Luke 6:20-31
“Do to others as you would have them
do to you.” This is the last sentence in our Gospel reading for today and
probably one of the most familiar of the Bible.
It is sometimes referred to as the Golden Rule, possibly because it is
the most important rule---or maybe because it is a rule that is consistent
across most of the world religions.
Confucianism says, “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do
to you.” According to Buddhist teaching
one must, “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Hinduism says, "Do not do to others what
would cause pain if done to you." [1] While these are all very similar to Jesus’
statement, one thing that differentiates them is that they are negative
statements. Don’t hurt other people in
ways that you would not want to be hurt.
Jesus turns it around. He makes
it positive, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Jesus was not the only person to make
the Golden Rule positive. He was a Jew and was heavily influenced by the Jewish
scriptures. When Jesus was asked about
the greatest commandment, he answered “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind….and you shall love your
neighbor as yourself.”[2]
This is essentially another version of the Golden Rule and comes directly from
Leviticus and Deuteronomy which are both books of the Hebrew Scriptures. What Jesus was saying when he said, “Do to
others as you would have them do to you.” (while wise and profound) was not
exactly ground breaking. It had been
said before.
But there was more to it than this
one statement. This was essentially a sound bite to a much larger lesson. “Love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray
for those who abuse you.” Woh….that is taking the Golden Rule a few steps
farther, maybe even too far for our comfort.
It is hard enough just to treat others the way we want to be
treated. Now Jesus is telling us that he
wants us to treat people better than they are treating us??? That seems almost
unreasonable.
There are some people who have been
able to follow Jesus’ example and treat others better than they were treated and
not all of them have been Christians. Gandhi was a devout Hindu and is well
known for his devotion to non-violence and passive resistance. He lived out these words---loving his enemies
and praying for those who abused him. He
respected and admired Jesus. He followed
many of the teachings of Jesus. When asked his views about Christianity he
reportedly responded, “Oh it would be wonderful.”[3] He was not critical of Christianity as much
as he was of Christians ability to follow the teachings of Christ. And who can blame him? Loving people who hate us…that is some hard
stuff. Imagine a world where we could do
that. Imagine a world where we were
willing to try to do that. It would be wonderful.
It is hard to imagine that right
now, especially with this election coming up.
I know that every election divides people to some extent, but this one
seems worse. Perhaps it just seems that way because of
social media. It is a lot easier for
people to air their grievances. Don’t
worry, I am not going to talk about the candidates and I am definitely not
telling you who I am voting for. I am
sure we have people in this parish on both sides of the aisle. While we cannot
all agree on who to vote for, I think we can all agree that the run up to this
election has been crazy. Many people
have told me that they cannot look at their facebook feed…or anything on the
internet for that matter because there is so much vitriol and hatred. Even people who love one another, cannot talk
about this election without getting angry. That was the rule at our recent family
vacation. No talking about politics! It
was the only way to maintain the peace.
My concern is that it won’t be any better after the election. One of these candidates has to win. At the end of it all, most of us will all
probably still stay in the country despite our threats to leave if our
candidate doesn’t win.
Whatever happens, we have to find a
way not merely to live with one another, but to love one another…love the
people who we cannot understand or agree with.
It is easy to see the divisiveness of this election and assume it is
about the political candidates. But the
reality is that this polarization in our nation and our world has been growing
for years. Whatever we may be
experiencing now is not the problem itself, it is merely a symptom of a greater
problem. I could try to articulate what
that problem is, but I am not sure I know.
However, whatever the problem may be, the answer is not talking over one
another until we grow so loud that we create a cacophony of hate and discord. There has to be a better answer than that.
There
are three different words for love in Biblical Greek, the language the Gospel
of Luke was written in. One word is for
romantic love. One is for love of
family. Then there is the word that
refers to a love that is rooted in God’s love.
That is the word from today’s reading when Jesus tells us to love our
enemies. Romantic love, family love, while those are certainly not easy loves,
they are more natural, more convenient than godly love. The kind of love that is required to love our
enemy, or those who hurt us, or those who voted differently, or those whose
opinions are vastly different than our own--- that is a love that requires our
will and our effort. Yet even our will
and our effort is not enough to produce that kind of love. That kind of love also requires the grace of
God. That is what gives us the strength to love our enemies and those who hurt
us.
It
is easy to say that we should love our enemy.
Why? Because generally, we don’t
know our enemy. In theory, sure we can
love that enemy who we will never meet.
I am tempted to say that the hardest people to love are the people who
are closest to us. But that is not even
right. I think that the hardest people
to love are the people who we know just enough about…just enough that we can
say with certainty that we don’t like them and we certainly don’t trust
them. They might be the person who is
posting super obnoxious things on facebook. It might be the co-worker who
always disagrees with you, even when you are clearly right. It might be the
person who lives next door to you who complains even when you are being super
quiet. It is the person who is not worth
the trouble of knowing, because let’s face it, you know you are not going to
like them.
That
is why we are divided. We don’t have to
know one another anymore. We can stay in
our own little silos and interact with people who we know will agree with us,
or at least have the good manners not to admit when they disagree. While that is a convenient way to live, it’s
not what God intended. That is why the church, the body of Christ is so very
important. It is one of the few places
where we do not have to have anything in common with one another, except the
love of God. That is all we have to know about one another… at least to start.
If that is where we start, then imagine how far we can go. We can go past the church. We can look at every person and say, I know
what I have in common with them. God loves them and God wants me to love them
too. In the end…that is all that
matters. God loves us. God loves them.
We should love them too. And you know what…if just the Christians in this world
could display that kind of love, that would be a wonderful thing. The world would be transformed. Let’s stop imagining and starting being that
vision of the world.
[1] These
are just pieces of these major religions.
They do not represent everything this religion said regarding how to
treat others.
[2]
Matthew 22:36-40
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=816 (I have not been able to find the source of
this quote. However, it aligns with
other things that Gandhi said about Christianity.)
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