191 A Really Golden Rule

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “A Really Golden Rule”, originally shared on February 17, 2022. It was the 191^st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

    Some people say that “The Golden Rule” is “Whoever has the gold, rules”. Today, we’re going to look at a really Golden Rule that goes beyond wisdom to something way better.

   Do you remember the actor, Burt Reynolds? He lived from 1936-2018. He did the “Gunsmoke” TV show, “Smokey and the Bandit”, “The Longest Yard” and a bunch of other movies, most as the leading man, until his career faltered.

   He once described the five stages of fame as: Who is Burt Reynolds? Get me Burt Reynolds. Get me a Burt Reynolds type. Get me a young Burt Reynolds. Who is Burt Reynolds?

   He also did a movie called, “The End”, in which a man despairs of life and decides to kill himself by swimming out into the ocean until he drowns (it was a “dark” comedy :-\). So, he’s swimming and as he’s swimming, he thinks about how much he enjoys swimming, how good the sun feels on his back, and how much fun people are having at the beach, and he decides life isn’t so bad. He decides that he wants to live, and he starts swimming back to the shore.

   But now, he’s exhausted. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to make it back, so he starts praying, “Lord help me get back to the shore. I’m sorry for what I’ve done and if you let me get back, I’ll change. I’ll keep all the 10 Commandments. I won’t kill. I won’t commit adultery. I won’t… I won’t.

   OK, I’ll learn all the ten commandments!”

   So, for all those who aren’t sure if they can remember all the ten commandments, as a public service, I’m going to teach you the ten commandments. As a song. Using a tune that might be familiar to most of us.

(sung to the Flintstones theme song)

Learn the

Ten Commandments.

They're the rules which come from God above,

Learn the

Ten Commandments.

They're the rules which are the rules of love.

God's first, don't serve idols, do not swear;

Keep the Sabbath, show your folks you care;

don't kill, cheat, steal or lie;

And don't envy what belongs to

Your friends and neighbors.

Be grateful unto God!            

(posted online in 1998, the old days, from Group Publishing, Children’s Ministry magazine)

   BTW, if you want to really learn the 10 Commandments, I’ll put a link in the more info or comments section for a free digital copy of a Martin Luther’s catechism that will list them and their explanations, along with other basics of the Christian Faith.

   The 10 Commandments were given to Moses by God on Mt. Sinai and Moses presented them to the people as part of the Covenant God made with his people, the Children of Israel, as they escaped slavery in Egypt and traveled through the desert to the land God had given to their ancestors, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Those 10 grew to 613 listed in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. They were given to define Israel as the people of God.

   The people of God had a mixed history of keeping those commandments and living as God’s people. So, when God became flesh in Jesus Christ, he didn’t come to abolish those laws, but to pay the price for people not keeping them with his suffering and death on the cross.

   Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. But Jesus didn’t speak with God and bring commandments down to the people; he spoke to the people directly.

   Much of that material is also found in the Gospel of Luke, in Jesus’ lesser-known Sermon on the Plain, in a more specific form. In Luke, Jesus prays all night on a mountain. Then he comes down and calls his 12 disciples in the morning, and when a large crowd forms around him, he gives his sermon directly to the people on a level place.

    The reading from the Gospels for this Sunday includes part of that sermon from Jesus. But before we look at that, let me just say a couple things about the cultural world in which that sermon was preached.

   First, Jesus lived in an honor and shame culture. A person’s honor and shame within their community was very important. Appearance was often more important than reality. Why did Joseph, being a good man, decide to divorce Mary, his betrothed, quietly when he learned that she was pregnant? He could have had her killed. Honor and shame. Why was Jesus first miracle changing water into wine because the host of a wedding feast had run out of wine such a big deal? The host would have been shamed before the community. Why was Jesus always knocking heads with the Pharisees, a group almost everyone looked-up to? Honor and shame. The Pharisees had become more concerned with what people thought about them than with what God thought.

   Second, Jesus and the people of Israel lived under the occupation of the Roman army, and they chafed under the burden of nearly 750 years of unbroken occupation, from the Assyrians to the Babylonians, to the Persians, to the Greeks, to now the Romans. They were humiliated, they were shamed, and they believed that they should be an independent country, great as they were under King David.

   The reading for this Sunday contains a lot of things that are unnatural to us and even weird. Here’s a part of it, in Luke 6:27-38,

²⁷ “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

   Jesus turned everything that most people in Israel believed about how the world works on its head. Are we that different?

   Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain was given to define the life of God’s people not with more laws but with a description of what a life lived in of a relationship of faith in the one true living God looks like.

   So, when Jesus says things like, “Love your enemies,” “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also,” or “lend, expecting nothing in return”, it does not sound like a life that is neither honorable nor one seeking political independence.

   When Jesus sums this up by saying things like “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, the Golden Rule, or “Be merciful, just has your Father is merciful”, these seem like philosophies of life that did not come from anybody’s practical experience.

   When people speak of “practical experience”, however, they are usually speaking of life without Christ. Jesus came to bring new life and we receive that life in the power of the Holy Spirit, like streams of living water that well up from within us to eternal life.

   When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment in the Law he said, in Matthew 22:37-40,

³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

   Those two are very much like one another. If we love God, we will love our neighbors. That's the nature of the Christian life. Jesus came to give us a relationship with him that would lead to a certain kind of life, that would lead to Life for all people.

   Jesus said, regarding the commandments, or “the Law”, in Matthew 5:17-19,

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

   Our task in life is not to make ourselves better, but to recognize that that we need a Savior. The Law plainly shows us that need. The Gospel shows us that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. What we do, and how we treat one another come in response to that great gift of God. What we do is what we get to do, not what we have to do, because the Law is in our heart.

   We have received salvation in Jesus Christ. We have experienced what is good, given for us. Therefore, we do to others as we would have them do to us.