We’re all familiar with the
Golden Rule, right? Do unto others as
you would have others do unto you. Treat
people the way you’d like them to treat you.
Do everything you can to help people, just like you’d want them to do
what they could to help you if you needed it.
The thing about that is that, even if we follow that,
there’s no guarantee the people we come into contact with will do the
same. In other words, the fact that we
try to help others does not necessarily mean they’ll try to help us. In fact, they may refuse our help and may
even come to resent us trying to help them.
That brings us
to our Paradoxical Commandment for today.
As many of you know, this is a sermon series we’ve been doing based on a
series of ten statements written by Dr. Kent M. Keith and endorsed by Mother
Teresa. We’re on the ninth one today,
and here it is: “People really need help
but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.”
If you’ve ever
had that happen to you, understand that God knows exactly what it feels
like. There are all kinds of times in
the Bible where God helps people only to have those people turn on God and
actively fight against God. An example
of that is in our Bible reading for today.
Remember what
the context of this is. The people of
Israel were in slavery in Egypt. For a
while it had not gone too badly, but their conditions got worse and worse. If there was ever a people who really needed
help, it was the people of Israel.
And God helped
them. In fact, God helped them in about
the most awesome way possible. God
forced the Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, to set the people of Israel free. And then, when the Pharaoh tried to take them
back into slavery again, God led the people of Israel across the Red Sea and
destroyed the Egyptian army so that the people of Israel could be free.
And that was
not all. God not only rescued the people
of Israel, God promised them that they would be given a good land to live
in. In fact, it was more than good, it
was wonderful. It was a land flowing
with milk and honey. God was going to
lead them across the desert to this incredible land. It was the most wonderful thing anyone could
have imagined.
But it was not
an easy trip. They went three days
without finding water. So what did the
people of Israel do? Did they say, “We
can trust God to provide water for us, God has brought us this far, God
certainly won’t abandon us now”?
Nope. Not even close. Instead, they whined. They griped.
They complained. They
criticized. They grumbled. You’d have thought they’d be grateful. You’d have thought they’d trust God. After all, God had always been there for
them. God had done so much for them
already. But no. Instead, all they could do was find fault
with God and blame God because they did not have water when they wanted it.
Have you ever
had that happen? Have you ever tried
your best to do something for somebody, to try to help somebody, and instead of
thanking you for it all they did was criticize what you’d done?
It’s not a
good feeling, is it? In fact, it stinks,
right? We wonder, what’s the point? Why try to help someone? No one ever appreciates it anyway. Might as well just not even try.
But of course,
that’s not how God responded. God was
not happy with the people, of course.
But God did not give up on them.
God did not abandon the people or turn away from them. God continued to help them. God gave them water. Even though the people God was trying to help
turned on God, even though they complained about God and blamed God for all
their problems, God kept helping them.
And for a
little while, the people of Israel were happy again. But only for a little while. Because pretty soon the people got
hungry. They wanted food and they did
not have any. What did they do this
time? Did they say, “We can trust
God. God provided water for us when we
needed it. God certainly will provide us
with food, too”? Again, not even
close. Once again, they whined and they
griped and they complained and they criticized and they grumbled. Once again, instead of being grateful for all
God had done for them and trusting God to do it again, they blamed God for
their troubles.
And once
again, God responded. God again did not
give up on the people of Israel. God
still did not abandon them or turn away from them. God continued to help them. God gave them food, bread from heaven. Once again, even though the people God was
trying to help turned on God, even though they complained about God and blamed God
for all their problems, God kept helping them.
And that’s
what we’re supposed to do, too. We’re
not supposed to stop helping people when they don’t appreciate our help. We’re not supposed to give up on people or
abandon them or turn away from them even if they turn on us and seem to resent
our attempts to help.
And that
brings us back to the Golden Rule. “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Think about
times you were in trouble. Think about
times when you needed help. Have you
ever had a time when you needed help, and somebody helped you, and you resented
or even complained about their help?
I suspect you
have. I suspect most of us have. Why do we do that? Well, there might be a lot of reasons, but I
think one of the big ones is pride. And
that pride shows up in a lot of ways.
Our pride keeps us from admitting that we’re in trouble in the first
place. Our pride keeps us from admitting
we need help to get out of our trouble.
Our pride keeps us from accepting help when we need it. Sometimes, our pride even leads us to resent
the person who gives us the help and to get mad at them for having helped us.
I can think of
times in the past when I’ve done that. I
probably still do it from time to time.
But when I look back at some of those times in the past, I realize how
much I needed help, and how fortunate I was and still am that people cared
about me enough and loved me enough to help me even when I did not want to
admit I needed their help and did not want to accept it.
And so, that’s
what I need to do for someone else. It’s
what we all need to do. We need to be
there for each other and help each other.
And we need to do that even if the pride of the person we’re trying to
help keeps them from admitting they need our help and keeps them from acting
grateful that we’ve helped them.
It’s not
easy. It goes against our
instincts. In fact, if you think about
it, the whole Golden Rule thing goes against our instincts. Oh, we like it all right in theory, but there
a lot of times when we don’t want to live our lives that way. We don’t want to treat people the way we want
them to treat us. We want to treat
people the way they actually do treat us.
In other words, if you’ve been kind to me, I’ll be kind to you. If you’ve been a jerk to me, well, then that
gives me the right to be a jerk to you.
That’s the
human rule. That’s the rule that says if
you’re not going to be nice to me when I try to help you, then I’m not going to
try to help you any more. You can just
dig yourself out of that hole you’re in, if you can. Good luck.
That’s the human rule. But it’s
not the Golden Rule.
And it’s not
God’s rule. It may have been
tempting. When the people of Israel
reacted the way they did, when they turned on God despite everything God had
done for them, there might have been a part of God that wanted to punish them
for that, that wanted to just leave them there in the desert to find their own
food and water or die trying. And it
would’ve been, literally, die trying if God had done that.
But God did
not do that. God would never do
that. God would never have done that to
the people of Israel, and God will never do it to you or to me. God will never abandon us. God will never turn away from us. God will always be there for us, and God will
always help us, even when we don’t recognize that it’s God and even when we
don’t accept the help that’s offered.
God will
always be there for us. So we need to be
there for each other. We need to be
there for each other even when others don’t appreciate our being there or even
get upset with us for being there. As
our Paradoxical Commandment says, “People really need help but may attack you
if you do help them. Help people
anyway.” Why? Because that’s what God does for us. And that’s what God wants us to do for each
other.
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