Year A - Six Sunday of Easter, May 14, 2023
Love one another as I have loved you
To honor the Gracious Trinity: God, Savior, and Advocate, Amen.
In today’s gospel passage, we find Jesus gathered with his closest friends at his final earthly meal, and they have been here awhile. They began dining one and a half chapters ago. Jesus has washed their feet, Judas has departed for the Temple, and we’ve had a number of lessons about Jesus’ impending suffering. In this portion of the Great Discourse, Christ describes how his followers are to act after he departs: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.” (John 14:15, 21)
I love Jesus; I want to keep his commandments. I eagerly desire to know and keep HIS instruction, I have no doubt you do also. What does Christ command?
Jesus of Nazareth was a faithful Jewish rabbi, start with fullness of the Torah’s commandments to pattern every part of my life after His example. Well, though Jesus held the Torah in great esteem, he would violate some of the commandments if they caused suffering in some contexts. Healing and caring for others on the Sabbath for instance.
When you dig into those commandments, we find their theme is God’s desire for relationship with us in love and adoration. God’s love for us inspires our love for God. We express that adoration by passing it on to others: our families, tribe, nation, and those who come to us. Over and over actions of mercy are directed toward the stranger and foreigner.
The only commandment given more than the basic ten is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Surely it’s more complicated. Take a look at the Prophets. If we encapsulate the Prophets’ interpretation of Torah, we find they proclaim God’s will must be above our desires, God’s will is mercy and justice. Defending the weak and caring for the marginalized gives God glory more than any sacrifice at the Temple.
If Torah and the Prophets agree the core of God’s desire is our love and we express that love by loving others as ourselves, what does Jesus command?
Now, you know what’s coming.
After Jesus declares to love him is to do as he commands, Jesus says, “ (John 15:12) “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
At that table it would have been easy to look and think, “Okay, I have to love my best friends, easy peasy.” After little reflection and, in light of their Jewish upbringing, they would notice that Jesus loved Judas, his betrayer. Jesus loved tax collectors, criminals, and Romans. Jesus showed love to strangers and enemies.
What are the limits of Jesus’ loved ones?
Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… “ (John 15:12) "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
We can try to put boundaries on this commandment by looking at the other accounts of the gospel, but they really don’t help. In Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus says: “‘The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
They are consistent with the Prophets and the Torah’s core value. If we love Jesus, and I hope that you do, we follow his commandment; there are no qualifiers. We have a simple faith, but it is hard to live.
As American citizens we have every reason to indulge in hating our neighbor, maligning the stranger, rejecting the foreigner and subjugating the weak in our society. We are insulated from immediate consequences of our collective sin by our military and our national wealth. Even our geography of sea to shining sea and the natural bounty of that land helps our privilege of dismissing the suffering of our neighbors. It is hard to see the imperative of sacrificially loving those near us who seem so comfortable or sacrificing those far away who seem so terrifying.
As Christians, as members of the Jesus Movement, we have no choice: love one another, love ourselves, and pour out Christ’s love to our neighbor without exception.
When we fall short, and I do every day, we confess it, make amends as we are able, and change our course with sacrifice. The pastor writing the first letter of Peter teaches, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will… For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.”
If you love Jesus, keep his commandments with integrity. As Dr. Brenè Brown defines it “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort. It’s choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy. It’s choosing to practice your values rather than simply professing them.” – Brenè Brown, Ph.D. from Courageworks post
We profess Jesus Christ as Lord over all, let us practice this simple faith: Love one another as he has loved us. Amen.
Dean Vanessa Clark+