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Quinquagesima – Luke 6:27-31
In today’s lesson from his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us that
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
One very specific way of applying this understanding of the true meaning of love can be found in what Jesus tells us in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, beginning at the 27th verse:
“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.”
Jesus here sets forth what is often called the “Golden Rule” – commonly expressed also as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule is not, however, unique to the teachings of Jesus.
Siddhartha Gautama – known as “the Buddha” – said: “Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
Confucius said: “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.”
Muhammad said: “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.”
Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, said: “Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.”
And the list could go on. The reason why this general ethical principle appears in so many places, and comes from the lips of so many people, is because it is based on common sense, and on the natural law that resides in the conscience of all men.
The unique authority of Jesus, and of the Christian faith, is not based on the notion that non-Christians are incapable of common sense and ordinary human reason.
So, when Jesus says, “just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise,” we are okay with the fact that other people have said basically the same thing; and that the adherents of other religions, and the adherents of no particular religion, are able to recognize the essential soundness of this thought.
If everyone in a human society actually lived according to this principle, there would be no conflict, no violence, and no crime. Everyone’s reputation and property would be protected. Everyone’s human dignity would be honored.
Human reason is able to see this. But, the sinful human flesh, with its destructive passions and half-blind shortsightedness, is not able to implement this.
Human greed, human selfishness, and human lust often overpower human reason, and impel people to act in ways that defy and contradict common sense.
So, the Golden Rule lays out for all people the way things should be in human relationships. But the Golden Rule does not describe the way things actually are, most of the time.
It’s also important to note that the way the Golden Rule is worded – especially in the version that Jesus gave us – indicates that each of us is to be proactive, in doing the right thing for others, and in saying the right thing to others, rather than sitting back and waiting for others to do or say something first.
The shape of the rule is: Act first, and do to others as you would like others then to do to you. Do not wait until others do to you first, and then respond. So, not only are you not to respond to an injury, by injuring another, but you are to reach out to another first, to help and to heal.
Again, that’s what we’re supposed to do. But we don’t do what we’re supposed to do.
And our violations of the Golden Rule often develop into a vicious cycle of actions and reactions. Someone hurts me, and so I hurt him in response. He retaliates by hurting me again, and I then get even by hurting him yet another time.
And on it goes, as people drag each other down into an ever deeper mutual resentment, into an ever more intense mutual anger, and into an ever more obsessive mutual vengefulness.
Everyone involved is miserable. No one enjoys the feelings that are associated with this.
But it just continues anyway, pressed forward by the momentum of an unrelenting pride that does not want to concede defeat, or to accept the final humiliation. So it can seem that the cycle will never stop.
But it should be possible to stop it. It should be possible for such a destructive pattern to be halted and reversed. It should be possible for you to stop it, when you have been pulled into something like this.
When you are in this kind of competition with someone else, to see who can inflict the most and the greatest pain on the other, you could bring it to an end, and reverse it, if you would insert the Golden Rule into this vicious cycle.
Like inserting a monkey wrench into the gears of a machine that is otherwise humming along, this would stop it immediately. In the immediate context of his articulation of the Golden Rule, Jesus said:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.”
“Easier said than done,” you might say, as you even in this moment are thinking about rivals who have hurt you, and whom you have deliberately hurt in response. But Jesus says to do it. Jesus says to follow and to apply the Golden Rule in these ways, even when you must swallow your pride to do so.
I’ve noted that the basic contours of the Golden Rule are not unique to the teachings of Jesus, or to the principles of Christian ethics. Other religions and other worldviews also recognize the soundness of the Golden Rule, based as it is on common sense.
But Jesus, and the Christian faith, are unique, in making it possible for someone from the heart to be able and willing to act, think, and speak according to the Golden Rule – even and especially when it’s hard to do so.
The sinful flesh always undermines and hinders the living out of the Golden Rule, even in those who rationally recognize the soundness of this rule. And that includes Christians, whose faithfulness to the Golden Rule is always imperfect and incomplete, since their sinful flesh still clings to them, too.
But deep down on the inside, Christians have something more than the sinful flesh, and the old nature, which all human beings have inherited by natural generation, and with which all people have come into the world.
St. Paul writes to Titus of the salvation and the new spiritual beginning that the Triune God has provided for us, and has delivered to us, in the means of grace. He says that
“When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
St. Peter writes these words of encouragement to Christians, in his First Epistle:
“You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers…with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He…was made manifest…for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God…”
St. Paul furthermore writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…”
Paul and Peter both link the new nature that is now in us because of Christ, with the redeeming and reconciling work of Christ: who in his life and death followed the Golden Rule perfectly, for us and for our benefit.
Jesus did not wait for sinful humanity to reach up to him and offer to serve him, but he reached down to us first. Of course, his service for us is very different from the service that we might have rendered to him. But he, proactively, by grace, served us according to our needs: as rebellious sinners in need of a reconciliation with God, and as spiritually dead sinners in need of a new life with God.
Jesus himself explains that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And St. Paul explains in his Epistle to the Romans that
“God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
So, when Jesus said, “love your enemies” – as a very specific and very vivid example of implementing the Golden Rule – he certainly practiced what he preached. You and I were his enemies, because of our sin. But he loved us, and gave himself for us, without waiting for us to love him first.
And of course, he does now expect us, by the working of his Spirit within us and in our new nature, to love him in return. “We love because he first loved us,” St. John reminds us in his First Epistle.
And practically speaking, the primary way we show love for Christ, is to show love for our neighbor in his name. In speaking of the kindnesses that believers have shown to those in need, Jesus says in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
For us who know the love of Christ, who reached out to us in the spirit of the Golden Rule before we ever reached out to him, this shines a whole new light on what it means for us to seek to follow the Golden Rule now in our interactions with other people: including irritating and annoying people; people who have offended and hurt us in the past; people who have gone so far as to make themselves our enemies.
The Golden Rule is not only a crushing demand that we cannot live up to. It is a description of a new and liberated way of living, in Christ, which is possible for us now because Christ has freed us from the chains of bitterness and resentment that had bound us; and because Christ has lifted us out of the pit of hatred and anger in which we had been buried.
And as we move forward in love for him and for our neighbor, Jesus continues to do unto us, what he wants us to do unto him – or, more precisely, to do unto our neighbor in his name. Jesus forgives our sins in his Holy Absolution and in his Holy Supper, and we then heed these words of St. Paul:
“Bear with each other, and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Jesus encourages and comforts us in our troubles, and we then heed these words of St. Paul:
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Jesus continually pours out his grace upon us, to teach us his truth, to mold us into his image, and to heal us of the wounds that sin has inflicted upon us. God supplies every need of ours according to his riches in glory, in Christ Jesus. And we then heed these words of St. Paul:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” Amen.