The Golden Rule - Matthew 7:12 Series

I wonder if this isn’t one reason why people develop prejudices against people from other cultures or who are different in some way. If they are human beings they should be honored as such. But if you just take everyone from that group and make them sub-human, that saves you the hard work of learning what life is like for them. And you can just treat them like animals instead of human beings.

Or in some cases it is not prejudice so much as just neglect. You see someone who is developmentally disabled, mentally handicapped or whatever, and they are acting in strange ways, and you do not know what they are thinking or how much they can understand, and so you do not know what to say or how to act, so you just ignore them.

The reason we are more prone to mistreat those who are different is because of laziness. Loving them requires too much effort. But the Golden Rule does not let us off the hook just because the other person is different.

And understanding people who are very different really is not as hard as we make it out to be. Let me tell you something about those people who are different from you. If you feel you cannot relate to a seventy year old man from another culture, or someone who is disabled, or someone with a different skin color than yours, or whatever – let me just tell you what those people are like. Let me tell you about Asian people and black people and Hispanic people and middle-eastern folks and inner-city types and Democrats or Republicans or whoever it is you find so impossible to relate to. Even teenagers. Here is what they are like: they are just like you. They have strong and weak desires, just like you have. They have fears and anxieties. They frequently come to wit’s end in exasperation. They run out of strength and motivation, just like you. They long for fulfillment and happiness. And just like you they are prone to seek that fulfillment and happiness in temporal, earthly things that always disappoint. They have guilt over their sin. They struggle with confusion and uncertainties about the future and they agonize over hard decisions. And just like you they do not enjoy being ignored, they do not like being treated like an animal, they do not like being dismissed or marginalized or looked down on or gossiped about or stared at or made fun of or laughed at or neglected. And just like you they enjoy being loved. They like being paid attention to in appropriate ways, and they like kindness. They like smiles much more than frowns. They like being important in your eyes rather than being worthless in your eyes. They are exactly like you! The Golden Rule really is not that hard to understand.

Opposite of vengeful flesh

The Golden Rule is so different from our natural inclinations. Our natural response is to deal with others in the way they deal with us. If they are short with us, we are short with them. If they are picky or judgmental with us, we start to do that toward them. If they don’t cut us any slack when they are on top, when the roles are reversed we don’t cut them any slack. The rule of the flesh is “Deal with others the way they deal with you.” But the Golden Rule is, “Deal with others the way you would like them to deal with you.” The reason we need to apply the Golden Rule is because the people around us are not. Jesus cannot say, “Just treat people the same way they treat you” because He knows they are not going to treat you well. So you cannot make their treatment of you the standard for how you treat them; you have to make your desires for yourself the standard for how you treat them. If you do marriage counseling you find that the goal of most people is to get their spouse to apply the Golden Rule. But the Golden Rule is for you. And it is for you to apply at precisely the moment when the other person is not applying it.