May 15, 2022 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

I’m going to warn you now that I will probably ask more questions in this sermon than you’re used to. Questions that cut right to the root of our faith. Questions that may make you uncomfortable. Questions that we need to ask. Questions that each of us needs to answer for ourselves.

“For God so loved the world …” [pause] I watched as many of you mouthed what came next. It seems on the surface that we certainly believe that love is at the center of our faith. However, listening to many conversations over the past few years, and watching the news, and interactions on social media, I’ve begun to wonder what other candidates have come to be competitors to be the center of our faith. Law? Justice? Knowing and doing God’s will? All of these things are important, but loosely paraphrasing the apostle Paul: without love, none of these other things amounts to much.

If we know and believe that love is at the heart of things, why is it that we find it so hard to love sometimes? Or, put differently, but perhaps in a better way, who is it that we have the hardest time loving? Is it people who are different from us? People who have hurt us? People who see things differently from us? Who?

I think this is a question that we don’t often ask but probably should, particularly as we battle with a culture where who’s “in” and who’s “out” becomes a part of the text and subtext of many speeches.

When we do love others well, what is that like? And just as much, when we feel loved by someone — accepted for who we are, valued, honored, even cherished — what is that like? How does it change how we live our lives? How we feel about ourselves? What might we learn from these experiences that can help us to share our love more fully with others?

It’s easy to forget where we have been just five short weeks ago. The last four weeks, we’ve heard stories of the resurrection and Christ’s appearances to his disciples. But this week, we go back to a story just before the cross and resurrection. In John’s Gospel, it’s Thursday evening, the night we remember as Maundy Thursday. The name “Maundy” comes to us from the Latin mandatum, meaning command or mandate, and it comes precisely from this passage: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).

Jesus is about to die. And what does he tell his disciples? Maybe let’s take a minute to look at what he doesn’t say: When death comes knocking, and the Son of God has mere hours left to communicate the heart of his message to his disciples, he doesn’t say, “Believe the right things.” He doesn’t say, “Maintain personal and doctrinal purity.” He doesn’t say, “Worship like this or attend a church like that.” He doesn’t even say, “Read your Bible,” or “Pray every day,” or even “Preach the Good News to every living creature.” He says, “Love one another.” That’s it. The last dream of a dead man walking. All of Christianity distilled down to its essence so that maybe we’ll pause long enough to hear it. Love one another.

I have to admit that I glossed over this passage for many years… yep, love one another. Recently, I’ve begun to get hung up on the second part: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” That’s a pretty hard thing to comply with! Could I possibly love others the way that Jesus has loved me?

I have begun to think of these words as more of a challenge than a command. But I think I might have been hearing it all wrong. Because this is, after all, just hours before Jesus would be handed over, sent to trial, beaten, and crucified — for each one of us. Not as payment against some wicked debt that God holds against us. Not to make a just and angry God happy or satisfied. Not because this is the only way to satisfy God’s wrath and make God’s forgiveness possible. But rather, Jesus goes to the cross to show us how much God loves us. Each and every one of us. 

Jesus has been showing us God’s forgiveness and love throughout the Gospel, and as John relates in the opening line of this chapter, which marks the turn to the second half of John’s story: “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1).

That’s what this story is about. Jesus reminding us of just how much he loves us — and of how much God loves us through him — that we might be empowered to love others. Love others by extending God’s love through word and deed. And in this way love others as Jesus has loved us.

We don’t have to do this perfectly to do it meaningfully. If that were the case, I’d have given up. Even as we remember those who have loved us, we probably acknowledge that their love may have been imperfect, but was nevertheless powerful. God is love. God sent Jesus to show us that we are loved. God’s love — Jesus’ love — changes us. It empowers us to love others. And even when we struggle to love — often for reasons that make perfect sense — God continues to love us and work through us, through our lives to bless the world that God has created and continues to recreate and sustain.

What’s staggering about this commandment is how badly we’ve managed to screw it up over the last two thousand years. Indeed, this commandment is simple enough for a 3-year-old to grasp, memorize, and appreciate. And yet it’s profound enough that even the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice in their lives.

When I turn inward and look at myself, it isn’t hard to name why I perpetually fall short on meeting Jesus’ dying wish. Love creates vulnerability, and I’d rather not be vulnerable. Love requires trust; I have a streak of suspicion in me. Love spills over margins and erases boundaries, and I feel safer policing my borders. Love takes time, effort, discipline, and a desire to transform oneself, and I am just so busy.

Imagine what would happen to us, to the Church, to the world, if we took this commandment of Jesus’ seriously. What could Christendom look like if we obeyed orders and cultivated “impossible” love?

I ask this with some trepidation because I don’t know how to answer, even for myself. I like to think I know fairly well how to do things. I know how to make care packages for the homeless. How to donate clothes for those who need them. How to make desserts and casseroles for the church potluck. Send checks to my favorite charity. I know how to work FOR people, but do I know how to work WITH people? And do I really know how to love as Jesus loved? To feel a depth of compassion that is gut-wrenching? To empathize until my heart breaks? And the real question: DO I WANT TO?

Most of the time — I’ll be honest — I don’t. I want to be safe. I want to police my borders around myself. I want to keep my circle small and manageable. And I want to choose the people I love based on my own preferences, not on Jesus’ commandment to include all. Charity is easy. But changing my heart? Preparing it to love? Becoming vulnerable in authentic ways to the world’s pain? That’s hard. And costly.

And yet, this was Jesus’ dying wish. Which means that our God first and foremost wants everyone within creation to feel loved. Not shamed. Not punished. Not chastised. Not judged. Not isolated. Loved.

And then, Jesus goes on with a terrifying promise: “By this everyone will know.” Meaning that love is the crux of Christian witness. Our love for each other is how the world will know who we are and whose we are. Our love for everyone is how the world will see, taste, touch, hear, and find Jesus. It’s through our love that we will embody Jesus and make Jesus relatable to a dying world.

This terrifies me. What Jesus seems to be saying is that if we don’t love one another, the world won’t know what it needs to know about God. It won’t know that there is transformative power in the resurrection. It will believe that God is a mean, angry, vindictive parent determined only to punish God’s children. That the universe is cold and meaningless, not governed by love. That the church is a flawed institution, not Christ’s living body, healing God’s creation on earth.

That’s the power we have in making our decision to love or not to love. Those are the stakes involved in how we choose to respond to Jesus’ dying prayer and commandment. That’s the responsibility we have, whether we want it or not. But here’s the saving part: Jesus doesn’t leave us alone. We are not wandering, directionless, in the desert. 

Jesus says to follow his example. Do what I do. Love as I love. Live as you have seen me live. Weep with those who weep. Laugh with those who laugh. Touch the untouchables. Feed the hungry. Welcome the child. Release the captive. Embrace the outcast. Forgive the sinner. Confront the oppressor. Comfort the oppressed. Wash one another’s feet. Hold one another close. Tell the truth. Guide one another home.

Jesus’ commandment to us is not intended to make us wear ourselves out, trying to generate love from our easily depleted souls. Instead, it’s that we’re invited to live in the holy place where all love originates. We can make our home in Jesus’ love. Our love is not our own — it is God’s — and God our source is without limit, without end. There are no places God’s love will not reach if we but ask.

My friends, “Love one another as I have loved you.” For our own sakes. And for the world’s.