Reading: John 14:15-21
The reading is part of a larger passage in The Gospel of John that we know as The Upper Room Discourse. Jesus is sharing a last supper with his disciples before his arrest and his death at the hands of the authorities. He is preparing them for what is to come, especially for their life as his followers beyond his death and resurrection. He will not be with them in the same way as he has been. But their bond with him and with God will not be broken; it will be deepened.
“If you love me,” Jesus says, “keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Meditation
It’s remarkable how Jesus gets to the point. Cuts through the crap and gets to the heart of the matter.
Probably because he lives from the heart of God. And day by day just lives out what is there, just waiting to be lived out. Puts it into practice. Brings it to life.
And tells us to do the same.
And it sounds so right, the way he puts it. And the way he points us. It just sounds like the good thing to do. The good way to be.
And when we do it, we know it is. Because when we do it, we find ourselves – like him, caught up in the flow of the Spirit of God in the world. Caught up in the life of God in the world. Sharing in the life of God’s love breathing into the world, and all through it, especially into all the nooks and crannies where it’s most needed. It just feels good, and right, and true, and alive to be part of it.
So it’s really good news when he says, I give you a new commandment – you are to love one another as I have loved you. A new commandment! And just one!
One thing about commandments – whether we're thinking of the situation of his disciples, or the people of Israel in general, or all of us, really – is that there are usually scads of them, to govern our lives and ostensibly to make the world work the way it’s supposed to work, the way it works best.
For Israel, it began with Ten Commandments on two stone tablets – 10 directions to make a good society. That soon grew – exploded, into bushel-basketsful of all kinds of laws and ordinances, religious rituals and moral requirements meant to keep society good, and the people within it, pure. There were hundreds of them, and they became overwhelming and impossible. Talk about bureaucracy and red tape, boxes and tight molds to fit into, moral and religious correctness.
Jesus, though, in the same way of the ancient prophets, cuts through all that, and when asked, boils it down to just two. The first commandment, he says, is to love God with all your heart, mind and strength, in all you do and are. And when you love God – the true God, honestly, you will know the second – to love your neighbour as yourself, whoever your neighbour is at any moment.
Two commandments. How simple. Except now, at the end, he adds one more. Or, maybe, sums the two up – combines them and makes them perfect, in a new one-commandment form. “Love one another as I have loved you.”
“As I have loved you.” That’s the catch. That’s where the challenge comes. That’s also where the clarity comes.
Because how has Jesus loved? How has Jesus loved the disciples? How has Jesus loved others they met along the way? How has Jesus loved us? Loved anyone? And everyone?
I’m gonna get to the point here, and suggest that any story we know about Jesus loving anyone, any story we read about Jesus living out the love of God, any story told in the Gospels about Jesus bringing the love and good will of God to life in the world, at some point and ultimately is not just or most importantly about blessing people in their privacies, their own little domains, their separate success, but is about bringing people together.
I’m willing to be proven wrong, but I suggest that every story of Jesus loving anyone, at some point and ultimately is about creating community where it did not exist before, or restoring community where it’s been broken or divided, or healing community where it’s become toxic – or even deadly, for some of its members.
About bringing people out of their shells and their self-concern, out of their private little kingdoms, out of their holy and unholy solitudes, to become together the kind of community God really wants – a community of all people bound together, of mutual caring and sharing across boundaries, of mutual welcome and hospitality across divides, of shared vulnerability and openness with one another, of gracious forgiveness and healing.
Which means the stories and experiences of Jesus reaching out in love to others more often than not involve reaching across some barrier or divide, breaking some social convention or religious taboo, crossing over to the other side, putting himself at risk of censure and ostracization – even death.
Because the kind of community God wants, and loves to create – loves, in order to create – is a community with more bridges than barriers, lots of doors in every wall, and opened hands and opened hearts.
When God’s love is acted out and brought to life in the world it leads to a full and diverse community that gathers around a single table with places and enough for all.
I received a comment this week from a colleague in ministry somewhere in the world, connected by the internet, about how important this understanding of the Gospel and of the work of God and of God’s Spirit is in light of all the research today about the disease and the epidemic of loneliness that’s affecting the mental and emotional health of people today including seniors, young people and children, and everyone in between, Community – connection with real people, being draw into caring for, and being cared for by others, are exactly the experience of healing and of salvation that Jesus offers, and would be freely offering today as much he did in first-century Galilee.
It makes me wonder if the most helpful mission question we could be asking ourselves is not simply “how do we get more people in the church,” but “who around is lonely in any way and for any reason, and how can we reach out (i.e. how can we be drawn out of our privacies and solitude) to connect with them in any way that makes sense to them?” And “who around us lives just for themselves in their own little circle and privacy, and how do we invite them to reach out with us beyond ourselves, to help serve the well-being of others, and the well-being of all?”
Because when we live that way – when we are drawn out of ourselves to love others, and when we are loved by others with a love that reaches beyond self-concern to create community instead, it feels right, doesn’t it? It feels good. Doesn’t it feel like we are being caught up in the flow of God’s love, and the life of God’s Spirit at work in the world for the good of all? Like Jesus was, and calls us to be?
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