So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them…
Jesus, Matthew 6:12
The Third Discourseman
These words are among some of the most famous of Jesus’, and is arguably the most well known ethical principle ever, the so-called ‘golden rule’. The simplicity and profundity of it surely leaves even the most hardened hater of Jesus’ teaching admitting that it sounds like pretty sound advice. If you wanted to build an entire system of morality and ethics for dealing with people from just one command, you’d struggle to find one better.
Or would you? Many years ago, in a school R.E. lesson, I thought that perhaps I could do better. The thought struck me. ‘Isn’t this the wrong way round? Shouldn’t it be do to others as they would have you do to them, not as I would have them do to me?’. In defence of teenage me, there is some sense to this. After all, if I love peanut butter sandwiches and my friend is allergic to peanuts, then the most kind thing to do is not to make them a peanut butter sandwich. And we could say similar things about a million other different actions, which I would be very happy for people to do to me, but someone, somewhere, would not want it to be done to them. Surely when we’re thinking about how to treat other people, we should have their wishes in mind? After all, they’re the ones who have to eat the proverbial sandwich.
Of course this issue is hardly insurmountable. Whilst specifically I’d quite like it if someone randomly fed me a peanut butter sandwich (assuming I was hungry, and that I knew the person well enough for such an action to be somewhat appropriate), I clearly wouldn’t like to be force-fed something I hate the taste of, let alone something that might kill me. And I wouldn’t want other people to treat me in a way that ignores what’ve told them about my preferences. So I think it’s reasonable to say that following Jesus’ rule doesn’t mean doing things to people that they don’t like just because you like them. After all, you wouldn’t want other people to do that to you…
So are both versions basically the same? Did Jesus just flip a coin and decide to phrase it his way, not mine? What, if anything, is the difference? There is a crucial one, which I think actually cuts against the way we often think about doing good to others, and shows why Jesus is the greatest moral teacher ever and I was just a slightly clueless kid in an R.E. lesson. There’s one important category of action that Jesus’ rule allows and mine does not- action that I know (or suspect) someone else won’t like, but I believe is what’s best for them. Action that might make them angry, uncomfortable, offended or hurt, but which is really for their good. Action that I would want them to do for me if they had to.
Think of the parents putting to bed a child that just wants to keep playing videogames. Think of protesters confronting a regime that they believe is wrong. Think of times when you’ve told someone that you think what they’re doing is unkind. None of these could be done if your rule of life was ‘Do to others as they would have you do to them’. And yet they’re all, at times, necessary. They’re all, at times, the right thing to do.
At the heart of whether you prefer my rule or Jesus’ is this- are people always good judges of what’s best for them? Should people have the right to determine for themselves how other people treat them, all the time? Can we ever be wrong about what we think is best for us? Jesus would I think answer ‘No, no, yes’. Jesus doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that just because someone is the intended object of a particular action, they’re the ones who know most clearly whether it’s good for them. These words come as part of a sermon addressed to his disciples. And to them Jesus says ‘It is you, the one who has heard and followed my teaching, that is to discern what’s best for others. What you would want if you were in their position.’ And of course this will mean being caring, understanding, sympathetic etc, because again, that is how we’d want others to treat us! But it may sometimes mean doing things that they don’t want us to do, but we know are right.
That Jesus gave us the command his way round is important as it allows us to do all the above examples of ‘tough love’. But as Christians, it gives us even more crucial permissions. We will often have to make a stand on moral issues that goes against what most people believe, because we believe in a God who has objectively set forth good and evil, right and wrong. We will often want to tell the gospel to people we’re pretty sure don’t want to hear it. To be told the truth about theology and ethics is of course something we’d want others to do to us, even if it challenges us in our wrong-thinking. But it’s not something that everyone will want to be told.
How great then, that it was Jesus and not teenage me giving this sermon. That Jesus’ ‘golden rule’ does not leave us simply pandering to the wishes of those around us, irrespective of how harmful, unthought-through or immoral those wishes might be. Instead, as those who have Jesus’ teaching, who are united to him by his Spirit, we can take on the thrilling and daunting task of doing to others what we wish they would to us, even if that sometimes means not doing what they wish we would.
The Four Discoursemen 