Luke 6:31
The Golden Rule. Stuck in the middle of this passage on loving your enemies. What an odd place. Or is it? Depends on your enemies, I guess.
Treat other people the way you want other people to treat you. Simple as that. It has been called the Golden Rule and hailed as the loftiest of ethical statements in the realm of human philosophical thought.
Also known as the “Ethic of Reciprocity”, sayings like it can be found in most of the great world religious, presented in either a positive form as Jesus puts it or in a negative form. Confucius, the famous Chinese philosopher who predated Jesus by five centuries, gave it in the negative: “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” Much has been made of the similarities or differences and how the Golden Rule can be applied as a universal rule. But Jesus’ statement here is best understood in the context in which it is found.
Jesus is speaking to his followers, laying out a whole new way of living to them, quite radically different from anything they have experienced to date. Jesus’ statement is not just a nice platitude to hang on your bedroom wall. It is something to be lived out and in the larger context of Jesus’ teachings taken as a whole.
To put it succinctly, Jesus wants us to be nice to those who are mean to us. Sometimes it is hard to know how to treat other people, even when they are our friends. It is especially difficult when we have to relate nicely to people who are downright nasty to us. How do we know how to treat other people?
Later Jesus tells his followers to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, we are to treat other people as we would treat ourselves. Give to other people the kind of treatment you would like to receive.
In the Book of Esther, there is the fascinating story of this guy named Haman who is extremely mean to Esther’s people, the Jews, and especially to Mordecai, Esther’s uncle. One day the king asks Haman, his right hand man, what he would suggest as a way to honor someone very special. Thinking the king is talking about Haman, Haman suggests some very wonderful ideas for so honoring. Haman knows how he himself wants to be treated. How infuriating then for Haman when he finds out the king had Mordecai in mind all along! So Haman, humiliated, has to parade Mordecai through the streets of the capital in royal pomp and ceremony.
Here in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is saying we are to do this on purpose. To think of how we wish to be honored and then honor our enemies and those who mistreat us in the same way. Whatever the specifics, it is the degree or kind of treatment Jesus is after, not the specifics.
Jesus wants us to treat those who mistreat us differently than they have treated us. He says this to his disciples because he knows they will indeed be mistreated because of his name. Sometimes they will also be mistreated because they deserve it. Either way, they are not to return “eye for an eye” as they have been trained all their lives. They are to give the other eye as well when the first one is taken. For, as Jesus is about to explain, this will set them apart from everyone else in the world.
What is so special about being a follower of Jesus? What makes Christians stand out? Not just their love for each other, which Jesus mentions on other occasions. Not just their love for the poor, the outcasts and the aliens, which Jesus talks about otherwise. But especially their love for those who are downright mean to them because they are followers of Jesus.
We win by letting them smack our other cheek, not by bashing theirs’ as they have hit ours. Okay, I’m as lousy at this Golden Rule business as the next guy. Keep talking Jesus and maybe I’ll finally get it.
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