Everything Old Is New Again
John 13:31-35
If there is one universal rule which reaches across every culture, every religion, and every era in history, it is probably this: Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. This is the Golden Rule.
This rule gets interpreted in lots of different ways, of course. Sometimes, the rule leads to a mutual benefit: “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” This is what social scientists call “reciprocity.” Sometimes, it leads to a limit on revenge: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Sometimes, it puts limits on our options: “If I do this for you, then I would have to do it for everyone else.” And sometimes, it leads to a race to the bottom: “Only give as good as you get.”
This universality of the Golden Rule may be as old as humanity. It is a self-evident rule of fairness. We are taught to be fair as children. We want to be treated fairly by others. Our biggest complaint in life is almost always based on the claim, “It isn’t fair!” On a basic human level, we understand and want fairness.
Fairness, however, is not the same as faithfulness. Trading favors may be fair, but it won’t lead us into the kingdom of God. Getting even may be fair, but it is not a holy expression of the will of God. Treating everyone the same may be fair, but it can lead to zero tolerance in situations that rarely seem to be fair.
Fairness is not the same thing as faithfulness for a different, but more important, reason as well. There is no need for a deity if fairness is the extent of our social contract for how we deal with each other. And without a deity, concepts like forgiveness and mercy can be seen as an evil in a completely fair world. Without a god, there is no easy justification for welcoming the stranger, or helping those in need, or for giving someone a break, because there is nothing fair about doing those things.
And yet, there are still many people who would like to reduce the teachings of faith and religion to nothing more than “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That seems to them to be fair to all the religions of the world, and it seems fair to people of no religion, as well. And it might be fair, except that communism, and socialism, and capitalism, and liberalism, and conservatism, and most of the other “isms” all claim to be based on their understanding of fairness.
This “flaw in fairness” leads us to trying both old remedies and new theories in our quest to be fair. The old remedies end up reminding us of why we moved on to something new. The “something new” ends up reminding us of “something old” just dressed up in new wrapping paper. And this leads us to another observation that is almost as old as the Golden Rule.
Peter Allen wrote a song with Carole Bayer Sager in 1979 for the musical “All That Jazz,” a biopic about Bob Fosse. I doubt he was the first to use this expression, but he certainly is the one who popularized it. The song was “Everything Old is New Again.” The song was a celebration that things which were once out of fashion have come back into fashion.
There are lots of other ways to say the same thing. J.R.R. Tolkien had different characters talk about the cyclical nature of things in both the Silmarillion and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Folk wisdom declares that “what goes around comes around.” The wisdom of the shamans in times of crisis is “we have seen this before.” We could even go to the book of Ecclesiastes, when the Preacher declared that there is nothing new under the sun.
It is only natural that these two ideas – do unto others, and everything old is new again – get combined in our day to day living. And if I were an advocate for “going natural,” I would sum this combination up by quoting a lyric from the southern rock group “The Eagles”: “People talking about us, they got nothing else to do, when it all comes down, we will still come through in the long run, Ooh, I want to tell you. It's a long run.”
Fortunately, I am not an advocate for going natural. I am not ultimately interested in being fair. I am not excited by the practice of recycling old failed strategies which are now presented in shiny new wrappings.
Instead, I am a witness for Jesus Christ. And that witness makes all the difference in how we approach the Golden Rule. That witness makes all the differencein how we experience everything old becoming new again.
One of the vanities of every generation is that we believe we are right, things could be better, and the way forward is to go back to when we believed that life was fair. But if we are part of group which has experienced life as unfair, we still believe we are right, things could be better, and the way forward is to never go back to when we believed life was unfair. And that is the old conflict which always seems to be new to us.
In every generation, we like to think we are living in a new world, with new realities. But it is really just the same old world, just dressed up with shiny new things like cell phones, and satellites leaving the solar system, and customizable coffees available from machines that sit on our kitchen countertops. It might look different on the outside, but at its heart, it is the same old world with the same old challenges.
For an example, we live in a world where it is currently fashionable to be spiritual without being religious. In this iteration of reality, each person is expected to develop their own sense of good, their own sense of what is right and true, their own habit for holding their selves accountable to whichever standard of fairness which suits them. In this version of reality, it is fair to think that the beliefs of the Pastafarians and Scientologists are just as valid as the beliefs of Jews and Christians. In this reality, it is old fashioned to think there is only one true God.
Yet, it is our witness that there is only one true God. That is not old fashioned, even though it is a truth as old as creation. And, as a personal witness, all the speculative latitudinarianism in the world doesn’t change that truth!
