The Golden Rule

Matthew 7:12

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

It’s one of the rules that your parents taught you.  In fact, it comes from Jesus.  It’s called “the golden rule.”  Matthew 7:12.  So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

There is a danger with this verse– the danger of taking these words out of context.  I googled this question – What does the Golden rule mean?  One person equated it with Karma… giving good vibes to people. Another said, “Be nice to people so that one day they might be nice back to you.”  “Be nice to others so that they will like you and not hate you.”  Another said, “Generally I try to live by this rule but if the other guy is being a jerk – in that case I return the favor.  I believe in the Golden rule, not turning the other cheek.”  “It means be nice and don’t give others a reason to hurt you. Be nice first.  It throws them off their game… If you are mean to others, they will be mean to you.  If you are kind to others, you will get kindness back.”  “It means if you can’t take it don’t dish it out.  But if you can take it, then go ahead.”  All of these are wrong. They all involve putting you and what you will get at the center of whatever kindness you do or don’t do to others.  That’s not what Jesus meant.

It doesn’t work to take these words of out of context.  Listen to the promises Jesus makes in verse 7-11.  “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!  Seek out our heavenly Father because He is the Father who is ready to be found. He is eager to answer and to give.  Jesus compares our heavenly Father’s generosity with our desire to give good gifts to our kids.  If we want to give only the best to our kids, how much more can we count on the generosity of our heavenly Father who for us gave His own Son? 

It’s in that context that Jesus says, So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them…  With the word “so” Jesus connects seeking out our giving God to how we are to treat others.  Because of who God is, because we can depend on His love and care and generosity, we are freed to treat others the way we hope to be treated. 

Apart from God’s generosity our love for others will always come with strings attached.  That’s what you hear in those misunderstandings of the Golden Rule.  Think about it – are you kind to others because you have a need to be liked and approved?    One of my fears in moving to Germany was that my kids would discover that they could get along without me.  That begs the question – Is that why I did nice things for them – because of my need to be needed by them?   When people don’t always like us or agree with everything is that why we are at times so quick to judge others?  Are we asking something from them that only God can do?  It is hard sometimes to be gracious towards other people.  We want them to make the first good move.  They were wrong first.  They should apologize first. Then we will do so to them also.  We want a guarantee that our treating them nicely will lead to something good for us. 

That’s why Jesus puts the golden rule in the context of God’s unconditional, no strings attached love for us.  Our heavenly Father gave His Son to us and for us knowing that we could not give back to Him.  By His death and resurrection Jesus purchased for us a salvation that is whole and free…  one for which we can never repay Him.  He made it yours and mine in baptism – for free, no strings attached.  We aren’t dependent on their need for us… on whether or not they love us or like us or approve of us.  We have all the love, all the acceptance, all the approval and grace and forgiveness we need in our God and Savior.  When we know that we have a God who is watching over us… We are free to treat others the way we want to be treated. whether or not they actually treat us that way in return.  God knows the truth about us and loves us anyway.  We don’t need to build ourselves us up by condemning someone else… We are freed from needing everyone else’s love and approval… because we already have God’s approval for free in Christ.  When all our strings are attached to Jesus  then finally we are free to love one another with no strings attached.  Amen.

Whose Neighbor am I?

Luke 10:29b

“And who is my neighbor?”

When we lived in a small town in Nebraska, Linda and I knew all our neighbors.  In that little town of 400 people Evonne lived next door and babysat our kids.  Vi and Charlie across the street adopted our kids as their grandchildren.  The boy across the street was Ben’s first buddy.  The family on the opposite corner were Jehovah’s Witness.  The Weerts brothers lived behind us.  Mrs. Berg down the street made the best raspberry pies.  Lorna across the street made the most delicious coffee cakes.  In Texarkana, we kind of new our neighbors.  We talked to the family next door but I could never remember their names.  The boy across the street was Ben’s friend.  His dog bit me.  Miss Marie down the street went to our church.  In Flower Mound we barely knew our neighbors.  The lady next door died and we didn’t know for two months.  We are Facebook friends with the folks on the other side. In Germany we did a little better.  We knew the couple across the hall, the pastors who lived next door, the policeman and his family down the street, the Dock and Ferris families from church.  Here, we know the neighbors immediately around our house. Now it can be easy to blame the neighbors when you don’t know them.  “They just aren’t friendly.”  But Jesus turns that upside down in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  He makes it clear that the problem is not with my neighbors.  The problem is with me.  The issue is not who is my neighbor, but whose neighbor am I?

