YOU SAY 'POTAYTO', I SAY 'POTAHTO'...

…LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF? THIS LRYIC IS FROM THE 1937 GERSHWIN FILM ‘SHALL WE DANCE’ AND WAS PERFORMED BY FRED ASTAIRE AND GINGER ROGERS. IT SPEAKS TO THE MANY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO CHARACTERS AND MAKES THE SUGGESTION THAT BASED ON THESE DIFFERENCES THEY SHOULD JUST WALK AWAY FROM THEIR RELATIONSHIP. HOWEVER, THE PAIR END UP MARRIED IN THE MOVIE. A DIFFERENCE IN THE SIMPLE PRONUNCIATION OF WORDS IS HARDLY REASON ENOUGH TO CAUSE A PARTING OF THE WAYS BETWEEN A COUPLE WHO OTHERWISE HAVE MUCH IN COMMON.


THE LECTIONARY FOR TODAY COMES FROM PAUL’S LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN GALATIA, CHAPTER 5, VERSE 13. “FOR THE WHOLE LAW IS SUMMED UP IN A SINGLE COMMANDMENT, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF’”. MOST FOLKS KNOW THIS STATEMENT AS ‘THE GOLDEN RULE’. IT APPEARS IN THE HEBREW BIBLE AND MORE THAN ONCE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. BUT BEFORE ANY OF US CLAIMS SINGULAR RIGHTS TO THE PHRASE LET’S INVESTIGATE SOME OF THE OTHER PLACES THIS ‘ETHIC OF RECIPROCITY’ IS FOUND.

‘NOT ONE OF YOU IS A BELIEVER UNTIL HE LOVES FOR HIS BROTHER WHAT HE LOVES FOR HIMSELF’. Islam.

‘TRY YOUR BEST TO TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WISH TO BE TREATED YOURSELF, AND YOU WILL FIND THAT THIS IS THE SHORTEST WAY TO BENEVOLENCE’. Confucianism.

ONE SHOULD NOT BEHAVE TOWARDS OTHERS IN A WAY WHICH IS DISAGREEABLE TO ONESELF. THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF MORALITY. Hinduism.

THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE:

‘ONE GOING TO TAKE A POINTED STICK TO PINCH A BABY BIRD SHOULD FIRST TRY IT ON HIMSELF TO FEEL HOW IT HURTS’. Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria).

THIS ‘ETHIC’ APPEARS IN MANY OTHER TRADITIONS AS WELL; JAINISIM, BUDDHISM, MANY AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS. IS THE APHORISM LESS TRUE BECAUSE THE WORDS DIFFER? DOES THE YORUBA-SPEAKING NIGERIAN REALLY INTERPRET THE ‘GOLDEN RULE’ DIFFERENTLY FROM THE CHRISTIAN, THE JEW, THE BHUDDIST, THE MUSLIM? YOU SAY ‘TOMAYTO, I SAY ‘TOMAHTO’…LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF? REALLY, SHOULD WE ‘CALL IT OFF’ AND JUST CONCENTRATE ON OUR DIFFERENCES? OR SHOULD WE, MUST WE INSTEAD CELEBRATE OUR SAMENESS?


EARLIER IN HIS LETTER TO THE GALATIANS PAUL WRITES ‘THERE IS NO LONGER JEW OR GREEK…NO LONGER MALE AND FEMALE’. SO HERE THE WRITER STATES THAT THERE ARE NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCES AMONG US, AND LATER HE REMINDS US OF JESUS’ ADMONITION TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR.

IN THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN THE EXPERT IN JEWISH LAW ASKED JESUS ‘WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?’ OVER THE CENTURIES MANY OTHERS HAVE ALSO ASKED, ‘WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?’ DO WE STILL ASK TODAY? IS THE NEIGHBOR THE ONE WHO SITS NEXT TO US AT WORSHIP, THE ONE WHO THINKS AND BELIEVES EXACTLY AS WE DO? THE CASUAL ACQUAINTANCE WHO WE TOLERATE, BUT ISN’T EXACTLY OUR ‘BFF’? OR…DARE WE ADMIT THIS TO OURSELVES; IS OUR ‘NEIGHBOR’ THE ONE WHO IS DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO US AND OUR DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS IN EVERY WAY? ACCORDING TO JESUS THAT’S EXACTLY WHO OUR NEIGHBOR IS!

IN HIS TELLING OF THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN CHRIST MAKES HIS POINT IN DIRECT, STARK, AND UNCOMFORTABLE TERMS. THIS DISCOMFORT WAS FELT VISCERALLY BY THE HEARERS OF THE PARABLE. TO BE BLUNT, JESUS PICKED AS HIS PROTAGONIST THE MOST UN-NEIGHBORLY PERSON THE PEOPLE COULD IMAGINE. NOT TO PUT TOO FINE A POINT ON IT…THE JEWS DESPISED THE PEOPLE OF SAMARIA. ALTHOUGH THE TWO GROUPS WERE CLOSELY RELATED THEY HATED ONE ANOTHER, CHIEFLY BECAUSE EACH BELIEVED THEY POSSESSED SINGULAR CLAIM TO THE ORIGINAL TWELVE TRIBES. IN JESUS’ TIME THE JEWS WERE FORBIDDEN BY THE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES FROM HAVING ANY CONTACT WITH THE PEOPLE OF SAMARIA, EVEN THOUGH GEOGRAPHICALLY AND HISTORICALLY THEY WERE CLOSE ‘NEIGHBORS’. IN THE PARABLE A PRIEST AND A LAWYER DELIBERATELY WALK PAST THE INJURED MAN, PRESUMABLY A FELLOW JEW WITH WHOM EACH HAD MUCH IN COMMON. TO DRIVE HOME HIS POINT JESUS TELLS US THAT THE ONE TO RENDER AID WAS A SAMARITAN; ONE OF ‘THEM’, NOT ‘US’, AN OUTSIDER, ONE WHO WAS TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.

THE LAWYER’S REPLY TO JESUS’ QUESTION, ‘WHO WAS THE INJURED MAN’S NEIGHBOR?’ WAS ‘HE WHO SHOWED HIM MERCY’. NOW HERE’S THE KICKER. JESUS TELLS HIM TO ‘GO AND DO LIKEWISE’. WE MUST ALSO ‘GO AND DO LIKEWISE’. SHOW MERCY TO THOSE WE WOULD LEAST LIKELY CONSIDER OUR NEIGHBORS. TREAT THEM AS WE WOULD HOPE THEY WOULD TREAT US. LOOK PAST THE DIFFERENCES AND REJOICE IN THE THINGS HELD IN COMMON. ‘TOMAYTO-TOMAHTO, POTAYTO-POTAHTO’; OUR WORLD IS MUCH TOO SMALL FOR US TO TRIFLE OVER DIFFERENCES OF OPINION, FAITH, POLITICS. WE CAN’T AFFORD TO ‘CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF’. AT ALL COSTS WE MUST STRIVE TO ‘LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR’, NO MATTER OUR DIFFERENCES. TO DO OTHERWISE IS TO VIOLATE THE MOST BASIC ETHICAL RULE OF SOCIETY, WHETHER CHRISTIAN, JEW, BHUDDIST, MUSLIM, OR HUMANIST. BESIDES, WE MIGHT FIND WE’RE REALLY NOT THAT DIFFERENT AFTER ALL.

AMEN.