That Golden Rule
Ordinary Sunday 7: 22nd February, 2004
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Lk 6:31)
Early this last week, our newspapers and TV news screens were filled with the ugly street violence in Sydney's Redfern. A tragic young death. Police in riot gear. Bitter anger. I certainly heard at least one clear voice demanding from my radio 'an eye for an eye'. Though the Holy Land has been quiet this week, they are the sorts of scenes we have got used to seeing coming from that part of the world, rather than from a couple of kilometres from the Sydney GPO. Iraq and Afghanistan can provide us with any amount of material about implacable and yet unequal adversaries. Political adversaries too use strong and bitter language towards those they oppose. We will see much more of that in this election year both here and in the US. Vicious or demeaning language is common enough in matters of religious dispute – even in these times when we do not go to war with each other, or have each other put to death. But there are now other more sophisticated ways of making opponents non-persons or un-Christian or declaring their part of the church to be not real. The same is true of social or ethical controversies. Battle lines are drawn and divisions are deep. Look at what is unfolding at present in the whole area of human relationships, and definitions of marriage, civil unions and commitment. While it is true that the specific issues are always changing, in the generality there is nothing particularly new under the sun. There are people and nations and causes and interest groups. And there is conflict.
It should not come as a surprise to us that something as basic to the human condition as what happens when there is difference of approach and opinion, is something that Jesus of Nazareth had much to say about. But 2000 years later, it still is shocking to many to hear exactly what he did say and how he said it. This is because this teaching continues to be heard afresh in every generation, and it continues to turn on its head the standard and expected response to these sorts of issues. The Lord's teaching is shocking and it is extremely difficult to put into effect. Yet this is at the very heart of the gospel that he taught and the way that he lived.
Our gospel reading today continues with the sermon on the plain – Luke's version of the more familiar sermon on the mount found in Matthew. This is a collection of the central teachings of the Lord. In these last few weeks, we have followed the path from the Lord's baptism by John, through the call of the first disciples, through the sensation of the first healing miracles and now, last week and this, to this great sermon addressed to thousands of people. Last week we heard the great contrasting 'blessed are you' and 'woe to you' sections. Immediately following comes this section : "But I say to you that listen (and perhaps now he is talking to those who have not already been affronted or offended by what he has already said): Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you."
When I hear this, my conscience immediately makes me think of one particular beggar who so efficiently works a particular bit of this top end of Bourke Street, and who makes me angry. How should we react? I think of another, regularly asking for money for food, who very colourfully refused the meal that was offered instead. I think of the many times that abuse of the most violent kind has been the result of not coming up with substantial sums of money on demand at the vicarage door. How to react? And what about those who suffer abuse or persecution simply because of who or what they are – race, colour, gender? How to react? No, this is not easy, and I would be surprised if everyone here could not come up with personal examples, where we ourselves find it very hard to live by simply 'turning the other cheek'. It is very complex.
Yet we know in our hearts that 'do to others as you would have them do to you' is a better way of living a life or running a world than the compounding cycles of anger and abuse of the alternatives on offer. The big difficulty is though that everyone is not playing by that golden rule. This is not fair, is it? This is the complex world of discernment, choice, and decision that the consideration of these issues takes us into. The Lord of course knew this complexity.. And yet still he taught this way, he lived that way and he died that way. This is the way his followers are urged to take.
In the Lenten season that we begin this Wednesday, we have 40 days to consider again how we too might start again to live this out as followers of this Jesus, before we celebrate God's triumphant vindication of it in the new life of the Resurrection. This then is the way, the truth and the life. This is what is worthy and honourable and ultimately of God, even when either a whole world says no or alternatively one individual uses power or position or just a nasty tongue to belittle or humiliate or abuse. So what we have here is the core of what we would understand to be basic Christian ethics. It is the new shape of a whole pattern of living and social interaction, both corporate and individual. It is most clearly laid out in this part of Luke's gospel and the equivalent part of Matthew.
In the last section of today's gospel we are moved into the same territory as the most difficult part of the Lord's Prayer – forgiveness. Do not judge others – and you yourself will not be judged for your own shortcomings. Do not condemn others – and you will not yourself be condemned. Forgive others and you yourself will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. This overflowing generosity of spirit will be amply rewarded. The measure we give will be the measure we get back. It is simply unrelenting!
There is a whole approach to life that is at stake here – and a whole response to the call of God in Jesus Christ. For Jesus, this overthrowing of all those expectations about behaviour and attitude was absolutely central and the tradition is clear that he was most explicit. The follower of Jesus is to live this way. The greatest of the saints through the centuries lived this way – and often died because of it. Great leaders of political movements have lived this way and sometimes have shamed their opponents by their transparent goodness, by their turning of the other cheek. It is as they say, the high moral ground. We know at once when we are moving away from it, when we are abandoning it.
So the question for each one of us becomes, for instance in the whole area of personal generosity, what are we ourselves sharing or giving out? What are we doing and saying? How are we reaching out and responding to others, and most especially how are we doing that when the situation is hard and ugly and confronting? Consider the alternatives that we have. What if our every word was of judgement and condemnation? What if we continually bore a smouldering resentment and animosity towards those who have done us wrong, or who disagree with us on something important, or towards those who are simply different? We are clearly told that the measure that we give is the measure we will ourselves actually get.
This whole core teaching then from the Lord is both encouragement and warning. We do not really have to consider too hard what the alternative approach might deliver. Examples abound on every side, in church and state, in individuals, in ourselves. In every generation we can see the damage and the pain. Every generation, every individual has a choice. There is, we are assured in a gospel lesson like today's, a better way.
So, on this Sunday before Lent begins, as summer is coming into its last weeks, we are here at St Peter's tapping into a very old tradition of giving thanks for that which we have received. Harvest and that natural rhythm of the seasons that country people know so well is a long way from most of our lives in the centre of the city. But the beauty of the natural order is not. Our appreciation is not limited, our thanks is not constrained by our location. In all traditions and in every culture, people have offered thanks and have shared the fruits of their labours, the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands. An offering made to God in thanks is, in turn, shared with those in need. That is a time-honoured formula that ties in well enough with that final theme of today's gospel, urging us to give and to be whole-heartedly generous in our giving. And we do give thanks, even as we recall again that golden rule:
Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Lk 6:31)
The Lord be with you.
|
Views is a
publication of
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne Australia.
|
