Jesus said to his disciples, “Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them.” (Luke 6.31-35)
While we may have taken a break from last week’s Sermon on the Plain, Rabbi Jesus did not, his words today a continuation of the sermon, gaining steam, in fact, as he amplifies his message beyond last week’s blessings and woes, calling his followers to live in the world in a way different from everyone else. Moving from the general to the specific, he offers multiple examples of his expectations, all summarized in one word–more. He expects more from us.
As we listen to his sermon, he seems to be reading our minds as we console ourselves with all the good we do, soothing our consciences and smoothly over the rough edges of our moral code. It is something we all do, comparing ourselves to others and deciding we’re good and decent people, not flunking in any major way an examination of our morals. After all, we’re pretty much the same as everybody else. Sure there are some who are better. But there are far more who are worse. So, we give ourselves a passing grade.
Without parsing words, Rabbi Jesus cuts through our subterfuges and calls out our game, making it clear that we’re not doing enough. Like unmotivated students who are content to get by with the minimum, we find ourselves challenged by the Teacher who says he expects much more from us, setting the bar above the norm, setting the gold standard as the way God does things, not the way the world does business.
While Rabbi Jesus never backs away from challenging us, he seems particularly intent on putting us to the test in this sermon. Under scrutiny from the Teacher’s eye as he looks at our homework, and quick to defend ourselves, we find him responding to our counter-arguments with a brutal, “So what? This is the best you can do?”
Here’s how it goes. “You love those who love you. So what? Even sinners love those who love them. You do good to those who do good to you. So what? Even sinners do the same. You lend money to those from whom you expect repayment. So what? Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount.” In other words, what the Teacher is saying is we’re underachievers so long as we do the minimum, just getting by, doing what everybody else does.
The problem, as the Rabbi sees it and explains it, is we’re using the wrong standard, or wrong measure, to use his words. While we’re content with grading ourselves on a scale with others, he wants us to grade ourselves on a scale with God. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” he says, not “Be just as merciful as the typical person might be.” Apparently, we’ve been comparing ourselves with the C student when we should have been comparing ourselves with the A student.
Back in the 1960s through 1980s, George Wallace served as Governor of Alabama, being elected to four terms, often winning on populist and segregationist platforms. In his 1963 inaugural address, he declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” An attempt was made on his life in 1972, resulting in paralysis in the lower half of his body for the rest of his life. While in the hospital recovering from the gunshot wounds, he was surprised one day to see his visitor was Shirley Chisholm, the first black congresswoman.
He had been a staunch opponent of hers for some time and asked her what “her people” would say about her visiting him in the hospital. She answered, “I know what they’re going to say. But I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone.” Those in the room said that her words brought Wallace to tears. Some years later, he apologized for his segregationist stance, declaring, “I was wrong. Those days are over and they ought to be over.”
In that moment in that hospital room, Representative Chisholm showed what Rabbi Jesus meant when he asked his followers to be overachievers. While most everybody else in Chisholm’s circle would not have given a visit to Wallace a passing thought, out of the realm of possibility, given his outspoken and hostile stance towards blacks, she did the opposite. She did more. She measured her actions, not in comparison to her fellow citizens, but in comparison to God. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
The problem, of course, is that we live in a world in which reciprocity is the means or measure by which we decide our actions or behavior. We help those who help us and we hurt those who hurt us. We give a Christmas gift comparable to the Christmas gift we have received. We don’t give if we haven’t received anything ourselves. It is the old “eye-for-an-eye” and “tooth-for-a-tooth” measure that was considered a decent person’s gauge for right living.
Until Rabbi Jesus stepped on Galilean soil and overturned the old way of looking at things, arguing there was a better way to live in the world, a way with God as the measure of decent behavior, not your typical person. Rejecting reciprocity, he boldly stated that his followers should go well beyond the eye-for-an-eye school of thought, not settling for returning an equal measure, but giving back a ridiculous measure. As we hear him say in the Sermon on the Plain, “If someone takes your outer garment, give them your undergarment as well.”
Naturally, we ask, “Who in the world would do that?” The answer, of course, is God. God would do that. As Rabbi Jesus makes clear, God is not cheap in his gift-giving. His gifts to us are “a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,” to use the Rabbi’s image of a basket of grain that is pressed down to make more room, shaken up so the grain settles to make more room, and, if that weren’t enough, more grain poured in so that it overflows from the top of the basket. This is the way God gives to us and it is the way we should give to others.
With that image in mind, we see that the current way we calculate our moral behavior is not going to pass the test. Returning equal measure for what one has received is not the way of God, even if it is the way of the world. The Galilean Rabbi puts before us the possibility of envisioning a different world, a world where calculation and measuring cups are done away with, instead a world where we give like God gives–without measure.
A world in which an eye-for-an-eye is the standard may have been an advance above the barbarian level, but it is not the standard for the Galilean, who envisions for us the possibility of a world where enemies are loved, not killed; where good is done to those who hate us, not evil; where curses are returned with blessings. The only question for us who follow him is whether or not we want this world. Or, are we content and satisfied with the world as it is, a world where everything is counted, competed, calculated, a world where everyone is judged, paid back, and hated in like fashion?
In 1985, a 26-year-old man named Chuck Collins came to public attention because he gave away an inheritance of $500,000 to several foundations. The great-grandson of Oscar Mayer, the founder of the food corporation that bears his name, Chuck decided he wanted to live in a different kind of world. Explaining how he came to his decision, he said that he learned about a mobile home park where the owner was going to sell the property, forcing all the tenants to move out. The only way they could keep their community was to raise $35,000 to buy the land themselves.
Collins considered giving them the money, but before he could the tenants came together and raised the money themselves. Those who couldn’t afford to pay anything were told not to worry. Their neighbors who could afford it would cover the cost for them. Everybody got to stay. Seeing how they worked together for the good of everyone, Collins said, “That’s the kind of world I want to live in.”
When he gave away his inheritance, his dad feared he was becoming a Marxist. Collins replied that he preferred being called a Gandhian or a Christian.” Since then, he has continued his work for the disadvantaged, studying and writing about income and wealth inequality and the racial wealth divide. Even today, he directs a program on inequality and the common good. He has not stopped envisioning a better world for everyone. What is isn’t good enough for him.
Listening to Rabbi Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain, no one could say this is an easy way. He didn’t say it was. What he said was it was the way of God, the way God wants the world to be, the way we should want the world to be. We shouldn’t be satisfied with less for this world, but instead our actions should reflect a world with more possibilities.
And that world is achievable if and when we decide we can do more. Saying we already love those who love us isn’t enough. So what. Even sinners do that much. Saying we do good to those who do good to us isn’t enough. So what. Even sinners do that much. Saying we give money to those who expect repayment isn’t enough. So what. Even sinners do that much. Always, the measure for our actions has to be radically different, if we are to follow the Galilean’s way, put before us starkly in his words, “Be merciful, as as your Father is merciful.”
When we are able to imitate the ways of God, then we will not hear the Rabbi say to us, “So what?”, but instead we will hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 