A Tarnished Rule

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

January 2, 2011

A Tarnished Rule

Matthew 7:12

“In everything do to others

as you would have them do to you;

for this is the law the prophets.”

There they were, Jesus and the twelve

gathered in that Upper Room,

gathered to eat the Passover meal together,

to do as Scripture had taught them,

to remember that night more than a thousand years earlier

when their ancestors in faith

had been released from bondage in Egypt,

to remember that night

when God had freed them from slavery.

Jesus looked around the table at his disciples,

the twelve he had chosen –

they were a motley crew,

each man in the dim light of that room

looking more like an unmade bed,

than a leader of the children of God.

Peter, whom Jesus may have called his rock,

but who also tried Jesus’ patience constantly,

and who would shortly deny even knowing him.

Matthew the tax collector,

a job whose chief qualification was a larcenous heart,

a willingness to put the squeeze on anyone

no matter what their circumstances.

 

James and John:

could either of them walk past a mirror

without looking at themselves?

Their immaturity and insecurity

so obvious in their concern for themselves,

how they were perceived,

their image.

Around the table, one flawed man after another

in that stuffy room

heavy with the smoke from the olive-oil lamps.

Who could possibly love such a group?

And yet Jesus did;

he loved them, every one of them.

He loved them even though

he knew that one would betray him

and the rest would flee from him within a matter of hours.

And so he took a loaf of bread,

and blessed it, and broke it

and gave it to them saying,

“This is my body given for you.”

And then he offered them the cup saying,

“This cup that is poured out for you

is the new covenant in my blood.”

(Luke 22:19)

“Take,

eat, drink:        

my brothers,

my friends.”

Each time we gather at the Lord’s Table

we remember that Last Supper

as we gather as Jesus did with his disciples.

Jesus is still at the head of the Table,

and we disciples fill in around the Table

each of us coming to this Table

in the same way that rumpled twelve did so long ago.

We come to this Table with all our strengths,

and we come to this Table with all our weaknesses,

all our flaws:

the obvious ones,

and the ones we try to keep well hidden.

Yet our flaws don’t matter to the One who invites us,

for we come to this Table loved by our Lord Jesus Christ,

loved without question, without condition.

Jesus, who knows us better than we know ourselves,

who sees us for what and who we really are,

stretches out his arms in welcome,

calling us to this Table:

“Come my sister;

Come my brother;

Come my friend.”

“Welcome”, he says to you and me.

“Welcome. Take a seat at my table.

Yes, I know your sins, your shortcomings,

even those things you try so hard to hide from me.

But nothing about you diminishes my love for you.

So come: take your seat.”

And we do, you and I,

take our seats,

and eat our meal together,

all of us together in community.

We gather to eat the bread of life,

and drink from the cup of salvation.

This spiritual meal nourishes us,

refreshes us,

renews us for service in the name of Jesus Christ,

readies us to go back out into the world,

out into the world,

taking Jesus out of the manger,

out of Christmas pageants,

out of sanctuaries and steepled buildings,

taking him out and through our actions and words,

“letting Jesus show,”

(Buechner)

show in all his glory to all the world.

You and I show Jesus to the world,

let Jesus show,

by following our text,

that simple sentence which we call the Golden Rule,

that rule many, perhaps most, of us learned in kindergarten:

if you want someone to be nice to you,

you’d better be nice to them;

if you want someone to share their toys with you,

you’d better learn to share your toys with them.

It is a Rule we call the Golden Rule

but which probably should be called the Tarnished Rule;

tarnished because we don’t live it,

tarnished because we don’t let Jesus show

as Jesus wants us to.

We followers of Christ,

we can be so judgmental,

so self-centered,

so self-righteous,

so determined to define Christ in ways that suit us

that fit us,

transforming Christ to our needs,

rather than letting Christ transform us.

We fail to live by the Golden Rule,

when we fail to treat others as we want to be treated:

when we fail to treat others with kindness,

with dignity, with respect.

with goodness, with empathy;

when we fail to treat others with compassion.

Compassion is the foundation of the Golden Rule,

compassion – putting ourselves in the shoes of another,

making an effort to understand how they live,

what they think,

why they think and act as they do.

The writer Karen Armstrong has developed a

 “Charter for Compassion”

(http://charterforcompassion.org/)

as a way to transcend denominations, faith practices,

languages, cultures, national borders

with a call to live by the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule is not unique to Christians, of course;

we can find variations on the same theme

in almost every faith, every culture

going back even before the birth of Christ.

To live a compassionate life is not just being nice,

putting a smiley face on our actions,

telling everyone to “have a nice day”.

To live a compassionate life is to live a life of action,

of outreach.

The Charter puts it this way:

“Compassion impels us to work tirelessly

to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures,

to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world

and put another there,

and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being,

treating everybody,

without exception, with absolute justice,

equity and respect.”

                                            

To live by the brightly burnished gold of Jesus’ teaching,

to live a truly compassionate life is not easy. 

We find the Golden Rule in Matthew’s Gospel

near the very end of the Sermon on the Mount,

spoken by Jesus not as one last rule to write down,

but more as a summary of the almost two thousand words

he had spoken of how he calls us to live.

In Luke’s version of the Sermon,

his Sermon on the Plain,

we find the Rule at the end of an almost

impossible charge to us from Jesus:

“But I say to you that listen,

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.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them.”

(Luke 6:27ff))

As we begin our New Year together,

our 144^th year as Manassas Presbyterian Church,

let’s polish the Golden Rule,

burnish it brightly as we recommit ourselves

to lives of compassion in the name of Jesus Christ.

Lives of compassion

letting Jesus show in our every act,

our every word.

Our host invites us to his Table

but before we eat,

he would teach us:

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love one another as I have loved you.”

This is more than the Law and the Prophets;

This is the Word of the Lord

from the Word who is Lord.

AMEN