Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
Contrary to most people’s morality, Jesus’ statement was not: “Do unto others,” period. In our day to day life, we forget about ethics, and just do what seems expedient for us at a time. We are interested in justice and fairness for ourselves, but we seem to neglect our responsibilities to others. Sure, we help our family, but people in general are usual detestable, so we detest them. However, we never see ourselves as worthy of shame or neglect. We forget others in the race to get what we want for ourselves.
The Basic Principle of Ethics
But what Jesus said is the basic principle of morality. It is a principle that existed before Jesus—Buddha and Rabbi Hillel gave versions of it before Jesus—and it was repeated by scholars, philosophers and moralists of every type and tribe. This principle is written on the hearts of every person.
We all know it, and will use it for our own defense, but not apply the standard to ourselves. When a little kid, our brother or sister would get a piece of candy, and we can’t have one—so what do we say? “It’s not fair!” In our simplistic speech, we are making a deep ethical statement—“My sibling is the equal to I. By whatever standard you apply to them, you should apply the same to me.” Thus, our tendency is to turn this moral principle on it’s ear for our own benefit—“Whatever benefit is done to others should be done to me as well.”
Jesus, however, is not giving us a principle to make sure we get what we need (any more than “love your neighbor as yourself” is a call to love ourselves better). Rather, Jesus recognizes that we will automatically give ourselves what we need. What we need to do is to stretch our duty of responsibility out to include more than just ourselves.
When we are young, we will demand that our needs are taken care of, and we see no one else, except, on occasion a weak friend or a little sibling. When we have a special relationship with another—a spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend—then we include them in our circle of responsibility, and we seek their benefit, as well as our own. When we have children, it stretches again. And some of us will decide to live this principle out in our profession, and we become medical professionals or some kind of social worker or minister. But in all of this, we put limits on our assistance—the nurse only helps the patients, the social worker helps only those she is paid to help, the minister only helps those of his congregation.
The basic principle of morality Jesus speaks about is stretching out the circle of responsibility to everyone, without exception. Jesus told us already in the Sermon on the Mount: love even your enemies, pray for those who have done evil to you. Help out the ones who spoke ill of you. Our responsibility is limited only by two things: the need of others, and our own resources.
How do we want to be treated?
When we look at living out Jesus’ statement—humanity’s basic statement of ethics—we need to think first, “how do I want people to treat me?” This doesn’t mean we look at what we want. We may want chocolate or revenge or sex, but that doesn’t mean that it is what everyone wants, and giving others what we would want for ourselves is the equivalent of a husband giving his wife a bowling ball for their anniversary—sized to his fingers. Rather than being a benefit to the other person, giving others what we want is often insulting.
Instead, Jesus wants us to consider how we want to be treated by others. What do we want that we know that everyone else wants as well?
· We want to be treated as a significant person
· We want to live without fear
· We want to live in peace
· We want to be given an opportunity to have joy
· We want to have our basics met
· We want people to help us when we are in need
· We want people to understand our motivation
· We want to have good relationships with others
· We want people to give us another chance when we make mistakes
These are things we all want, without exception. We spend most of our lives seeking out these things. We are often like the little kids we used to be, demanding that we have these things in our lives, and throwing a fit if we don’t get it. We want these things. And Jesus wants to make sure that we get them.
Turn it around
But Jesus is telling us to do more than consider our own needs. He wants us to take these things that we want and to apply it, not to ourselves, but to everyone around us. To follow God’s morality, we need to not limit assistance to ourselves, or a limited circle of friends and family—he wants us to apply the same standard to others as to ourselves.
Those who don’t give to others equally to themselves, they are morally broken, twisted. They expect everything for themselves, but give nothing to others. Most of us aren’t like that. We help others, when we can. When we think about it. Jesus, however, is telling us to take time to think about it. Now. These things that we want, are we really giving them to the people around us?
· Do others feel the respect from us that we expect from them?
· Do we give others the peace we expect them to give us?
· Do we give to those in need what we hope we would receive if we were in need?
· Do we try to understand people the way we expect to be understood?
· Do we forgive the way we want to be forgiven?
Igniting our moral imagination
In summary, Jesus is telling us to enact our moral imagination. He wants us to think about the other person—how would we respond if we were treated by others the way we treat them? How would we feel if others ignored our needs the way we ignore theirs? How would we act if others frightened us the way we frighten them with our anger? This is an exercise of realistic imagination, and it is something Jesus asks us to enact all the time, without exception.
We all want mercy and benevolent consideration. Let’s make sure we give it. Yes, we need to have our needs met. We all need to be helped sometime. There is a time to receive, there is a time to give—but it is better to give than to receive.
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