Tuesday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria
Readings of the day: Genesis 13:2, 5-18; Psalm 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Matthew 7:6, 12-14
“Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” Obedience to this
rule, which is often called “the Golden Rule,” is easy enough, right? “This is
the Law and the Prophets,” Jesus says to his disciples; to us in Matthew’s
Gospel. In other words, this “Golden Rule” is the minimum standard of justice.
It presumes that we would not normally want harm ourselves, and so, if we would
not normally want to harm themselves, then we should not want to harm another
person, either.
But how often do we give into temptation to retaliate against another
person who wrongs us? How often do we give into indirect means of retaliation:
Gossip or passive-aggression? Have we ever held a grudge? In individual
instances, these may not be very serious faults, yet their harmful effects can
accumulate if we act in these ways toward others often enough. Even so, though,
one instance of gossip, of passive-aggressiveness, or of holding a grudge
against another, to say little about acts of outright aggressiveness, are
breaches of Jesus’ “Golden Rule”: “Do unto others what you would have them do
unto you.” They are offenses against justice. I wonder how many of our sins
have little to do with the so-called “hot-button” or “culture war” issues of
our time and more to do with how we act toward one another from day to day,
especially when another person wrongs us, frustrates us, or when we simply
disagree with another person on an issue that is important enough to us. The
ease with which the “Golden Rule” may be broken under sometimes small
temptations may be the “broad” road leading “to destruction” of which Jesus
speaks. Narrow is the road of justice and kindness, especially when others
behave unjustly or unkindly toward us.
Jesus’ Golden rule is a call to a minimum standard of justice. This call
to justice is also present in the Book of Genesis, in the story of the parting
between Abram and Lot we hear today. “The land could not support” both Abram
and Lot together, so they decide to separate from each other. But Abram and Lot
consider each other’s good; they are concerned with justice. Both settle where
the land is fertile and where they will be able to support families and gain a
livelihood comfortably: Abram “in the land of Canaan” and Lot “among the cities
of the plain.”
Most importantly, by separating from each other but still ensuring each
other’s good, Abram and Lot act as God would act. Abram and Lot would have been
perfectly in obedience with the “Golden Rule” that Jesus would give long after
the time of Abram and Lot. They, as God calls us to be, are bearers of God’s
presence to one another. As our Psalm response says today, the one who “does
justice will live in the presence of the Lord.”
Today we also celebrate the memory of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who is
known especially as a major promoter at the Council of Ephesus in 431 of the
Greek title for Mary, our Blessed Mother, of Theotokos, or “God-bearer.” This title is not only a name for Mary;
we are all called to be “God-bearers” by acting with justice toward one another
as we would want others to bear the God of justice and kindness to us.
