By Bishop Andrew Williams
If the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest summary of the Law and the Prophets that we will ever hear, then the golden rule is the glorious summary of the summary. Jesus said, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12). The golden rule is an intellectual tour de force. In Jesus’ words we have the greatest ethical maxim ever devised. It is breathtakingly brilliant. The only example Jesus sets up is us. The golden rule takes our own sense of self-preservation and then redeploys it for the good of others.
The truth is that we all are born with certain baggage: we are who we were born as, where we were born, how we were raised. It is too easy to get stuck inside that person, causing us to focus on how we are being treated. When we are asked, “How did your day go?” we often respond based on our answer to the question, “How did people treat us?” The golden rule turns that on its head and asks, “How did you treat others?” The golden rule invites us to crawl inside another person’s life and see and experience the world through his or her eyes. The golden rule invites us to take a leap of imagination and then take loving action accordingly.
So why don’t we?
If the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest summary of the Law and the Prophets that we will ever hear, then the golden rule is the glorious summary of the summary. Jesus said, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12).
I love John Ortberg’s passion on the subject of the golden rule when he says, “You can use the golden rule on people you like. You can use it on people you don’t like (and oddly if you do so you will find you start to like them more). You can use the golden rule while you drive. You can use the golden rule while you are texting. You can use the golden rule and not text while you drive!” Martin Luther, the great reformer, said of the golden rule, “It was certainly very clever of Christ to state it this way.” It was and remains so clever. So brilliant! So perfect and so clear . . . so why don’t we actually do it?!
The golden rule proves the poverty of the argument that says that all you have to do is give people instruction and tell them what to do – that they will understand and put the rule into practice. The golden rule has been within the intellectual grasp of humanity for two thousand years – and the last two hundred years we have taken great leaps in science and technology – and still we fail to live by it. Why? In a fallen world, the very principle that should trigger the golden rule (“How would I feel if . . .”) overpowers and smothers the operation of the rule. We get stuck on the “I” part. Author Karen Joy Fowler writes, “‘Do unto others’ is an unnatural, inhuman behavior. You can understand why so many churches and churchgoers say it but so few achieve it. It goes against something fundamental in our natures. And this, then, is the human tragedy—that the common humanity we share is fundamentally based on the denial of a common shared humanity.”
Often what looks like the application of the golden rule is actually plain old vanity, pride, and self-interest in disguise! Left to our own devices, we cannot help but at best be covertly self-centered – even when we want to appear “other-centered.” This means that we are inclined to get irritated with God, perhaps even not like God very much, because He is someone who wants to come in and mess with our self-centeredness. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” (Romans 8:7, emphasis mine).
The answer is that we need to start not with the application of the golden rule but with God.
The greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27). Notice the order. We don’t start with our neighbor. For really important reasons, we must start with loving God. Our relationship with our neighbor will never be what it should be unless we are right with God. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves until we get right with God.
Prayer: Father, you have set your relentless, unconditional love on me, so help me to receive that love first.
The Golden Rule and our relationship with God
Our relationship with our neighbor will never be what it should be unless we are right with God. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves until we get right with God. The good news is that Jesus not only taught a golden rule message – He died a golden rule death so that we could be made right with God. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). To come before God is always to see that truth about ourselves. We are not kings of magnanimity on the freeway or anywhere else in life. When we look to God and see ourselves in relationship to Him, we become conscious of our own fallenness and then discover that, remarkably, we do not get from God what we deserve. We anticipate rejection, but He looks upon us with grace and embraces us in love and mercy. And then, through the golden rule, it’s as if Jesus says, “Let me help you look upon others as I have looked and continue to look upon you.” How is that going to happen?
In the book of Acts, Peter tells us of Jesus, “He went about doing good…” (Acts 10:38). Jesus not only taught a golden rule life, He lived a golden rule life. John Ortberg reminds us, “If I were a leper, I would long for someone to see my humanity. I would long to be talked to, touched, healed. No rabbi would do that. But Jesus did.” In the same way, if my life had descended to the point of having to prostitute myself, I would dream of being treated with dignity. I would want someone to see through my brokenness and destitution and see the real me. Jesus did that. All the way to Good Friday, Jesus lived a golden rule life. If I were the thief on the Cross, I would know that I had no defense, but I would hope that someone might have mercy. Even from His place on the Cross Jesus did that.
You see, the truth about the golden rule life is that it is not a rule so much as it is the living continuation of Jesus’ ministry through us.
Prayer: Jesus, let me live so close to your heart, that I can’t help but live as your hands and feet to those around me.
