I myself misplaced it.
How do we stop this easy drift into selfishness and corruption?
There are passages in the Bible that speak forcefully, even eloquently, about corruption. For example In the Second Epistle of Peter, the second chapter:
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, … 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. … 19 [These false prophets] promise [the people] freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. (2 Peter 2)
The Bible — especially the Hebrew Testament — is an assemblage of stories of the people falling away from God, and then being called back to faithfulness. What does this falling away look like? Is it corruption? That’s not the word we find; “corruption” is not a common word in the Bible. When it talks about wrongdoing, the Bible, is either maddenly specific (like Leviticus) or maddenly vague and general. The Bible speaks much more often of “wickedness” and of “wrongdoing.” Corruption is a word not much used.
We do find this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
My father, a chemist during the week but also an amateur theologian on Sundays, used to note that we are commanded not be selfless but rather to love equally both our ourselves and our neighbor. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Not more, not less. We are expected to love ourselves, but we are expected to love others just as much.
That commandments is something that does not change in the Bible. It first appears in Leviticus 19:18:
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
That advice is repeated by Jesus in two of the Gospels, Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31. Both say roughly the same thing. Jesus is asked, as a kind of trap, which is the most important Commandment, referring we suppose to the Ten Commandments. And Jesus’s response doesn’t really refer to the Ten Commandments at all:
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Fast forward to today. Today we seem to live in a confusing world. Sometimes we hear encouragement to be helpful and generous to one another. But more often we are instructed, even encouraged or cajoled, to ‘look out for number one.’ Satisfy yourself. Do what gives you pleasure. Let others take care of themselves.
Take precautions against those around you, we are urged, because you should expect those others to take whatever they can. Beware the immigrant, beware the stranger, beware even your neighbor or your brother. Is this not our daily bread? Is this not the guidance of advertisements and influencers, of self-help books and celebrities?
And if you expect selfish behavior from others, why should you not indulge in selfish behavior yourself? Isn’t it what is expected?
Is this not the root of the corruption I started by speaking about? ‘Get away with whatever you can’ seems to be the watchword of the day — not just for the rich and the rulers, but (to be honest) for all of us. Who is going to stop us? The police? If your taking is noticed, then do what you can to escape any consequence – lies or lawyers, or silence. And isn’t that what we expect anyone and everyone to do?
Have we become too comfortable, too familiar with selfishness? Have we not come to accept, even expect, selfish behavior from everyone around us, and even from ourselves? Have we not? How can we insist on honest and generous behavior in others if we will not insist on it for ourselves? Thinking of ourselves first and foremost may be the common way, but we are called to something better.
Who will do this calling? How and where will be learn to “love our neighbors as ourselves”?
To some extent, we all learn by example. Dolly Parton’s various obituaries were full of her generosity, her support for literacy efforts and for the part of Tennessee where she grew up. Her younger sister, Stella Parton, said, “My sister was always thinking of others and if you want to honor her legacy, show more kindness, lift others up and give more of your time and resources as she continued to do to the very end.” Do we have enough such examples or are they too rare? Dolly was noticed because her behavior had become so rare.
I want to close with a teaching by the Jewish sage Hillel the Elder – from a very long time ago. Perhaps you know it. ”If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” [From Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), 1:14]
Who will teach us this today? Who will teach us to turn away from a culture of everyday, everywhere selfishness? Who can we hear teaching us “to love our neighbors as ourselves?”