The Golden Rule

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule

              I hear the phrase Jesus and the Golden Rule linked together more and more often as I view my facebook news feed, listen to fellow Christians and as I watch the news. To put the issue bluntly, I use the words of legendary swordsman Inigo Montoya-

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

As Christians, we hold a responsibility to not just quote a few verses for our own gain, but to use it as it was meant. Even further, I think that understanding said rule will take us all a lot further than where we are now.

I always have despised that term, golden rule. I remember in school being taught the rule, made to recite it from a poster above the chalk board. It was just another rule that we as human beings have felt that we need to dress up to sound better than its original source. It really became kind of like the Ten Commandments, something that many will protest for, but far fewer know or practice them. In a world of sound bites and protests, I would like to take a look back to the original source.

If you want a tag line, my BIBLE, not poster says “The Great Commandment.” Nobody walks around saying, “Commandments were made to be broken.” On the other hand, we do say that in reference to rules. Our language does make a difference. Here is the passage in question that many paraphrase but have simply not read. Further, they haven’t thought about it much either.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

                                                Matthew 22:34-40 (ESV)

It fascinates me how we are so often like hound dogs. We sniff around until we find the passage that proves our point. In this particular portion of scripture, society skips the beginning, reads the middle and doesn’t even bother to finish the end. If we would just read the beginning, we could identify two groups that made the same mistake in the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In case you don’t know, they weren’t Jesus’ friend. It was the reason the lawyer arrived on the scene to “test him.” The test was to see what he could get out of the conversation. This test could yield two primary results. It could result in a legal case mounted against Christ. Or it could result in an excuse for the lawyer to continue living the way he was living. What the entire group walked away with was a different result all together.

Start at the end.

“On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Right there, I realize that everything that had been preached, everything that had been written, every message that God had sent to mankind to that point in history could be put into two concise commandments. This tells me that Jesus doesn’t require me to be a walking encyclopedia of scripture. If I can’t list off every miracle He performed, that is okay. Jesus made it easy. For some reason, we have a desire to make it much easier. So often the impulse is to lead with one, almost apologizing for the fact that Jesus said it.

I suppose we could blame the media, facebook, congress, etc. The blame rests squarely with…Me. That’s right, it starts with me, you, your neighbor and anyone else that fits the bill of being a human. Take a closer look at the portion of scripture we label as the “Golden Rule.”

“Your shall love your neighbor as yourself.”         Matthew 22:39 ESV

The Golden Rule and the original Commandment are certainly similar. The foundational problem is we look at the most important person in the equation as us (i.e. yourself or you). In a therapeutic world, we start with the premise that it all runs through us. We run yelling, “See, I have to love myself! Jesus said so!” Here is the response. Slow down, you already suffer from that issue. You already love yourself.

“As long as I’ve known myself, and that is pretty much all my life, I have done whatever was in my own best self interest.”                -Me

The second problem comes in the form of permissibility. When we "love others" by a live and let live philosophy, that still comes down to our own personal self interest. Bottom line, we want leave others alone so that we will be left alone. While much more could be said about this, it would defeat the point. Here you go...

                The words that Jesus speaks in this passage serve not just to summarize the commandments but to provide a foundation so that the second command is even possible. Try as I might, I can never truly love my neighbor or others more than myself. It is too much to ask. It is the reason Christians cite such sayings as, “God doesn’t help those who don’t help themselves.” Those lines become our mantra simply we do not have it in us to love others as much as we love ourselves (by the way, God didn’t say that, Benjamin Franklin did).

                When we use just this one line to summarize all of Christianity, we in fact DO NOT summarize Christianity. This begs the question, why give this second command at all? What a waste of space. It all sounds pretty hopeless. And I would say that it is, if we were really honest with ourselves.

                But…there is something else that provides us hope. There is a command that is so powerful that not only does it form a basis for the second command, not only does it make the second command possible, but it forms foundation for existence. It forms a foundation for joy. It lays the groundwork for ME to move beyond ME.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

What should blow us away is that he is our God. He is Lord. So I start by loving MY God with every fiber of my being! In loving him with all my heart, mind and soul I am being obedient. I’m not sniffing for what I can get out of scripture, relationships or life. Those things open themselves in a meaningful way when I start by loving God.

                Pick a sin, any sin. There are plenty to choose from. My view of sin will be based upon who I love first. If it is me that I love the most, I will start there and work my way forward on any social issues, denominational issues or personal ones.

But, if I love God first, then I will align with Him. I will view sin in the way that He views sin. I will realize I am not Him. In that realization, I will realize I am sinful myself. This will guide to how I respond to sin in my life, in others lives, in our state, in our country and in our world. I will remember that God did not just say words, but lived them. In the face of those that persecuted Him he stayed silent. When they mocked Him, He invited a thief to Heaven. He loved the world to the literal point of death.

This passage is like most in the Bible. We can use it as Christ intended. It can be used as a base for our lives. Or, we can use it to further personal agendas. Where we go in life will be dictated by which Commandment we begin with.