Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
1 The Lord spoke to Moses,
saying: 2 Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to
them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy… 15
You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor
or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. 16 You shall
not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the
blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 You shall not hate in your heart
anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt
yourself. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your
people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Hillel the Elder sounds like a
character from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, perhaps an aged wizard with a long grey
beard and crooked fingers. He is, however, perhaps one of the most important
figures in Jewish history. He lived to be around one hundred years old, dying
about ten years after the birth of Jesus. He was a renowned scholar of the
Torah (the Law), a wise sage who founded the House of Hillel to train other
Jewish sages. His influence on Jewish religious culture can still be witnessed
today in everything from the use of the Mishnah and the Talmud to the
traditions of the Passover Seder.[1]
Hillel may be best known though for his summation of the Torah into one
expression of just a few, simple sentences: "That which is hateful to you,
do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation;
go and learn."[2]
Karen Armstrong sounds like just another name you may come across in the
white pages (if you still use those sorts of things), perhaps a middle-class,
stay-at-home-mom with two kids who goes to the gym three times a week and meets
with a book club every Monday. She is, however, a former nun, and one of the
major thinkers in the realm of religion. She has written over twenty books on
the subject of religion, particularly those things that all major religions
have in common, and in 2008 she won the TED prize which helped her launch the
Charter for Compassion, a document written by contributors from around the
world through a sharing website, a document designed to help religious leaders
work together for peace.[3]
The foundation of the charter—and the common thread Armstrong points out as
running through all of the major religions of the world—is “the Golden Rule.” In
her TED Talk titled, “Let’s Revive the Golden Rule,” Armstrong says, “If we
don’t manage to implement the Golden Rule globally, so that we treat all
peoples, wherever and whoever they may be, as though they were as important as
ourselves, I doubt that we’ll have a viable world to hand on to the next
generation.”[4]
Rev. Frederick McFeely Rogers sounds like just another minister whose
name would appear in moveable white letters on an encased church sign in front
of any little Presbyterian church in any county seat town. He was, however, one
of the most beloved and well-known people in this country for generations (and
arguably still is, even though he died over eleven years ago). You see, Rev.
Rogers was known to most people as Mister Rogers, and for over 30 years on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, he invited
his audience to be his neighbor. Through his gentle, direct lessons as Mister
Rogers, and through the very real actions of his life that have become
folkloric, Fred Rogers lived out the truth of what it means to be a good
neighbor to everyone.
Hillel the Elder, Karen Armstrong, and Fred Rogers: three very different
people, with very different stories, yet all three knew very well the truth we
find in this “golden oldie” before us today in the words of Leviticus. Of
course, we find these words all over Scripture, both the Old and New
Testaments, in the words of Moses, the oracles of the prophets, the words of
Paul and the Apostles, and not surprisingly, it seems to be the very rhythm to
which Jesus moves throughout the gospels. We commonly call it “The Golden
Rule,” because it is so universal to the human experience. In its common
paraphrase it’s stated as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
(or something like that), but I think it is best stated as it is here in Leviticus 19:18 and elsewhere
throughout Holy Scripture: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love. Perhaps that is the shortest way to express it. After all, to
simply treat others the way you wish to be treated rings with just a touch of
selfishness; it sounds a little too…I don’t know…programmed, as if I’ll treat
others in the same fashion I would like them to treat me so that they might
treat me better. Or maybe it sounds a little too open to condition: I’ll treat
others the way I wish to be treated if
they were like me or if I were like
them. But love…now that’s different
isn’t it? To love someone as yourself, that doesn’t leave room for conditions
or programmed possibilities. Love is direct. Love is active. Love doesn’t wait
for a reason to be: love just is. That’s why I think God and all those who
quote this “Golden Rule” throughout Scripture put it that way: Love your neighbor…
If you read those verses leading up to that command in verse 18 you’ll read an explanation of
what it means to avoid judgment based upon the social and cultural differences
we create in order to keep others at a distance, to keep them separate in order
to deny their identity as our neighbor. You’ll read words, commands, laws about
the prohibition of hatred and vengeance among the people of God. This Golden
Rule is universal, applying to all areas of life, calling those of us who call
ourselves children of God to love those we meet without condition, without
review, without basing our compassion upon whether or not they meet our
predetermined criteria for neighbors. In other words, this command—this Golden
Rule—means we don’t get to run a credit check, a background check on others
before we love them; we don’t have to know the deep, dark secrets of our
neighbors, their sins or the great burdens they bear before we allow ourselves
to bestow the privilege of our love upon them. When we live by the commandment
of the Golden Rule, everyone we meet is our neighbor. We cannot erect gated
communities in the hopes of creating a loophole that allows us to love only
those we like, those who we are like.
