Beyond the Golden Rule

Question: if your friend or relative found themselves in a bind, would you help out? I’m betting you said, “Yes, of course.” I don’t think there is one person here who has not benefitted from someone else’s kindness and generosity. Business often works in the same way. Give your customers a break and you win their loyalty. We don’t forget favors, or at least we shouldn’t. Treat others the way you would want to be treated. That’s the golden rule, right?

But today Jesus says something a bit crazy. He wants us to go beyond the Golden Rule. Jesus says here that we must do good to our enemies, even if they’re ungrateful and selfish. And this is like touching a raw nerve for most people. How did you react when you heard Jesus say, “Love your enemies and pray for them”? I really want you to reflect on your reaction. What do you think of this teaching? What do you think about Jesus because of this teaching?

Being a Christian is not difficult because of what we believe about God. It is not difficult because churches require a high moral standard. Being a Christian is difficult because it requires that we go beyond moral standards; beyond the Golden Rule; beyond being nice to people who are nice to us. Jesus says we are to love our enemies, go good to those who hate us, to pray for those who would like to do us harm. The world says it is good business to be generous in your dealings with other people because someday they will be generous to you. Jesus says, expect nothing in return, at least not on this side of the grave. The Christian Life is not results-

oriented. We do not do this or that because we expect good results. It is not politics. It is not a matter of who you know. What Christians do is not determined by how it benefits us. Jesus says sinners think that way. What we do is a matter of who we have become. We are children of God.

Now we are at the heart of Christ-centered faith. The Son of God became human so that we humans could become sons and daughters of God. Jesus says that when we love our enemies we will be sons of the Most High. Not only are we recognized as God’s children, but people see we are brothers and sisters of Jesus. Children often act like their parents, when you get right down to it. Christians are God’s children and reflect who and what God is. God is not ungrateful or selfish. He does not live for Himself. He lives for you. He gave you the life of his Son. He gave you everything He was—everything he had. God did not do this only for people who beleiveed in Him already, but for the unbeliever and even those who hate Him. While we were still sinners, St. Paul writes, God loved us and gave Himself for us. At one time, we were all His enemies. Jesus did not pray for already holy people, but sinners. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

If you consider yourself a child of God, this is the prayer you must pray. Children act like their parents, so children of God forgive, and forgive, and forgive. And we’re not looking for paybacks for the good we do. God did more than any of us and he was not doing it for his own benefit. He was not waiting for something in return. He did it because he loves, and the love of God is redemptive. It is sacrificial. It gives and keeps no record of wrongs. God’s perfection is that He forgives even before those who are forgiven realize they have done something wrong. This is the hardest commandment for us to keep: love your enemies. But think about it: this is also a description of who God is. It is what God is all about. He loves His enemies. He is not their enemy. He has no enemies. That is what he was saying at the cross of Jesus.

Do you really understand this? Jesus did not suffer and die as He did to make pretty decent folk a little bit better. He suffered and died in agony of body and soul to turn enemies into friends; to change combatants into His children; to transform hate into love. At the cross of Jesus, God says, “See? I have no enemies. You may hate me, you may not care, but I love you, and I would do anything for you.” Nobody does this, except for Jesus. Nobody does this, except for people whose hearts have been melted by the weight of Jesus’ sacrifice. People like Corrie Ten Boom, for example.

Do you know about Corrie? She was a Dutch Christian whose family helped many Jews escape the Holocaust during World War II, and she was imprisoned for it,  finally being sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. She shares her story in the book “The Hiding Place.” Now let me tell you what happened after her release from that concentration camp.

Corrie Ten Boom writes: "It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the Nazi processing centre at Ravensbruck. Suddenly it all came back to me - the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, the pain-blanched face of my sister Betsie.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that he has washed my sins away!" His hand was thrust out to shake mine.

I stood there for what seemed an eternity with the coldness clutching my heart. Forgiveness is not an emotion. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so I breathed a silent prayer. ‘Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness’. ‘… I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened - into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that brought tears to my eyes. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on God’s. When he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, the love itself".

Now you can know a lot of facts and trivia about the Bible; you can remember large portions of the Small Catechism; you can live a very moral, decent life; but if you don’t understand the kind of love that would forgive a concentration camp guard, you don’t understand Jesus, and you don’t understand yourself. It’s only when your heart is meltedby the gospel that you get it. And what is that gospel? It is this: You have gone from being an enemy of God to being His friend and child through the cross of Jesus. And when he tells us to love our enemies, he gives, along with the command, the love itself.