{"id":624,"date":"2016-04-05T20:10:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T20:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.brethren.org\/messenger\/?p=624"},"modified":"2022-10-05T16:45:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T16:45:26","slug":"what-jesus-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/potluck\/what-jesus-said\/","title":{"rendered":"What Jesus said"},"content":{"rendered":"

One sign of brilliance is the ability to take very complicated ideas,<\/strong> and summarize them in a way that is easy to understand. Jesus was a master at this. The \u201cgolden rule\u201d is one of several instances in the Gospels where Jesus focuses us on the heart of the matter with laser-like clarity.<\/p>\n

The golden rule comes at the end of a section in Matthew 7 that describes the character of our relationships with one another. Jesus describes times to point out the obvious faults in others (7:1-5) and times we are not to (7:6). We are able to be in relationship with one another like this only if we are imitating our Father in heaven, who not only answers our prayers but also gives us the very best (7:7-11).<\/p>\n

Jesus sums up this passage and the entire ethical side of our faith with these familiar words: \u201cIn everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets\u201d (Matthew 7:12). It is brilliant because it is so simple to understand.<\/p>\n

We live in a day when simplistic answers to complex problems abound. Every pronouncement\u2014from those made by presidential candidates to responses to local news stories made by a stranger with a smartphone\u2014seems crafted to settle the debate in a Facebook meme or 140-character tweet, as if the usefulness of an argument is determined by the number of \u201clikes\u201d it receives.<\/p>\n

Pronouncements like these don\u2019t really solve anything. While Jesus was truly brilliant, it turns out that people generally are not\u2014at least not as much as we think we are.<\/p>\n

This is a very interesting time for the church. Our society is faced with extremely complex problems that need attention beyond that of political ads or social media pronouncements. They are the types of issues that Christian ethics speaks to with great clarity: how we are to be in relationship with \u201cthe other.\u201d While the level of our public discourse is a problem, the issues facing us are ultimately ones of Christian mission.<\/p>\n

On any given day, we hear stories about race relations, public safety, immigration (legal and illegal), and the threat of Islamic terrorism, to name just a few. The challenges presented in any of these areas are complicated, and require much time and patience to address. Reducing any of them to catch phrases such as \u201cdon\u2019t resist arrest\u201d or \u201ca good guy with a gun\u201d or \u201cbuild a wall\u201d simply does not help.<\/p>\n

An important step in addressing the challenges of our day may come by listening to our own first response to any of them. Notice how often people respond to these issues by saying something like \u201cI\u2019m not racist\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m not responsible for that.\u201d Perhaps this is true. But our commitment to Jesus is not measured only by the things we don\u2019t do. It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve been reading the golden rule in the negative: \u201cDon\u2019t do to others what you don\u2019t want them to do to you.\u201d If that were the standard, we\u2019d all pass the test of faith spectacularly. But it isn\u2019t what Jesus said.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the golden rule is a measure of our commitment to mission. It invites us to be actively engaged with all kinds of people around us because, if the tables were turned, we\u2019d surely hope someone were paying attention to our struggles.<\/p>\n

And so we might ask ourselves a few questions of how the golden rule is shaping our mission: What kinds of relationships do we have with people of a different ethnic group, nationality, or religion? What are the challenging social or ethical issues facing our own community, and what is our congregation doing to address them? How are those relationships and knowledge of those changing our prayer, Bible study, and outreach?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We might ask ourselves a few questions about how the golden rule is shaping our mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,112],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-potluck","tag-potluck","tag-tim-harvey"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3559,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions\/3559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}