|
O Word of God so clear and true
Renew our minds to trust in You.
And from our slumber, make us rise,
That we may know the Risen Christ.
"A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Jn 13: 34-35
Love lies at the very heart of the Christian Gospel. It starts with God - for God is love and it is the bond of love that unites the Holy Trinity - love that flows ceaselessly between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Ian shared with us in his sermon last week, it is this divine love that motivates him to be a Christian and to seek to respond to that love by loving others. And countless people would echo that testimony. Without love, Christianity is just another religion; without love, we are nothing and we have nothing worth sharing.
"Love one another." Jesus calls this a 'new' commandment. But what's new about it? Many parts of the Old Testament speak of love - both of God and neighbour. So the 'newness' here can't be a matter of never hearing words like this before. No. What's new is the depth and nature of this love, and the way it is to be expressed. "You must love one another" says Jesus, "in the same way as I have loved you."
So what way is that? Well, the first thing that helps us to unpack this, is a bit of semantics. We English only have the one word for love - whether we're referring to the romantic stuff, or friendship, or family relationships and so on. New Testament Greek has much more variety; and the Greek word used here tells us at once that Jesus is not referring to erotic sexual love, nor comradeship, nor familial love - although there are obviously some overlaps and similarities between different kinds of love. But the distinctively Christ-like love is denoted by the Greek word 'agape': self-giving love, love which is all about the other person, love which overflows in service - not in order to show itself off, nor to manipulate others, but just because that is its nature. Such love is not just a feeling from the heart; sometimes it has to be even more about an act of the will, a decision of the mind, an unselfish commitment to the well-being of others. I wonder, what ways do you and I seek out in order to express 'agape', Christ-like love, servant-hearted love in action?
The second factor that can help us to understand more about this way of loving is the context of Jesus' words.
A short while before Jesus gave His 'new commandment', He had taken on the job of the lowliest house-slave and washed His disciples' feet. In that action Jesus demonstrated tanglibly what He went on to express verbally: the down-to-earthness of God's love. As Paul later put it into words in 1 Coritnhians 13, this 'agape', this love is 'patient and kind. Not envious, not boastful, not proud. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no score of wrongs. This kind of love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.'
How do you and I measure-up to the qualities of this way of love?
Again, the extract from John's Gospel selected in today's lectionary begins in chapter 13: 31 with the words, 'When he was gone...' Those who know John's Gospel well or who have a Bible in front of you now will be aware that this refers to Judas Iscariot, leaving the room where the Last Supper took place. It was night, the night before the Crucifixion; and Judas has just gone out, to betray his Lord, his friend, with a kiss. Jesus, knowing what lies hidden in the heart of man, knows that one of His own followers is about to betray Him. One of His inner circle, His closest community, is about to set in motion His arrest, torture and death; and Jesus chooses this moment to talk about love. To command His remaining friends to love one another.
So the context of the command tells us that Jesus knew only too well that His way of love involves suffering. Loving hurts. Because it means loving those friends who sometimes choose to become our enemies, and loving those enemies with whom we can never be friends. A wise person once said: 'Your enemy is your soul's best friend'. Your enemy is the one who reveals unresolved negative thoughts and desires within your own soul. When Judas turned traitor and enemy to Jesus, Jesus revealed the depth of His love. I wonder, what do you and I reveal when others push us to our limits?
"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Our Lord says that love is to be the badge that His people wear, love is to be the flag that we fly, before the watching world. Sadly, so often, the opposite is true isn't it? Whenever we hear the words of John 16: 35, then if we have any historical knowledge and, indeed, any self-awareness, we will cringe with shame at the way in which professing Christians have treated each other down the years and yes - still treat one another. We have turned the Gospel into a weapon and hit each other over the head with it. And we justify ourselves by insisting that the "one another" we are commanded to love refers only to those who happen to love us first, who massage our own egos, who do what we want in the way we want it.
I've just read a book called Celebrating Community * - a collection of reflections by past and present members of the Lee Abbey Movement. One of the contributors is David Runcorn, a former Chaplain at Lee Abbey Devon. He reflects on how often guests staying at Lee Abbey for a weekend or so, comment on the wonderful love that members of the resident community have for each other, love that makes such an impact that even guests with little or no previous experience of it, sense divine love reaching out and welcoming them through this community. And David Runcorn contrasts this with how it often actually feels when one is a member of the community rather than a guest just passing through. He writes: "Like many others, I joined the Lee Abbey community with a very idealistic view of what living with other Christians would be like. But the demands of shared life are very tough... I recall times when personality clashes and sheer exhaustion meant that love just ran out and no amount of praying seemed to redeem the impulse to strangle that community member who was making my life so miserable... I recall times when I went into lunch with guests feeling like a complete hypocrite and where parts of community life seemed on the edge of open warfare. The guests never seemed to notice. They would say, 'It must be wonderful living here. God is so near. It's so peaceful.' And I would grip the nearest serving slice and think, 'At this moment you're much nearer to God than you can imagine!'" (p.26-27)
Now don't let that put anyone off signing up to go on our Priory Group weekend at Lee Abbey next April! Because Lee Abbey is a really wonderful place and the people who make up the Community are truly Christian people. But they are like you and me and the members of any Christian community - whether residential or gathered in a local church. Weak, sinful human beings. Wonderful - yes. Loved unconditionally by God - yes, loved to bits. But still ordinary human beings, warts and all; needing to open ourselves ever more fully to the life-changing power of God; needing God to love into life those parts of ourselves that, to date, remain nasty, selfish, loveless and horrid to one another.
We can't do it by ourselves, can we? Again, the context of Jesus' words here in John chapter 13 makes that clear. Because in the very next chapter Jesus explains to His disciples what He's already hinted at earlier in the Gospel: that they cannot obey the command to this way of love without the gift of the Holy Spirit. They, and we, like the members of every Christian community, every church, since the Day of Pentecost - we have to learn to live by grace in the power of the Spirit. And just when we think we've got it right, we'll fail again and have to learn some more - to remind us that it is God, not us, who is glorified when we follow the way of Christ-like love. For it's not me, not you, but God who is love. And at those moments when we seem to cling on to God and our shared life by the skin of our fingertips, it is God who pours out His love afresh in and through us, by His Spirit, so that Jesus might be known - even here.
'O love of God so unrestrained,
refresh our souls we ask again;
remind us of Your sacrifice,
that we may know the Risen Christ.'
From the hymn 'O breath of God' by Keith Getty & Phil Madeira © 2003 Kingsway's Thankyou Music.
* Celebrating Community: God's Gift for Today's World, edited by Chris Edmonson & Emma Ineson, DLT 2006
Mary Barr
Click to return to the list of further sermons.
Go to top
|