In our text a lawyer tried to test Jesus. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus points him to the Scripture.  The lawyer answers with the two great commandments – “Love the Lord your God,” and “Love your neighbor…”  “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”  That’s not enough or the lawyer.  He wants to justify himself.  He asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  That’s when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus makes it plain that the problem is not one of definition. God will “define” neighbor for you.  He will lay him across your path, in the road half dead, in need of you. You won’t have any problem identifying your neighbor.  In fact, you will have to take steps to avoid him.  That is what the priest and the Levite do.  They see the man but pass by on the other side.  

I am sure the Priest and the Levite had excuses.  They had things to do.  They were busy people.  We have excuses too.   It’s so much easier to think the church should have some kind of program for  visiting the shut-ins, the elderly, or the hospitalized. The pastor should do that. And “where is the family? Why aren’t the kids taking better care of their aging parents?  This is their job not mine.  The Government should take care of the needy.  I found it all too easy to ignore the man I saw sitting each day on the bench in our German neighborhood. “It’s none of my business… I don’t have time… I have my own family to take care of…”   Too often we are more priest and Levite than  Good Samaritan.

 

Do you know who the Good Samaritan in this story is?  The one who “when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds?  The one who took him to an inn and took care of him?  The Good Samaritan is Jesus.  He is the neighbor you and I fail to be.  He welcomed sinners and ate with them.  When everyone else thought they were too good to be neighbor to a tax collector named Zacchaeus, Jesus is the one who came to his home and brought salvation.  He is the one who sat by the well and talked to the Samaritan woman.  When no one else gave her the time of day, Jesus listened to her. He spoke to her. He cared about her.  He called her to faith.  On the cross, suffering in ways we can’t imagine, Jesus took time to be neighbor to the soldiers… to his mother… even to the thief… to offer him eternal life.  Loving His neighbors is second nature to Jesus. 

It still is.  He is still that neighbor, not just to others, but to you and me.  He is the one who was born under the law to redeem those who are under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons.  On that cross, He was delivered over to death for our sins…  On Easter morning Jesus was raised to life that we might be forgiven.  When He came upon us, dead in our trespasses and sins Jesus in Holy Baptism made us alive together with Christ.  Just like the Good Samaritan Jesus carried us to an Inn, brought us into His church… At the Inn the Good Samaritan paid for the man’s care.  Jesus does the same here.  He provides all that we need for healing and restoration.  Here He provides people to offer to us the great gifts He purchased on the cross for us… Here He provides for His word of love to be taught and read… for His word of forgiveness to spoken to us again and again… Here He feeds us with His body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion..  Here He gives us friends to love and care for and support us... Through all the people around you Jesus seeks to be neighbor to you.

What’s more He desires to be that neighbor through you and me.    Whether it’s a shut in at church, or an old man on a bench, or a first-time guest at church…  Whether it’s the guy at work who needs someone to listen to… or the lady who can’t find something in the grocery store… or the old couple down the street who seem to have no family around… Jesus has laid those people across our paths.  He has brought them to us.  We are now the Innkeepers.  Jesus is saying to us, ‘Here is your neighbor.  Look after him. Love him.’   Instead of asking “who is my neighbor” ask the Lord – “help me to be a neighbor to each person You bring into my life… Help me to love them as you have loved me.  Lord, let that be second nature to me… let your way of life become my way of life.”  Amen. 