It is into this reality thatJesus called us to do something the world thinks of as old fashioned: we are to love our God. But not just any god, but our God – the God of Adam and Eve, the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Moses and Zipporah, the God of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ. And we are to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.
Loving God is not merely acknowledging that there is a god. Loving God is not being able to recall stories about God, or being able to derive morals and lessons from those stories. Loving God is not even living our lives according to those moral and lessons. Loving God is a calling to a vital relationship which affects every part of our life. Jesus is calling us to make this old thing new again!
To be sure, Jesus is not calling us to love God only in old fashioned ways. This is not a calling for animal sacrifices, and pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and wearing fringe that touches the ground. It is not a calling to meet in catacombs, or to chant in Latin, or to go on Crusades against infidels. That would be little more thancalling us to have the form of religion without its power. And the power of our religion is the love of God!
Instead, Jesus calls us to the renewal of our dependence on the Creator who gives us life. It is a calling to the renewal of our devotion to the Redeemer who saves us. It is a calling to the renewal of our confidence in the Sustainer who enables us to walk in holiness. This is how what is truly old becomes actually new again in our lives and in our world! Or, to say it in the traditional Biblical way: this is how we are born again, born anew, born from above! This is how God is glorified.
Loving God is the necessary first step of living into our faith. Unless, and until, we love God, we cannot love each other faithfully – our love for others will not be full of faith. And without faith, we fall back and settle into fairness as a standard for our relationships. But if we love God – genuinely, truly, really love God – we will be enabled to love our neighbors as Christ has loved us.
However, we live in a world where it is fashionable to build yourself up by tearing down others. We like to say this is something new, that it used to be better, that we didn’t do this in the old days. We like to believe that this is somehow a sign that we are more decadent, less salvageable, and closer to an apocalyptic end. But this is an old thing, even as it gets dressed up in shiny new wrappings.
In this current version of reality, power is what matters, vulnerabilities are to be exploited, and talking about context is considered a trick used by losers to divert you from winning. In this version, winning in life is based on coalitions of like-minded people working together to bring down those who disagree with them. In the supposedly new reality of life, we like to think it is fair to win at all costs, to do what it takes to win, and to expect others to fairly do no less. It is old fashioned to claim that being polite, listening to those we disagree with, and being respectful is how we are supposed to live.
Yet, it is our witness that we are made in the image of God. It is our witness that we are called to imitate God’s perfect love. Jesus called us to do something the world considers old fashioned: we are to love our neighbors. And not just the neighbors who look like us, but also the neighbors who don’t look like us, the neighbors who need our help, and even the neighbors who don’t like us very much. The traditional Biblical way of saying this is thatwe are to love the sojourner, the stranger, the sick and imprisoned, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked. Jesus is calling us to make this old way of relating to people new again.
To be sure, this is not a calling for a lack of accountability, where everything goes. Neither is it a calling for a political correctness, where everyone is treated exactly the same. Either of those choices would be little more than a calling to nostalgia for a time and practice that never really existed, or a calling to a supposed utopian society which denies that the world is made up of real and diverse people who are wonderfully made in the image of God.
Instead, Jesus calls us to be renewed as we love our neighbors as Christ has loved us. This is a love which looks for the image of God in each and every person. This is a love which, because we are in relationship together, knows when to forgive, and knows when to show mercy, and knows when to hold accountable. This is a love which is vulnerable, and sacrificial, and hopeful. It is a Christ-like love that helps make it possible for others to be renewed in the kingdom and will of God.
The Golden Rule can be interpreted as a call to love each other, but it is a love limited by fairness. Too often, this becomes a generic “be nice, be kind, be on your way” kind of discipline. It becomes a “don’t ask too much, don’t give too much, don’t expect too much” strategy for getting through life. It is an old fashioned way of doing things – even when it gets dressed up in shiny new self-help, take care of yourself, personal empowerment wrappings.
But we are not called, as disciples of Jesus Christ, to go through life being fair to others. We are called to be faithful to the love and grace we have been shown while we were still sinners. By the grace of JesusChrist, everything old is truly new again. That is the point the song “Morning Has Broken” tried to make. Because of Easter morning, this old life of sin and death becomes fresh and new like the first morning of creation through the victory of Jesus Christ!
Jesus took the old commandments to love God and love our neighbors, and gave them a new context. Jesus gives us a new commandment, which is an old commandment made new again, that we are to love each other as he has loved us. This is the commandment which distinguishes Christians from everyone else. This is the commandment which moves us from being fair to being faithful. This is the commandment which truly makes everything old new again!
Hymn 384 “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”