Sunday, May 29, 2011

Doing to others as you would have them do to you

Matthew 22:34-40; Matthew 7:12

The Jewish people had received the holy law from God, and their prophets and then scribes and rabbis had interpreted it for them. And, those who wanted to do God’s will learned the law and tried their best to understand it and apply it to all of life. But, as it goes in life, it is not always easy to figure out how a law should apply in a particular situation. And, sometimes certain laws seemed to conflict with other laws.

And, so the Jewish scribes and experts in the holy laws debated with each other often about how to apply the law to all the varying situations human beings encounter in life. Sometimes the people tired of hearing these debates, but when the Jewish people heard Jesus teach, things became clear. As they said: “he teaches as one with authority, not as our scribes and lawyers.”

Jesus simplified and clarified the meaning of the law for the people. He knew the spirit of the law and so when he interpreted the law of God, he illuminated and clarified and set free by the spiritual understanding that he had.

In many ways, Jesus unified the true experience of God with the true understanding of scripture. And, Jesus’ understanding of God included an understanding of human beings as well. As he looked at the way the Jews were observing the Sabbath day, and how their ideas about the Sabbath were so rigid that they had lost the point of it, he said: “The Sabbath was created to serve human beings; human beings were not created to serve the Sabbath.” He had cured a man on the Sabbath, and they criticized him for being at work and not at rest. His disciples who were very hungry picked some heads of grain from the field and ate them, and they criticized them for gathering on the Sabbath and not resting. Jesus gave an example from David’s time in which they had eaten the holy bread on the Sabbath because they were hungry.

There were so many areas of life and religious practice that Jesus brought light to. And, then he sets forth the heart of the law right here in our passages today.
You shall love the Lord your God . . .
You shall love your neighbor as yourself . . .
And, he says: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

This is Jesus’ way of making very clear what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
This is a very short summary of the meaning of the law and the prophets, but it is a statement that goes very deep. Love of neighbor requires us to try and put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes… to imagine yourself in his or her position and think of how you would want to be treated if you were in that situation.
This really requires some imagination. This requires moral imagination or compassion. It is largely our capacity to imagine our neighbor’s situation that determines whether we can love them. And, this kind of imagination comes from a certain humility towards ourselves and compassion or concern for others. Where do these spiritual characteristics come from? How do they begin in a human being? I guess we learn humility and compassion from our relationship to God and our relationships with other people. I don’t know where else we would learn these deep lessons.

In 1st John, it says: “We love because God first loved us.” We are able to love when we have a sense of humility about us, and when we have a sense of concern for others. Jesus showed us true human humility and true human love in the way that he lived and in the way that he died. And, Jesus showed us the love of God for us. This love of God for us brings us to humility. This love of God for our fellow human beings inspires love within us for others. “We love, because God first loved us.”

Jesus shows that it is the will of God not to simply keep us from hurting each other, but to get us to commit ourselves to lives of helping each other and encouraging each other. Surely, this is how we would like to be treated by others – to have them committed to helping us along our way in life.
But, if we are to do God’s will and do unto others as we would have them do unto us, how are we to figure out in this and that situation what to do?
If I am to imagine myself in the other person’s situation and imagine how I would like to be treated in that situation, how am I to really do that? I can’t get inside another person’s mind. I can’t know all that that person has been through. How can I really understand their perspective?

It really takes an open heart to carry out this kind of imaginative act. It really takes moral imagination, which is really compassion at work. Humility and compassion are at the root of being able to sympathize with others and see things to some extent from their perspective.

Now, it can be presumptious to think I understand someone else’s situation too well, but if I don’t make the effort to imagine that situation, then I will never come close to understanding another. If I never get close to understanding another person, then I will never get close to loving them. With conversation we can correct misperceptions and increase understanding. With calm, honest conversation: speaking and listening, back and forth.

Where there is a mutual desire to really understand between people and a willingness to share perceptions and correct perceptions – where that is, I am convinced a real understanding comes, and real love between neighbors occurs. Not perfect love of neighbor, but real love – all God ever asked of us.

Last week, a client of the Public Defender’s Office walked in the office door. I asked her if I could help her, and she immediately started ranting and raving about how one of the attorneys in our office was not doing a good job representing her. In fact, the woman said: “she is conspiring with the DA to get me charged with a felony.” I had finished all my court work for the day, so I took some time and began asking her questions about what she had seen and heard in court earlier that day. As she told her story, I started to see where the upset was coming from. But, I also understood that her attorney was doing a good job, but it was hard to understand that from how things looked today in court. I took some more time to be sure I understood what she had seen and heard and how she understood these events. Then, I went through and told her how I understood them and why. I explained to her that actually what her attorney had done was proper, and the DA had gotten mad about it because she didn’t understand the ethical rules for lawyers. Then, she started to see that her attorney was fighting for her. She began to understand some other things too as we talked. I could see that. But, if I hadn’t taken the time to hear her whole story, I wouldn’t have been able to explain to her what was going on. And, if I hadn’t understood how things looked from her perspective, she wouldn’t have listened to me. But, it takes time and patience and a lack of defensiveness to pull this off, and I don’t always have those virtues at my beck and call! This situation was probably easier to address, because I was not personally involved in it. But, we need to find a way to do this even when, and especially when we are personally involved in a situation.

Now, I could tell you ten stories from the past two weeks in which I haven’t exercised this type of patience and effort to see things from the other’s perspective. But, I thought I’d tell you a story where there was some success instead of dwelling on failures. We’ve all had enough of those.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That takes some real humility and some real compassion and some real moral imagination – imagination of the heart that has room for others in the deepest places of the heart.

At church, at home, at work, with our next door neighbor . . . We just need to take more time with each other to establish clarity with each other about how we see things and why. And, each person needs to practice that creative act of moral imagination in which we are trying to understand what it is like to be in the other’s shoes. Where there is patience and this act of moral imagination, understanding comes, and where there is understanding, there is love. I don’t think there is any real love where there is not some real understanding – I didn’t say perfect understanding, just real understanding, that’s all God ever asked of us. Amen.

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