Do No Harm
The First Message in a Series on
“Three Rules for Life”
By Ed Winkler
Text: Colossians
3:12-17
[12] Put on then, as God's chosen ones,
holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, [13] forbearing one another and, if one
has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven
you, so you also must forgive. [14]
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect
harmony. [15] And let the peace
of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.
And be thankful. [16] Let the
word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all
wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. [17] And whatever
you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through him. (Revised Standard Version)
We human beings like rules. Oh, we say that we don’t, and
many of us (including me) rebel against rules, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, we really like rules. After several years,
Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People is still one of the best selling books in
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had his rules, also.
As the early Methodist societies grew, Wesley saw the need for some ground
rules, some rules for life. So he developed three rules that he called the “General
Rules,” as a way of keeping those early Methodist societies together. His rules
are simple:
·
do no harm;
·
do good;
·
attend to the ordinances of God, or as one of our bishops puts it, “stay
connected to God.”
Wesley’s General Rules are simple to state, although not
always easy to follow. To be sure, they are not the only rules around, but they
provide a framework for us to live peacefully and productively in our families,
church, community, and in God’s creation. They give us some important
guidelines for our lives.
Wesley’s first General Rule is to do no harm. If that sounds
familiar, that’s because it’s similar to some of the language in the
Hippocratic Oath that physicians take. To do no harm is a warning to physicians
and us not to harm others when we are supposed to help them. Our lives would be
much simpler and healthier if we thought about and practiced this simple rule.
What follows are a few reflections on applying this rule to our lives.
To do no harm applies, first of all, to ourselves.
It is a warning to take care of ourselves. It is a call to be careful about
what we eat, how we exercise, and about the destructive habits that we often
adopt. It should also remind us that the fourth commandment tells us to rest on
the Sabbath. To do no harm to ourselves tells us that we should treat ourselves
like God’s beloved because we are God’s beloved.
Humans are meant to live in families. Families can nurture
us, support us, and help us to be the best we can be. Yet families are often
the source of our greatest pain. Often the people who hurt us most are those in
our own families.
One of the ways that we harm people in families is by our
expectations for family members. When we expect too much, we can do terrible
damage. I knew a family where the father pushed his son to be a football
player, even though it was obvious to everyone else that the son didn’t have
the size or athletic ability to be anything more than an average high school
player. The father’s expectation was that if the son worked hard enough, went
to enough football camps, and dedicated himself, he could be a college player.
The son never developed into a college player, but he did develop a big time
problem with alcohol. The father never saw that there might be a connection
between his expectations and how he pushed his son and this son’s rebellion.
Families also harm their members when they expect too
little. We’ve all known families where mom or dad did everything for their
children and the children had difficulty becoming responsible adults. I once
had a co-worker who gave new meaning to the term, “overprotective.” One snowy
day, she called her home from the office and was frantic because her son had
not gotten home yet. So she immediately left the office, got a cab, and traced
the route from her son’s school to their home. By the time she got home, her
son had already arrived, and all of her worry was for nothing. By the way, her
son was in college at the time, but she still treated him like he was five years
old.
It’s hard to imagine a very good outcome from the dynamics
in those two families. If there’s a lesson in those two stories, it’s surely
that we should remember to do no harm by what we do or what we don’t do or by
what we expect or don’t expect of our family members. We should support each
other, not push each other too much or too little.
All of us have the power to add to or subtract from our
community life, whether it’s in our civic life or our church life. As we think
about how we can do harm in community life, we always must think about the
power of words. The Letter of James says that the “tongue is a fire.” That’s
right. Haven’t we all been burned by what people have said to us or about us?
Even casual comments can carry a lot more pain or stress than we intend. I
heard a story last week of a frustrated teacher who told a teenager, “You’re
just full of evil.” Years later, as a young man, he still remembered those
words and used them as an excuse for his bad behavior. We have to wonder how
things might have turned out if the teacher had chosen her words more
carefully. Acts and behavior can certainly be evil, but what good can come from
labeling people or whole nations as evil? To do no harm in our community life
is first of all to be careful with our tongues.
Sometimes, we can harm people in our community life by what
we don’t say as much as by what we do say. When we let racist or sexist
comments or jokes go by unchallenged, we’re doing harm. When we don’t extend
condolences because we don’t know what to say, we can be doing harm, as well.
It hurts people when they don’t hear from their friends in times of need.
Sometimes, people tell me that they don’t know what to say to someone who has
experienced a loss. Try this: “I’m so sorry for your loss. Is there anything I
can do?” Sometimes, to do no harm is to be quiet. Sometimes, to do no harm is
to speak appropriately.
It’s easy for us to want to harm those with whom we
disagree. It’s easy to assume that if someone disagrees with us, they are
obviously stupid, they don’t have all the facts, or they have hidden agendas.
It’s easy to jump to those conclusions and it’s wrong. Our political life in
this country has fallen in part because we echo talk radio and diminish those
who disagree with us. It’s shameful that so many people have reduced our last
two presidents to “Slick Willy” or “the Village Idiot.” To do no harm is to
respect those with whom we disagree.
To do no harm in community is to have sympathy for other
people’s situations. To do no harm is to fully accept people for who they are,
both the good parts and the bad parts that all people have. It’s to put things
in perspective for the good of the community.
To do no harm is to take care of God’s creation. I don’t
have the scientific expertise to know whether global warming is a caused by
human activity or is part of nature’s cycle. The vast majority of people who
say that global warming is a fraud don’t have that
expertise, either. But we lose nothing by trying to reduce greenhouse gases and
pollution. If we ignore those problems, we may have much to lose. People here
in the
First, do no harm. What we shouldn’t do are those things
that hurt ourselves, our families, our communities, and God’s creation. To do
no harm is not just a list of what not to do. To do no harm is also to create a
positive atmosphere. We can create a positive atmosphere by rejecting the
rigidity that says it’s my way or the wrong way. We can create a positive
atmosphere by not complaining about everything that bothers us. We can create a
positive atmosphere by not listening to or repeating gossip. We can create a
positive atmosphere by seeing the best in people and affirming them. To do no
harm is to be positive.
To do no harm is a simple rule for a complex world. To do no
harm is to create a safe time while we figure out what to do. It is to stop and
to try to figure out what the Lord would have us to do. To do no harm is to
stop, to step aside, to wait, and to listen to what God says to us. That’s what
we Christians call “discernment.” We Christians take the time to discern what
God would have us do.
To do no harm goes against our basic instincts because a lot
of us are action people. We want to do something. Yet sometimes, we should
wait. To do no harm requires radical trust that God will reveal what we should
do. To do no harm requires radical obedience to God because sometimes God wants
us to do things that we don’t want to do. It’s a lot easier to trust ourselves.
It’s also riskier to trust ourselves. God is simply more reliable than we are.
To do no harm is to live after the example of Christ.
Today’s scripture tells us to “put on love.” Love does no harm. To put on love
is to live the way that Jesus lived. To do no harm is to examine how we live.
To do no harm is to exercise caution in what we say or do. To do no harm is to
live more like Jesus. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we lived more
like Jesus?
© 2008 by Ed Winkler