Only One Thing

“You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.”

Luke 10:41b-42a

Jesus is visiting two good friends – Mary “and Martha.  While He is there Mary sits at Jesus’ feet to listen to Him teach.  Martha is busy getting everything ready, probably for dinner.  The only thing Martha has to say to Jesus is “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  Then Jesus calls Martha by name, not once but twice.  It’s as if He has to say her name twice just to get her attention.  “Martha…  MARTHA!” He just wants her to stop for a moment, to stop and think.  “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.  All these other things can wait.  There is only one thing that is really necessary.  Mary has chosen that one thing.

What a reminder that you can be so busy with life that you miss it. Jesus here teaches us about choices we face… choices that impact how well you live your life. The first choice is between doing and being.  Martha is the doer.  She’s gets things done. She’s busy, busy, busy. Mary is not doing.  She’s sitting at Jesus’ feet.  The point Jesus makes is that being is more important than doing.  This reminds me of two of my parent’s friends.  One home was always immaculate.  While visiting we would never see the woman of the house.  She was always in the kitchen getting something for someone.  Whenever we would leave she would apologize. “I sure wish I could have spent more time with you.”  The other house looked lived in.  She never made food for us.  She ordered pizza.  She sat with us the whole time.  She played and visited.  She was all about relationships.  Do you see the difference between doing and being?

How are you doing balancing that in your life?  Is your faith all about getting things done?  Are you over committed at work? In your kids activities? At church?  agreeing to take on one job after another at church?  Or is your life about being – being in prayer… being in the Scripture?  We are often so busy doing that its almost like Jesus has to call out our name twice just to get our attention.  “Wayne…WAYNE!  Slow down.”  Back in the 60s one of America’s our new fighter jets actually shot itself down.  Flying at supersonic speed it ran into cannon shells it had fired just seconds earlier.  Traveling too fast through life is self-destructive. We need to slow down.  We need to  let our souls catch up.  Though we live in a Martha world we need to learn to rest like Mary.

The second choice is between the many things and the one thing.  Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things…”  She was distracted by all the things she had to get done.  We know how that happens. Little things take our focus off the really important thing.  There is no worse distraction than one that takes our eyes off of Jesus.  Now don’t get me wrong.  What Martha is doing here is a good thing.  She is serving.  However it’s not a good thing when it distracts us from the better thing – when it distracts from taking timet at the feet of Jesus to listen and learn.  There are many good things in every situation but the question we always need to ask is what’s the best thing… the thing where I really need to focus my attention.  I remember coming upon a Moose in Colorado.  Now a Moose is huge.  Yet it was so far away from us that when I took my first picture you got the whole country side. The moose kind of got lost in the picture.  I had to zoom in and focus to get a really good picture of that moose.  The danger in life is to be so distracted by so many things that we can no longer see the most important thing.  Jesus is calling us zoom in and focus on Him.  He is the one thing needful

That’s why the third choice He offers here is between serving Jesus and loving Jesus.  Martha was serving.  Mary was loving.  Now there is nothing wrong with serving.  But you can’t really serve and love others till you give yourself time to be served and loved by Jesus.  If you never stop to fill up the tank, you will run out of gas.   You and I need to stop everything else… sit at His feet and be filled by Him.

That’s what makes all the difference in the 4^th choice - between worrying and resting.  Are you worry wart?  I am.  In Philippians 4 Paul calls us to stop worrying and give worry to Jesus in prayer.  “Have no anxiety about anything.  Instead pray about everything…  That’s what Mary was doing – sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him. One pastor tells this story from his vicarage. It was his first week in the office.  It was just him and the secretary.  Suddenly this crazy woman – walked in talking nonsense, a crazy look in her eye, arms flailing this way and that.  He didn’t know what to do.  He thought I am about to fail my first real test… Just then his pastor walked in. The vicar was so glad to see him.  That pastor walked into that chaos and said, “Whoa… Lets all take a deep breath.  Now lets pray.”  The vicar said a great calm immediately settled over that woman and over his own worried heart.  That’s what Jesus does for us.  We sit at His feet with all our worries.  He says to us, “Peace.  Be still.”   You see in the rush of life… there is only one thing absolutely needed – Jesus.

