Living Above Grace's Expectation

“So do to others what you would have them do to you."

I have always missed the "so" when reading this passage from Matthew. But look at that “so”. It precedes the statement, "If you . . . know how to give good gifts...how much more will the Father give?”

This passage really has much to say about grace. The Father God lavishes good things on us, so we should at least be able to treat others as we wish to be treated. God would do far more than that, but He only asks from us that we treat others as we wish to be treated. We will never measure up to His goodness. He knows that. So all he asks is that we give others the same respect we give ourselves.

But there is more yet. I happened to read that passage the same day I read this one from Genesis.  The land "is worth 400 ... but what is that between you and me?” And Abraham then paid the full 400. I understand that this depicts the way financial transactions were negotiated in the Genesis period, that Abraham would have understood that the 400 was a suggested price for the land. Just as the Genesis people had their own negotiating terms, so do the people groups in the international community in which I live.

Perhaps “do unto others as you would have done to you" is best rephrased, “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Senegalese in front of you.” Or “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Muslim in front of you.” “Or “do to others as you would have done to you IF you were the Kurd in front of you.” Or the Russian? The Cuban? The Dominican? The Mexican? The . . .

I wonder, do I automatically fall back to my southern Iowa ways no matter who is in front of me? What if instead I did unto others in accordance with the manner and culture they understand? What if I went even farther and gave to others in a way they understood as being even better than how I want to be treated? What if I truly sought to understand them, to see their heart, to hear their need?

What if we all did?