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Pastor Johns Sermons |
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Niebuhr made this argument against the pacifists and isolationist who wanted to keep the US out of WW II. Niebuhr thought the US should fight against Hitler, and the Nazis, and he wanted to make that argument as a Christian theologian.
So the first thing that must be said about the Golden Rule, I believe, is that it applies primarily -- not to groups, to nations, to governments, or even to businesses-- but it applies to individuals.
If we shift our focus then, to individuals, what is the Golden Rule? On one level it simply makes sense. If you want to get along, go along. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. We can understand the Golden Rule a mutual self interest.
I suspect, however that Jesus had much more than self interest in mind. The big rub (the really tough part) of the Golden Rule is the part about enemies. Before we get to the Golden Rule in the text, before we get to this wonderful summary of the law we call the Golden Rule Jesus says some hard things:
"...love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you...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, give to everyone who begs from you, and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again..."
That's the hard part. That's the teaching that stands behind the Golden Rule, and makes it such a challenge, such a difficult challenge for all of us. It was a hard saying when Jesus originally said it, and it is no less a hard saying today.
And because it is such a hard saying, many commentators have tried to soften the blow. Many commentators have tried to show us that Jesus didn't really mean to say what he obviously seems to say.
Robin Kash, in commenting on this text believes that God miraculously gives us the power to be more loving to our enemies. Kash writes: "Loving enemies is, first of all, an act of faith...love of enemies ...demonstrates a habit of life rooted in believing. We should we can. We have it on Jesus' word."
I wonder. Is this the meaning of the Golden Rule, that Jesus some how gives us the power to love our enemies, even when they do not love in return and will probably never even respect us- much less love us in return? Maybe. Possibly.
Well that is one way to deal with our enemies. We can simply believe and try to act upon the belief that the evil will just dry up and blow away! Sometimes this happens, and when it does it can make us very happy.
But often that does not happen. Our enemies do not just blow away, evil does not just disappear. Hatred does not just evaporate.
In all these ideas about the golden rule there is still something missing for me. There is still a hardness and a difficultly in Jesus' words that we must deal with.
I have come to believe that when Jesus gave us the Golden Rule and the teaching on enemies that went along with that Golden Rule, he was enunciating an impossible ideal. He was telling us what kind of people we would be like if we were only children of the light, and not also (as we know ourselves to be) always also children of the darkness.
To love as we are called to love- in the Golden Rule- to deal with enemies as we are called to deal with them- in the Golden Rule- is to see clearly an ideal, an exalted ideal, a lofty ideal, and probably an impossible ideal.
That is why I chose this title for the sermon today: "The Impossible Ideal."
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