Transcript
Do to others as you would have them do to you. Please be seated.
Do you ever have road rage? Maybe not. Road rage may be road fits. Road ire. Like, not a whole huge big blow up, but maybe hands going up in the air or eyes rolling or even tap tap on the horn. Usually because the car in front of you is going way too slow. And I mean the speed limit is 45. Why are you going 20?
Or maybe the car in front of you really just needs to pick a lane and stay in it, because while you’re swerving all over the place, I can’t even get around you and let you do your distracted driving thing. Or maybe the car in front of you is approaching an intersection and literally the light is green. Why are you slowing down? Why are you stopping? The light is green. Yeah, we all know the truth. Now, I wonder if you’ve ever been the distracted driver.
Here’s the thing, though. Being a distracted driver doesn’t mean you’re trying to text and drive at the same time. None of us have ever done that. Maybe your wife is in the back seat in labor, and you really need to get to the hospital, so the cars around you won’t mind as you swerve in and out of traffic, because otherwise they’re going to be watching this baby get born on the side of Mercury Boulevard.
Or maybe you just got a call from your doctor and the news isn’t good, and you really should keep your eyes on the road. But what does this mean for your wife and your children? And you have to keep working and oops, how are you supposed to stay in your own lane when you’re dealing with the serious news? They won’t mind that you just change lanes without an indicator.
Or maybe it’s the first time you’re driving to this one place, let’s say to a job interview or a play date for your little ones, and you have the GPS on and you totally looked at the map beforehand. But that road back there should not have been under construction because that’s where you needed to turn. And now you can’t figure out where you are or how to get to where you need to go. So you’re just going to slow down at this intersection to check the street signs and all that light was green. Oops. We’ve all been there.
Maybe not those exact examples I just gave you, but I can almost guarantee all of us who have driven, drive now, or are learning to drive know exactly what I’m talking about on both sides. The ones who are just trying to get to where they’re going safely, when would really like it if those who didn’t know how to drive would just stay off the roads, and the ones who are distracted or lost or unsure or freaked out or whatever. Interestingly, this is common in other areas as well. In fact, this dynamic can apply in multiple settings. The observer and the doer dynamic.
Have you ever been grocery shopping and accidentally ran your cart into someone? Now, unless you’re really vengeful and that person really looked like your ex-boyfriend, it was probably an accident. Or have you ever been grocery shopping and someone ran their cart into you? They were not attacking you intentionally, being rude and trying to hurt you. I promise.
But this dynamic is very common. It’s actually considered to be a bias, something that makes us see the world with a bit of a tilt or a bent to it, ultimately shifting reality to match our perceived assumptions. In this case, when we think the other person, the driver or the grocery shopper, the random stranger is doing something to intentionally be wrong or bad or evil or hurtful because we think they are wrong or bad or evil or hurtful people. But when we do it, it’s just because we’re distracted and have too much on our minds and have way too many things going on and just missed our turn or whatever. This is called actor observer asymmetry.
It is when we attribute the behavior of others more likely to that person’s personality, rather than the situational factors. And when we attribute our own behavior to particular situations. And this is really close to what Jesus is preaching about in today’s gospel reading. No, I don’t mean Jesus is preaching about road rage. I mean Jesus is preaching about how we perceive the other.
The other that’s in quotes is another sociological psychological philosophical term. The other is anyone who is perceived as distinct or different from ourselves, culturally or in group settings. The other becomes anyone who doesn’t look like us or think like us, or talk like us, or whatever else might be a thing we use to divide. The other is how we determine who is allowed in our group and who is not.
So combine this concept of the other with the actor observer asymmetry bias. And now you can maybe start to understand a bit about our world today and not just today, but also the very existence of a world in which humans live. When forever, there have been others and assumptions that others, those who are not part of our group, clearly are not the same as us, clearly have personality defects, and that’s why they live like they do and think like they do and behave like they do. But we, the in-group, those included, we are good people who sometimes have to do bad things when the situation calls for it.
A better understanding of our world, not just today, even some 2000 years ago when Jesus was preaching this sermon. By the way, this is the sermon on the plain. Luke’s version of the sermon on the Mount. I mentioned that last week. This comes just after the blessed are-and woe-to statements I preached on last week.
There are a few more pieces to this whole big sermon, but we won’t get to them unfortunately. So if you’re really curious, go read Luke chapter six, verses 20 through 46. That’s the entire passage referred to as the sermon on the plain. It’s Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.
In this section, though, that we read today, Jesus literally preaches the Golden Rule. He preaches it in Matthew two. And lest you think it is a Jesus original, it’s not. It’s found in ancient Egyptian literature dating back to 2000 years before Christ. It’s found in ancient Indian literature, dating back to 400 years before Christ.
It’s found in ancient Greek and Roman literature, sources dating from half a century before Christ to half a century after Christ. It’s found in Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism. This idea do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s so prevalent that it has become a key tenant to the very definition of living in civil society, not just our society today. Also, clearly 4000 years of society. Treat others how you want to be treated, the very definition of civil society.
And yet it’s also a call to live in a way that is contrary to human nature. To see the other and give them grace. To forgive them even before you understand the reason for their actions, to love them even as they look and act and sound like the perceived other. An outsider from your own group, honor and cherish and recognize them as another human being made by God in God’s image, worthy of love, worthy of grace.
I’m reading a book by Philip Yancey. It’s called What’s So Amazing About Grace? A play on that hymn we all know. It’s an older book that I found on my bookshelf. I have no idea where it came from. Probably someone read it, liked it, and gave it to me.
As originally published in the late 1990s, and it’s still very relevant 30 years later. In the book, Yancey tells the story of a conference of religious leaders back in the early 20th century gathered, trying to determine if there was a belief that was specifically unique to the Christian faith. As the story unfolds, the religious leaders are getting more and more animated and more and more stuck comparing Christian tenets to other religions and finding they overlap in so many ways the virgin birth, God made man, creation at the beginning, etc., etc. until, that is, C.S. Lewis joins the conversation.
He also was an Anglican or Episcopalian, as I claim him, and he walked into the group and answered, oh, that’s easy. It’s grace. Grace is what makes Christianity unique. Grace is God’s love for each of us unconditionally and freely.
We don’t have to do certain things. We don’t have to live certain ways. We are created in God’s image. Adopted children of God, beloved by our creator. So much so that God gave God’s only son to die for us.
And us and we isn’t just those of us sitting here in the pews or in any pew across the country, around the world, us and we is greater than that. It is the universal human. All people, those we like and those we don’t like, those we trust, and those who don’t look like us or act like us, or sound like us, or live like us. In other words, it is both us and the other.
Jesus ends his sermon with four commands do not judge, do not condemn, forgive, and give not just to the people you like or the people you know, or the people who look and think like you. To everyone, to all of God’s creation. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Not reactionary, revolutionary love, forgive, give grace.
It’s not easy. But the gospel is not called the good- gospel is not called the easy news. It is called the good news. And the good news is that even when we fail, even when we fall to our own temptations to exclude others, God will still desperately love, forgive, and give grace to each and every single one of us.
It’s the least we can do to try to return the favor. Jesus says, do unto others as you would have them do to you. So I invite you to see God in everyone, just as God is seen in you. Amen.