"The Golden Rule"

Matthew 7:7-12

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

October 16, 2005

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

I love to sing. I love to pour out my heart and soul in song. I need to do it, sometimes to make sense of the world.

One of my earliest memories was sitting on the lap of my great-grandfather while he sang me songs and bounced me up and down. My great grandmother was Claribel McLeish. She was the great niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. I carry her maiden name as my middle name. She would sit at the old upright piano that was at their farmhouse and play for us as we sat there mesmerized. Us four Donley kids would sing together around that piano and around other pianos. It was part of how we came of age.

Music reminds us of who we are and who we long to be. That’s why I love Sacred Harp music. You don’t have to do it pretty, you just have to do it. As one of our Sacred harp veterans says, "I would not cross the street to listen to Sacred harp music, but I’d cross the country to sing it." Old pianos don’t do well in farm houses, but I’d pass time and miles to hear Claribel McLeish play it again and feel that comfort and power in her frail body sitting next to me on the rickety bench.

My great grandparents were married for 74 years. They died with in weeks of each other in their late 90’s. They told us kids that they never fought. They had tried it once early in their marriage and decided they didn’t like it. They seemed to live by the simple maxim embodied in the golden rule: treat others the way you would want to be treated.

Just think what this world would look like if we all lived by the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you:

We would have no wars, for no one wants to be killed.

We would have no famine, for no one wants to be hungry.

We would have no governments taking away rights to education, because everyone want and education.

We would have adequate levies because no one wants to be flooded.

We would have quick responses to disasters, for no one wants to be left low and wet.

We would have no big corporation cutting back jobs so that CEOs can line their pockets, for everyone deserves a decent job.

We would have no prejudice or bigotry, for everyone wants equal respect.

We would have no ecclesiastical tyranny, for everyone wants access to God.

We would have trust of one another, because all want to be trusted and have trust in ourselves.

We would have no injustice, for everyone wants justice done to them. ‘

We could have mercy, because everyone wants mercy done unto them.

We would have love, because everyone wants to be loved.

Jesus said this little sentence is so important that three quarters of the Hebrew Bible, the Law and the prophets are contained in those words.

In ancient times, others had formed a negative form of the golden rule: "do not do to others…" But Jesus’ positive form requires more commitment from us. We are to do unto. We are to make an active contribution to another’s welfare and happiness. That’s a tall order, isn’t it?

It’s a whole lot easier to just get some advice about how we are to think about other people. But Jesus says that we are to actually get off our feet and do something for others as a sign of our faith. That’s the basic rule message of all of the law and the prophets.

It’s so simple, and yet so hard to see.

As they aged, my great grandmother lost many of her former abilities. Her mind was no longer sharp. She could be stubborn and she could drive those around her a bit mad with her demands. It was not until after my great-grandfather died that we found that she was incontinent. He simply lovingly changed the sheets each day. My favorite story was that my great-grandfather would wake up early in the morning, set the table, cook up a pot of oatmeal and then wake up his wife and say, "Cally, I’m hungry. Please get up and make my breakfast." She would then go into the kitchen and serve up the oatmeal, thinking that she had cooked it. When they finished, he complemented her on a great meal and told her not to bother with the dishes. She scolded him, "You better like it, I worked hard on it."

I hope we can all be blessed with that kind of love in our lives. I hope that when we get too old to know the difference, that someone who knows us well will show us respect and deference—treat us like we would like to be treated. We do that by doing it for someone else.

It’s hard to make it happen all of the time.

There are forces out there that make us want to look out for number one. Popular wisdom says that we ought to do unto others before they do unto us.

And yet, here we are. We are here to witness to a new dimension of ourselves, by remembering an old dimension.

So we come to church and we sing in order to connect with a lifeline beyond ourselves.

We come to church to remind us of what we have forgotten.

We come to church and we sing because we long for, we need that connection with ancient and powerful truth.

We come to church and we sing because we may.

After a while we do this because we must.

It’s impossible to be good and selfless all by yourself.

We need a community of accountability.

We need God.

We need healthy family

We need the power that comes from all of this so that we can continue to sing our songs, so that we can continue to care about others, so we can continue to make a positive difference in the world.