You see, it’s those words in verse
two, those words that are included in our text this morning on purpose,
that speak to why we need the Golden Rule, why we are called—commanded—to love
our neighbors, whoever they may be. God commands Moses to say to the gathered
people: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy…” That word
holy is the Hebrew word kadash, and
it means literally, “to be set apart; to distinguish, to sanctify.” It is a
fitting way to describe God, who is so often in the Hebrew Bible set apart from
the people, whether it is by a tabernacle, a pillar of fire or smoke, or a
temple. But did you notice what God said in that verse? “You shall be
holy, for I…am holy…” God commands God’s people to be holy, to be set apart,
sanctified, distinguished, yet at the same time God calls us to love our
neighbors as ourselves…as holy, set apart, sanctified, distinguished.
How can that possibly make sense?! After all, if God is God—high, holy,
omnipotent, Almighty—how can God expect us to be holy, while loving all these
“unholy” people all around us, these reprobates, these slanderers, these unclean,
degenerate, sinners?! How can God expect us to love these nasty neighbors?
Because this same, high, holy, omnipotent, Almighty God loved us—all of us—first.
Because this same holy God, who calls us to be holy, has been among us already
and has shown us what it is like to love our neighbors as ourselves. Because
this same God in the flesh of his Son Jesus, walked among those reprobates,
those slanderers, those unclean, degenerate sinners and loved every, single one
of them. Even when they nailed him to a cross to die, his love for them could
be heard in his words, “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy…you shall love
your neighbor as yourself.” If there were no other words written in all of
Scripture, the power of God’s words would still be the same. This is the commandment, the one the sums up all
the others, the one that defines the life lived in the light of the gospel. This
is our mission statement as Christ’s Church in the world, as God’s people. This
“Golden Oldie” is the lens through which we ought to read every other
commandment in Scripture, for we can cut our hair the right way, wear the right
blend of fabrics, keep a kosher diet, maintain what others call “biblical
relationships,” abstain from work on the Sabbath, and never say the first
“cuss” word or take the Lord’s name in vain, but if we don’t love our
neighbors—whoever or whatever they may be—we miss the point. We miss the point
of Scripture’s teaching, and we miss the point of Christ’s teachings handed
down to us through the New Testament and the Holy Spirit. We can keep every jot
and tittle, but if we do not love…we cannot be holy as the Lord our God is
holy, as the Lord our God has called us to be.
May we choose this day to be holy, to live our lives as God has commanded
us, to love our neighbors as ourselves—without precondition, without
consideration of their rank and status in this world, and without those labels
that mark them as “unclean sinners.” May we choose this day to live by the
example of Christ our Lord, who, as God incarnate, chose to love all of us
broken, imperfect people. And may we all live a life guided by the love of God
in Christ, expressed in that “golden oldie”: “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Amen.
[1]
Shulamis Frieman, Who's Who in the Talmud, Jason Aronson, Inc., 2000, p. 163.
[3]
You can read about Karen Armstrong, her TED prize, and her TED Talks here: http://www.ted.com/speakers/karen_armstrong
[4]
Ibid.
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