Reflection on Matthew 7:12

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Today’s Gospel is part of the Sermon on the Mount wherein Jesus continues to teach his disciples how to live under the reign of God now so as to be part of the Kingdom of God when it is finally established in full. In this Gospel passage, Jesus refers to what is commonly known as the Golden Rule: Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. The Golden Rule is the injunction to treat others as you want to be treated. Now, centuries before the emergence of Jesus, different versions of the rule had been formulated in a negative sense and circulated around. One of them is found in the book of Tobit 4:15: “Do not do to anyone what you yourself hate.” Shortly before Jesus was born, a prominent Jewish teacher called Hillel, had taught, “Whatever is displeasing to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, the rest is the explanation.” The problem with the negative formulation or composition of the Golden Rule is that it might be taken as self-interest. It may seem that the reason why you should not harm another is to prevent being harmed in return. And if that is the case, then it cannot be the entire law and the prophets. Moreover, the negative formulation of the Golden Rule has some degree of passivity in it. Christians are doers of the word; action people, people who have expertise in the virtue of love and compassion.  

Jesus’ reference to the Golden Rule is framed in a positive sense: “Do to others…” It is not enough to be passive and avoid doing hateful and harmful things to others. Authentic disciples of Jesus take initiative and act for the good of others. We are not called simply to avoid sin but to do the good. Avoiding sin is good, but not good enough. We are called to be doers of good deeds. Jesus is very much interested in how we treat others. It is not surprising that he said that our final judgment will be based, not so much on how much sin we avoided, but on how much we treated the other (Matthew 25:31:46). 

So, the proper rule, the most Golden Rule is to Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. We all know how we like to be treated. We want to be respected, loved and valued. If we err, we want to be forgiven. If our best efforts are not good enough, we want others to be patient with us. If we are really angry about something, we want those around us to understand and reason with us. If we experience injustice, we want the society to know about it and to speak up on our behalf in order to stop the injustice. If we cry, we want to be heard. If we fall through the cracks, we want others to give us a helping a hand. If we are hungry and can’t get food, we hope and pray that someone  remembers us. If we or our children or grand-children decide to live overseas, we want the government and the people of their host nations to be kind and neighborly to them.  If we are in the midst of people who are of different race, ethnicity, gender, religion etc. we want them to be respectful and to treat us as fellow human beings. If we are stopped by a police officer, we want to be treated nicely, respectfully, and the reason or reasons why we were stopped resolved amicably without being shot and killed. Guess what? All of these and many other treatments we want from others, Jesus challenges us today to do likewise to others. Treat others as you wish to be treated. It is such a simple rule but a sweeping one for that matter. If we don’t treat others as well as we want to be treated, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ invites us to accept metanoia— (change of mind).