BULLETIN, OCTOBER 2, 2022

This week’s Sermon
Do on to the others
St. Luke 6 (31-36)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today’s gospel teaches us something that we have been
told from our youngest age.
“Do unto others as you wish others do to you”. This is an
expression that sometimes we use very casually without
reflecting upon its deeper meaning. Sometimes we use it without finishing the sentence.
Do unto others… We assume people should know the rest because it is such a common
phrase. What should we do on to others? If we look at this from this perspective, we
could come up with all kinds of things that we think is appropriate to do unto others.
Most of the time unfortunately we do things to others we would not want to be done to
us. Sometimes even good things that we do for others we would not want others to do
for us.
Why?
The answer is very simple. Freedom is the most precious thing for us humans.
We would rebel against anything and anyone if they dared to take our freedom away
from us. We would even rebel if they were doing good things for us but were limiting
our ability to choose for ourselves. Freedom has been the core of the dreams of all societies.
The example of the Israelites in Egypt is a classic example. They left their livelihood
that they had in Egypt, not for a better life, but for freedom. They did not migrate
to another country, but they headed towards the desert. They embraced the unknown
because they preferred freedom over security. They preferred freedom with all that
comes with it. They chose freedom with responsibility, vulnerability, danger, fear of the
unknown.
Dear brothers and sisters, they were not naïve to choose all these things just because
they wanted to make their own decisions for themselves. In the desert there were
not too many choices anyways. The best outcome of the freedom for them was their
relationship with God. That is one of the best outcomes of freedom for us. True relationships
are based on freedom. “Do unto others” is the deepest form of relationship
and it is most beneficial when it is based on freedom. After all, it is our relationship
with one another that determines the relationship between God and us.
If God requires people to be free to relate to them then the best gift, we can
give to our neighbor is to let them be free. The best we can give them is the truth because
the Truth sets us free. Even Love can be binding or intimidating, but the Truth
sets us free. In fact, we can choke people with our overbearing Love. This is where the
expression comes handy. “Love me less but let me be free”. I would say give your
neighbor a love that comes out of Truth.