Do No Harm

Below is the sermon I preached this morning. It is based on the scripture Ephesians 4:25-32. Click here to read it.

Do No Harm

When I was about 6 years old we took a trip across country and saw part of the Oregon Trail. We have this picture of my family standing in the ruts created by the many wagons that passed through the area. So many wagon traveled down the Oregon trail, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of wagons, that the wagon wheels would carve ruts into the ground. In some areas as the wheel ruts got deeper and deeper the wheel axle began to scrap a path through the ground as well. In the place where my family stopped to take a picture, the section where the wheel axle scrapped a path through was about 4 feet deep, and the wheel ruts themselves were several feet deeper than that.

You can imagine how challenging it is to climb in and out of a rut that deep, let alone how challenging it must be to try to get a wagon out of a rut like that. Once your wagon was in a rut that deep, you were pretty much forced to follow the path that had been carved out ahead of you, at least until the rut became shallower and you could get the wagon back out. When you’re in a rut that deep, you don’t just decide to turn left when the path keeps going straight. It’s not impossible to deviate from the path, it’s not impossible to get out of the rut, but to do so take a conscious effort, and a whole lot of effort at that. Getting out of the rut is difficult. You have to get everyone out of the wagon and figure out a way to lift the wagon out. It’s difficult, time consuming work.

I think in many ways being Christian in a largely secular society is just as difficult as trying to get a wagon out of a four foot deep rut. It’s easy to get in a rut, to literally follow behind the thousands of people who have gone before us, it’s easy to get sucked up in to the mentality that everyone else is doing it so it must be ok, it’s easy to take the path of least resistance, the path that has already been forged. And most of us get swept up with following the masses more than we realize.

But as Christians we are called to intentional living, we’re called to be set apart and to live differently so that our entire lives are a witness to the love and grace of God. We’re called to think differently, and talk differently, and act differently. And we know that. We know that’s what we’re supposed to do.

But there are ruts all around us. Last week, our youth talked to us about the many different types of ruts there are in all of our lives. We’re surrounded by the ruts of violent media, of judging others, and of music that promotes drugs, violence, and sex. We’re told we can secure our own future if only we were rich enough or skinny enough, or popular enough. Society has carved the disposable rut, where we’re told that everything from cell phones, to relationship, to the environment are disposable and should only be valued so long as they provide us with instantaneous gratification. There are ruts all around us, and even when we manage to get out of one rut, it’s easy to follow into a different one. Being a Christian is hard work especially in the complicated world we live in.

It is precisely because the world we live in is difficult to navigate as a Christian that John Wesley created what he called the three simple rules. He encouraged all the Christians in his care to follow these three rules. The three rules are: Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. So for the next three weeks Dennis and I will be preaching on these three simple rules.

Do No Harm is the first of the three rules and in many ways is the foundation for the other two rules. You can’t do good and help another person if at the same time you are harming them. You can’t stay in love with God while at the same time hating your neighbor. Do no harm is a precursor to the other two rules.

In many ways the rule to do no harm seems like a really basic and self-explanatory kind of thing. Of course Christians shouldn’t do harm. And when we think of this rule many of us think to ourselves, “Well I’ve got this once covered. I don’t murder or steal, or abuse people. I don’t intentionally harm other people.” But the reality is that each of us in this room have harmed someone at some point in our lives. What’s more is that every one of us has intentionally harmed another person. We may not do it often, and we may convince ourselves it’s ok because we do it way less than other people we know. But each of us has done it. If this is such a simple rule, why is it that so many people do so much harm to others?

For starters it takes a lot of self-disciple to do no harm. It takes effort to see each person we come into contact with as a Child of God. It takes a lot of faith to trust that God will lead us when we are faithful. A lot of the ways that we harm other people happens in the common routine occurrences of day-to-day life. Conflict is a part of our daily lives and how we handle that determines whether we will learn and grow from that or whether we will do harm to one another. We have to remember the rule to do no harm even when we are dealing with people we don’t agree with, especially when we are dealing with people we don’t agree with.

That takes intentionality. It takes reminding ourselves very specifically that the person we don’t agree with is a child of God; that God loves them and cares for them every bit as much as God cares for us. When we get into those conflicts, if we really want to do no harm, then sometimes we need to step away and cool down to get a little perspective.

Rueben Job, a United Methodist Bishop says it this way, “If I am to do no harm, I can no longer gossip about the conflict, I can no longer speak disparagingly about those involved in the conflict. I can no longer manipulate the facts in the conflict. I can no longer diminish those who do not agree with me and must honor each as a child of God.”

Our scripture passage for today warns against some of the very same things. We’re told not to lie, not to speak falsely about our neighbors, not to harbor anger, not to steal, not to say anything that tears others down, but instead to say only what builds up other people.

Following the rule to do no harm takes effort. We have to be disciplined enough not to be nasty and hurtful even if others are being hurtful towards us. That means we might be viewed as weak and vulnerable instead of powerful and in control. Doing no harm means being willing to be honest about when we’ve made mistakes and not making other people look bad to protect ourselves.

Rueben Job says another reason we sometimes do harm to one another is because, “We have bound ourselves to a certain ideology or theology rather than binding ourselves to Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord of all. We may have permitted our loyalty to a theological position to trump our loyalty to Jesus Christ.” Sometimes we convince ourselves that it’s ok to say whatever we want about people who disagree theologically with us. We convince ourselves that they aren’t really Christian if they believe such a thing. But what we fail to realize is that we aren’t acting very Christian when we behave in such a way. It is possible for thoughtful, faithful people to have differing theological opinions.

When we find ourselves tempted to harm those who disagree theologically with us we should remind ourselves that as Christians we have much more that unites us than divides us. Our loyalty to God as revealed in Jesus Christ, should supersede our loyalty to a specific belief or to those who think just like us. We should be willing to consider the possibility that we don’t have it all figured out, that we might have something we can learn from those who disagree with us. But we’ll only learn from those who have different opinions than us if we are willing to engage in healthy conversation instead of doing harm to one another.

There are many reason we do harm to one another but the rule to do no harm also applies to ourselves. Over-eating, smoking, lack of sleep, and lack of exercise are ways many of us do harm to ourselves. If you know you have high cholesterol, don’t eat fatty foods. If you know you’re diabetic, don’t eat sugary foods. If you know you have high blood pressure then take the medication your doctor prescribes you. Often we rationalize our self-destructive behavior by convincing ourselves we aren’t hurting anyone. But the truth is we are hurting ourselves, and when we hurt ourselves, we also hurt those who care about us.

It’s easy to fall into the ruts of doing harm to one another or to ourselves. The ruts are all around us. But we can get out of them if we are intentional about the way we live our lives. We need to constantly seek to see others as a child of God. If you have trouble seeing a particular person as a child of God then maybe you need to take a picture of them and hang it somewhere you will see it every day with the caption under it that says child of God. Each time you see the picture, pray for that person. Pray that God would bless them and lead them in a faithful life, but also pray that you would see that person they way God sees them.

Seeing one another as a child of God, and being intentional about our actions can go a long way in our efforts to do no harm. Climbing out of the ruts of doing harm can be difficult and challenging. But the more we practice a life of doing no harm, the more we carve out new ruts and the easier it is to follow.

Amen.