A Life of Prayer

Luke 5:16 (ESV)

“But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray”

The Pastor was preaching about the importance of practicing prayer every day of your life.  As an illustration he talked about being with his father in the car.  Suddenly a car going the opposite direction swerved and came right towards them.  “I’ll never forget what my dad said in that moment of crisis.  He didn’t cuss.  He didn’t scream.  He said, ‘Lord help us.’  My father’s first instinct was to pray. Why?  Because he was a man of prayer.  He prayed daily.  Prayer was so much a part of who he was that in a moment of crisis to pray was the most natural thing for him to do.  Prayer was just part of his way of life.” 

Prayer was also the way of life for our savior Jesus.  The references to him praying are all over place in the Gospels.  Mark writes that rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. Luke tells us that Jesus often retreated to desolate places to pray.  Prayer was our Lord’s way of life.  His disciples longed for that way of life.  So it’s no wonder they came to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”

What Jesus teaches them and us about prayer are life altering.  For in teaching us to pray Jesus is inviting us to a life shaped by our relationship with Him.  Think for a moment about how important conversation is in any relationship.  A couple that isn’t talking to each other is a couple that is growing further apart.  But a couple that is able to talk to each other about anything and everything is a couple growing closer and closer together.  In other words, for good or bad a couple’s relationship is shaped by the way they talk with each other.  It’s no different in our relationship with God. Prayer is our daily, conversation with God. 

The first thing He teaches us is that in prayer we come before God as beggars.   In the Lord’s Prayer, the one Jesus taught us, we don’t bring anything to God.  We only ask.  Help us Lord to keep Your name holy, because our natural state is to profane your name… to stub our toes,and use your name as a cuss word.  “Thy Kingdom come…”  We make a mess of things when we try to run our lives.  So we need You, Lord, to be our king. “Give us this day our daily bread,” because everything we need comes from You.  .  Forgive us our trespasses”  we pray, for we are poor miserable sinners.  Finally, “Lead us not into temptation” – in other words protect our hearts and minds from thinking things we shouldn’t think… from thinking things that will lead us to doing things we shouldn’t do.”  Its just like the hymn says, “Nothing in my hands I bring.  Simply to Thy cross I cling.”  Our life of prayer begins with the humble recognition that we are but beggars before God.    

But it doesn’t end there.  For What Jesus also teaches us is that in prayer we come to God as His beloved children!  Among families of German ancestry very often the first prayer children are taught is this one – “Abba, liebe Vater.  Amen!”  The best translation of that is “Daddy, dear father, amen.”  It comes from the first words that Jesus teaches us to pray – “Our Father who art in heaven…”  “With these words, Luther writes, God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and we are His true children so that with all boldness and confidence we might ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.”   When our kids really wanted me to say yes to something they would send Bethany into ask me.  I guess they knew she had me wrapped around her finger.  Well in our prayers we come to God based on the good graces of our elder brother Jesus – Jesus who came… who lived our lives, died in our place and rose again to open the way to the Father.   

Finally, We pray our prayers in the confidence that our God desires to give us good gifts.  Sometimes that is hard to see… hard to believe.  Faye Werner was an elderly woman paralyzed from the waist down.  Every night she prayed that God would take her home and end her pain.  “Why am I still here every morning Pastor?”  Such struggles and doubts are natural.  Yet in the midst of them, we pray in the confident faith that God is listening… that He does desire good things for you and me. For He says to us, And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

A life of prayer is the best way of life…. Let it be our way of life every day… practiced every day – so that when life swerves straight towards us out of oncoming traffic – we know right where to go… to God in pray.  Amen.