The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

• Lectionary Readings from the USCCB

While driving on the highway this past week I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, “Harm none, and do as you will.”  This is a common moral axiom among Wiccans and other neo-pagans.  It occurred to me as I drove past the vehicle how similar this was in phrasing to St. Augustine’s summation of Christian moral life: “Love God, and do as you will.”  The phrasing may be similar, but the meaning is quite different.  I noted the contrast between these two sayings on Facebook and was taken to task in the comments for picking on Wiccans.  

In truth, I was not thinking of Wiccans in particular when I posted because I believe, “harm none, and do as you will,” has effectively become the de facto moral code of most people in our society today. It seems to be the bare minimum moral framework we can agree on in our pluralistic society; you can do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. I have heard this espoused by agnostics, atheists, pagans, and even some Christians as the only truly universal moral code.

And what is wrong with that? you may ask.  Isn’t doing no harm a good thing?  With all the violence in the world today, what’s wrong with reminding people that harming others is bad?  Nothing is wrong with that.  In fact, it is good — but not good enough.

The idea that we should be free to do anything we want as long as it does not negatively impact other people seems at first to be very liberating.  I can do whatever I want!  But as a guiding moral principle, it is rather small and limited.  It makes the basis for moral decisions what we shouldn’t do (harm others) but doesn’t tell us anything about what we should do.  It’s a passive morality, not an active one. Ultimately, that is rather uninspiring.

Let’s compare “harm no one, and do what you will,” with St. Augustine’s, “Love God, and do what you will.”  St. Augustine begins with the positive command to love God.  The idea is that if you truly love God, you can safely do as you will because you will only desire what God wills.  Your love of God will prevent you from wanting to do anything that displeases him. The problem is that our disordered passions often lead us to desire things that are against God’s will (and here we must remember that God’s will is for our good; we are quite capable of desiring things that are not good for us). So the trick is to love God above all things, including yourself.  That’s a tall order.

Jesus tells us to “love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind,” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39).  These are the two great commandments in which Christ says are contained all the law and the prophets.  The world today tells us we can do whatever we want as long as it doesn’t harm our neighbors.  Christ tell us that’s not enough; we must actively love our neighbors.  Of these two, the Christian calling is much more inspiring, because it gives us a mission. It requires more effort, but so does anything worthwhile.

One moral code is negative and passive: don’t do harm.  The other is positive and active: do love.  The former is self-centered.  The latter is self-giving.  “Do no harm” is self-centered because it only tells us what we shouldn’t do to our neighbors, not what we should do for them, so it ultimately becomes all about us and fulfilling our own desires (as long as no one gets hurt in the process).  “Love your neighbor,” is self-giving because it commands us to look beyond ourselves to the needs of those around us.  It calls for us to sacrifice our own desires and comfort in order to help others.  And of course if we love our neighbors we will not wish to harm them. The command to love your neighbor contains within it the principle of “do no harm,” and much more.  This is why I say that “do no harm” is good, but not good enough.  We are called to something greater.

In a different gospel passage (Mk 10:17-22) a man asks Jesus what must he do to gain eternal life.  Jesus reminds him of the Ten Commandments; specifically, “Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud.”  The man replies that he has observed all of these.  But is that enough?  Is not being a murderer enough?  Is not being an adulterer enough?  Is not being a liar enough? Is not harming others enough?

So you have avoided killing and lying and cheating.  Good for you.  Jesus tells the man, “You lack one thing: go, sell what you have, and give to the poor… and come, follow me.”  The gospel reports that the man went away sorrowful.  Why?  The man was perfectly fine with not harming his neighbors.  But his love was imperfect.  His love was centered on himself.  He did not love his neighbors enough to sacrifice his wealth for them.  And he did not love Christ enough to turn away from his old life and follow Him.

Following Christ means loving like Christ, and love, by its nature, is self-giving.  God is love, which means God is self-gift.  We see this in the Incarnation, in which “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).  And we see this most perfectly in the Cross, the ultimate and perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered in love for the very people who nailed Him to the tree.  By His passion and death, Christ “emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave… He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Because of this, God greatly exalted Him” (Phil 2:6-11).

Christ did not come into the world to merely do us no harm.  He came to love us. He had a higher calling and so do we, who are made in His image.  This is the Triumph of the Cross.  It is a triumph of self-giving.  It is a triumph of sacrifice.  It is a triumph of love.