They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love
Dear Friends,
In this Sunday’s gospel lesson for the fifth Sunday of Easter, we rewind the tape a bit to hear some of Jesus’ final words to his disciples before his death and resurrection, at his last supper with them. Time is running out, and Jesus knows he needs to get his point across, so he gives his disciples a commandment (not a suggestion, or a good idea, but a commandment): “Love one another, as I have loved you. This is how people will know you are my disciples.”
So simple, yet so very hard for most of us. Demonstrating the kind of love that Jesus talks about means hanging in there beyond the “feel good” phase of love and doing things like forgiving, apologizing, being patient, and changing our ways of seeing and doing. When Jesus makes this statement in John’s gospel, it is right after Judas has been exposed and left. It’s right after Peter has insisted that he will never deny Jesus. Already, the stage has been set for the work of forgiveness and repentance.
In other words, Jesus isn’t just saying, “be nice to each other.” Though certainly they ought to be nice to each other. But that is just too “surface” for what is about to happen. Jesus encourages his friends to dig deeply to see what kind of love he’s talking about.
Over the next hours and days, they will see him arrested and they will run scared. Over the next years they will fight with each other over just how open and inclusive they ought to be. They will struggle with theology and practice. They will be persecuted and threatened from outside. They will experience the same life struggles that every generation faces—wayward children, sickness, unemployment, loss of faith. They will have petty arguments and huge blow-ups that will threaten the life of the group and the expansion of its ideals. They will wrestle continually with what it means to be a people who embody Jesus’ commandment to “love one another.”
Loving has its challenges. We’re imperfect people loving imperfect people. And we and others have real needs - psychological needs, physical needs, needs to give and receive forgiveness. We can try to stay on the surface and accomplish the easier tasks of love, but truly, if you want to show that "disciple" kind of love, eventually you have to go deep.
We live in a culture that is often at war with this commandment. A world that encourages rugged individualism, self-promotion, and the avoidance of discomfort. A world in which acts of aggression go unchecked until it is nearly too late to reverse them, as we are seeing in the War in Ukraine, the proliferation of gun violence in our city streets, and in the remnants of slavery that still haunt.
It takes deep digging to make a difference in this kind of world. How will we respond to injustice and violence when we witness it daily on the news, and we feel helpless in the face of it? How will we show the love of Jesus?
The best way I know to answer this question is to begin where we are, in the reality of our own lives, and move beyond the surface. Tunnel in to where the real needs and real pain exist and dare to engage in the hard work of healing and transformation. That’s where real love takes root.
In Christ,
Amelie+
