The Gold Standard
Matthew 7:12
In 1860, a lithographer named Milton Bradley decided to invent a board game where people by playing it would learn life lessons. They would learn about the risks and the rewards in life and decisions and consequences. It was originally called “The Checkered Game of Life.” It was a checkered board game and started at birth moving along through the various stages of life. With each step there was an opportunity and with each opportunity a cost associated with it or a potential reward. It was designed to teach people about life. 100 years later in 1960, the Milton Bradley Company issued a redesigned game with little tiny people and cars and a spinner. That’s the game that most of us remember playing at one time or another. How many of you have ever played the Game of Life?
During this series, we’re going to look at seven life lessons revealed in God’s word. These are fundamental lessons in life and God designed us to live by these lessons. And when we don’t live by these lessons, then life becomes abundantly more difficult. Some may be familiar but knowing them and practicing them are two different things. Take a hammer and use the claws to hammer in a nail. The hammer was designed to be used a certain way. Now when you use it this way, it will take you much longer and you might just lose a few fingers in the process. But if you use it in the right way, it just makes things simpler. You were designed a certain way and when you live life in that way, it becomes much simpler and life just works better.
Our Scripture lesson today is the Golden Rule we have all learned as children. We may not know it came from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus gives this teaching but we knew this passage. But this lesson is not unique to Christianity. It predates Christianity and appears in every religion, philosophy or system of ethics. The version that Jesus gives us is different from the way it appears in every other place. Confucious put it this way, “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” Virtually every other statement of the Golden Rule looks like this. Jesus transformed this to say, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” What’s the difference? Confucious would have us refrain from doing things to others while Jesus would have us positively do what blesses to others.
Think about that for a moment. What would that look like? If you saw a person on the elevated expressway standing in the rain on the side of the road with their hood up and just shaking their head, what would Confucious tell us to do? Get as far to the left lane as possible so as not to hit them or even chance splashing water on them. You would have refrained from doing harm but you would not have actually helped the person. Jesus on the other hand would have us stop, get out and do whatever we can, whether it be call for help, try to fix the car if you know how or to hold an umbrella for them. It’s not enough to do nothing according to Jesus. We must not only refrain from doing harm, that’s implicit in the Golden Rule, we must also seek to do positive good. John Wesley put it this way: do all the good that you can, everywhere you can and as often as you can to everyone you can.
Jesus summarized all of the OT Law with two commands: Love God with all of your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. When you think about it, loving your neighbor as yourself is the same as the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So how do we live out the Golden Rule: by doing the loving thing. Love in the Scriptures is not a feeling but an act or way of living. It is practicing loving kindness to others.
Now we know the Golden Rule but we also have a difficult time living it. First, sometimes we’re just in too much of a hurry. It’s not so easy, we have to really think about it. But that’s not enough, we have to really think about other people. Paul puts it this way in the book of Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” The people who live the Golden Rule live a life of always putting the needs of others ahead of themselves. And that may be the most difficult thing of all about the Golden Rule. Second, we live in a selfish society which constantly tells us life is about you, your needs you’re your desires. Very rarely are we encouraged to think about others. And even when we try, it can be difficult. Adam Hamilton tells the story of taking his daughter’s car in to get repaired and he was discussing with the attendant whether something was under warranty or not. And so he said, if this was your daughter and her car, what would you want me to say? The gentleman looked at Adam and said, If you were the Owner of this Dealership what would you be saying about this? The Golden Rule cuts both ways and perhaps the hardest thing is to look at it from the other person’s perspective.
Now it’s easier to treat people with the Golden Rule who we like or who love us or people who are like us. Third, What about people who dress differently or who act differently or who speak differently. The real test of the Golden Rule isn’t how you treat people like you but rather people who are different from you: janitors, trash men, the illiterate, the homeless, people of a different culture.
Fourth, sometimes we don’t follow the Golden Rule because we’re not paying attention. We don’t see the people around us in need so we may inadvertently ignore them. We often just don’t notice people because we’re not paying attention. Giovanna and I were flying back to New Orleans from our Disney vacation in Orlando. The kids went to grandma’s house and so we were looking forward to a week without kids. We waited forever for our shuttle to the US Park facility where we had our car parked. I had a suitcase, a heavy carry on bag and my golf clubs. Giovanna had a large suitcase, a small suitcase and a carry on bag. I fought to load up my bags onto the shuttle trying not to take too much time for the people behind me. I struggled to put my items on the shelves in the van and then sat down while Giovanna struggled to get her bags onto the van. I didn’t even see her because my golf clubs obscured my view or think of her until she sat down next to me after someone else had helped her. All I got was a “Thanks alot.” I was mortified. I didn’t even think that she might need help. Sometimes we don’t follow the Golden Rule because we’re not paying attention. Yet the Golden Rule always calls us to thoughfulness. Life goes better when we follow it but sometimes we forget.
Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of life to live out the Golden Rule is with those we love: our family. It’s hard in your teens to look out for your parent’s need. And it can be just as difficult as parents to be considerate of the needs of your teenagers when you’re still looking at them as little children. It’s hard to always be considerate of one another to those we love and yet we desperately need that. And that’s what Christ demands of us. This is where the rubber meets the road. Ask a couple who have been married 50 years or more what advice they have and you know what they say? It’s living the Golden Rule. Always try to treat her with the same respect that I would want her to treat me. Thoughtfulness and mindfulness. It’s putting their needs ahead of your own. It’s doing unto them as you would have them do unto you.
The Golden Rule isn’t so wooden that it’s doing to them what you would have them do to you. It’s doing to them what would most bless them. Some of you have read Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages. Each of us has a different way we prefer to give and receive love. For some it’s quality time, for others it’s touch, for others it’s receiving gifts, for others it’s acts of service. What that teaches us is that it may not always be what you do but how you do it. Most of us receive love one way and give love one way. But in almost 20 years of ministry very rarely have I seen a husband and spouse who spoke the same love language. So we may speak our love langauage to them but they’re not hearing it as love in what we’re doing. So it’s critical we’re mindful of their love language and we’re speaking love in a way which speaks of them. And so a key to having our marriage last a lifetime is understanding the needs of our partner and then seeking to meet them, to do to them what would be a blessing for them.
Sometimes we do things and don’t even think about it whether it might be inconsiderate. I wake up at 5:15 every morning to get here by 6:30. So as not to wake Giovanna up, I dress in the bathroom. I have a habit of leaving several days worth of hangers hanging on the doorknob. When it gets filled up, I put them away. I didn’t even know it was an issue until Giovanna told me how much it bothered her. I wonder if you do regular things which are not considerate of your friends, your relatives, your kids, your neighbors or your parents. Jesus is saying this is where the rubber meets the road. It’s important in the little things and the big things.
The Golden Rule is also meant to guide us beyond our personal relationships to how we live in society. Sometimes we forget this because it can be really easy to become self absorbed. What would it be like to live the Golden Rule as a nation across the globe? What happens when we pursue policies that protect us but we don’t consider how it impacts the other nations around us? What if all of our national policies and decisions consider other’s needs first? The Golden Rule asks us as a nation to consider others, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do unto other what will bless them.
Living the Golden Rule is pretty simple isn’t it? It’s just being considerate, mindful, and thoughtful but sometimes to live the Golden Rule requires great moral courage. It requires a willingness to sacrifice.
In March of 1943, Bulgaria which had aligned with the Nazis received orders from Berlin that they were to begin implementing the Final Solution, the extermination of the Jewish people in Bulgaria and deport them to Treblinka. The King of Bulgaria and the Parliament did not want to fulfill this order but they passed it on nonetheless. The people of Bulgaria began to wonder what would happen to their Jewish neighbors and friends. Now the railroad cars were lined up 100’s long and the Jewish people in 3 towns were to be gathered at the local elementary school and then placed on the trains. Plodda was one of those towns. The Jewish people were told to bring only what they could carry. They were placed behind a chainlink fence at the school and they knew what was going to happen. They began to cry out to their neighbors and tell them goodbye with tears streaming down their faces. Orthodox Bishop Curel comes to investigate this thing he had heard about. He cries out, “Children, the Christians of this country will not allow this to happen to you. I will not allow this to happen to you. I will lay my body on these tracks and they will have to run over my body. This will not happen to you.” He and the people of that town began to speak out. Others began to speak out. Several members of Parliament stood up and spoke but they were relieved of their offices and never served again in politics. But the people refused to let the trains leave.
Months later, the German Ambassador to Bulgaria on June 7, 1943 writes this back to Berlin: “I am firmly convinced that the Ambassador and the Parliament wish and strive for a radical final solution to the Jewish problem. However they are hindered by the mentality of the Bulgarian people who lack the ideological enlightenment we have.” Instead they were enlightened by the teachings of Jesus who said, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And because the Christians of Bulgaria stood up against this while 6 million Jews were killed, of the 49,000 Jews of Bulgarai, all were saved and not a single one of them was killed by the Nazis because they were a people who took seriously the Golden Rule and had the moral courage to stand up for what they believe. Would you? Would you have the moral courage to say no, not here, now now, not ever?
