Golden Advice from Two Unexpected Saints
Photo by Ussama Azam on Unsplash
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” —Luke 6:31
Decades after my first encounters with them, a couple of my childhood heroes continued to lift my spirit and entertain my soul. These two people contributed, at least in some small way, to forming my belief system and maybe even some aspects of my personality.
Who are they? Soupy Sales and Stan Lee.
Surprised? I’m serious!
Stan Lee, as you may know, had a hand in creating such beloved comic-book characters as Spider-man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Thor, and Daredevil, all of whom, along with many others, have been featured in major motion pictures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As a kid, I was enamored with Lee’s senses-shattering comic-book tales of derring-do and do-gooding. Like most preadolescents, I especially identified with born loser and nerdy teenager Peter Parker, who, bitten by a radioactive spider while fighting acne, donned homemade blue-and-red spider-webbed tights to prosecute justice and protect humankind from all sorts of evildoers.
Why? Peter’s Uncle Ben, who was murdered by a thief as a result of Peter’s/Spider-man’s selfish negligence, had taught him that “with great power comes great responsibility.” In other words, we’ve all been given powerful gifts, and we should use them for the good of others.
At the same time, comedian and TV personality Soupy Sales was one of my childhood idols because I found him hilarious. What’s more, he was from my hometown of Huntington, West Virginia—a local guy who made good. I attended the same high school and college that Soupy did.
When his New York City-based daily children’s program aired, I would make a beeline home from school to catch it and laugh myself silly watching White Fang and Black Tooth, the wacky door-to-door salesmen, and so many other characters interact with Soupy, who always seemed to let us in on the gag with a warm wink and a big smile.
Some years ago, after I had long become an adult (in body if not mind), my two heroes seemed to collude to make me think seriously about something. I was fortunate to meet and correspond with Stan Lee for the last two decades of his life, and he was always most gracious and encouraging with me—as he was with most everyone, apparently.
After I sent him a copy of a devotional book I wrote on the life and ministry of Christ, Stan emailed back a hearty thank you. And he added: “In your card you wrote, ‘Our faiths may differ, but….’ I beg to disagree. I think our faiths are similar—it’s merely our religions that may differ…. I have the greatest respect for any discipline that preaches kindness and charity and love for one’s fellow man. Most important of all, to me, ‘Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise.”
The very next day, I happened to be reading Soupy Sales’s autobiography, Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times, and stumbled upon this passage: “Throughout my career, I’ve tried to be as generous and kind as I possibly could to everyone. In fact—I know this sounds corny—but it’s the truth; my motto is, was, and always will be, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”*
Reading that well-known Golden Rule twice in two days from two childhood heroes, who happened to be nominally Jewish, had an impact on me as an adult. Both had been good guys in every sense of the word in my eyes over the years, and now I understood why.
I know the quotation from Luke 6:31 well: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” My parents taught me to live that way. Matthew’s gospel (7:12) includes the teaching as part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” But I like how Eugene Peterson has crafted it in The Message: “Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them.”
Of course, pretty much every religion on earth reflects this goal for living.
The Golden Rule is not about our expectations regarding how others are supposed to treat us—or about waiting to see how we’re treated before we do anything. It has nothing to do with “an eye for an eye” or “what goes around comes around.”
Rather, the Golden Rule starts with each of us taking proactive steps to serve others, to treat them as we’d like to be treated. It’s taking the responsibility to do good for others regardless of what they do for us.
What if we actually put the Golden Rule to work in our lives? What if we intentionally looked for opportunities to serve others with kindness and self-sacrifice? What if we went out of our way to do something positive and helpful for someone in need?
None of us real human beings have superpowers. But if we put into practice even the most basic elements of faith, particularly with a sense of humor and goodwill, we can experience a bit of paradise on this cold, hard earth.
It’s within our power. And remember, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Adapted from A Generous Beckoning (Forward Movement, 2023).
* Sales, Soupy, with Charles Salzberg, Soupy Sez! My Zany Life and Times. New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 2001, p. 19.
