Short Reflection

More proverbs

The passage from Luke has Jesus speaking in proverbs, along the lines of Solomon in the first reading.

As priest, prophet and king, we understand theologically that he embraces all of humanity within himself.

But today we see him in the line of those who spoke wisdom, who gave encouragement by common sense.

(Indeed, Christoph referred to this a few weeks ago.)

We remember from the Advent antiphons that Jesus is described as “O Wisdom of the Most High”.

The Word of God, the Λογος, is also the Wisdom, the Σοφια of God.

The Golden Rule

In this wisdom, we learn how to treat our enemies, those who would harm us.

Rather than hitting back, we are called to love them, to pray for them, to do good to them.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we have to like them. Some people are thoroughly obnoxious (and they may well find me/us so!).

Jesus, as have many other prophets and teachers, calls us to treat others as we would have them treat us.

Charles Kingsley: The Water Babies

Dr Len Fisher wrote an interesting article on The Ethics of Game Theory in 2017, in which he contrasts Kingsley’s Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby with Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid (Mrs D and Mrs B).

(For my liking, he draws rather too much of a distinction between “Jehovah” of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New.)

Dr Fisher draws our attention to the many people who have promoted reciprocal altruism as a worthwhile ethic (Mrs D), while the rather scary Mrs B offers the stick, rather than the carrot.

Both Mrs B and Mrs D’s approaches are valid and yet both approaches have problems:

1. What happens if people don’t reciprocate Mrs D’s altruism?
2. We run the risk of a spiral of violence if others aren’t put off by Mrs B’s approach.

That’s something to think about for the rest of the day!