Easter 5C
Rev. 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
Tension is high. Jesus and his disciples
are sharing the Passover meal, when Jesus surprises them by insisting that he
wash their feet, and then further insists that they all do the same for each
other. As they puzzle over this, Jesus announces that one of them will betray
him – he knows that it is Judas, whose feet has he just washed. As Jesus hands
Judas a piece of bread, he tells Judas to do quickly what he must do, and Judas
leaves the room, into the night, to turn Jesus in to the authorities. The other
eleven disciples stay behind, confused. We know how the story goes after this –
thanks to Judas, Jesus gets arrested, then his faithful friend Peter denies
ever knowing Jesus, and Jesus is beaten and hung on a cross to die.
Such
a difficult night that was – and how remarkable that it was in the midst of all
that betrayal, tension, denial, confusion, suffering, and death that Jesus
offers these words that we hear today: “I give you a new commandment, that
you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one
another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another.” It is a
lofty command in the best of circumstances, but how much more so in the midst
of drama, tension, and heartache! And yet because of that difficult context we
come to understand that commandment more truly. “Love one another” is not a
romantic mandate, nor a suggestion to merely “be nice” or to tolerate each
other, nor to love only those who love you back. Only moments before offering
this command, Jesus has washed the feet of Judas the betrayer, even as he knew
what Judas would do. He tells Peter to love, even as he knows Peter will deny
even knowing him in his hour of need. And Jesus himself is about to go forth
and die for a world that has in many ways rejected him, all to show the world
the love of the Father. Suddenly, in Jesus’ mouth, loving one another becomes
not a nice, fun, warm occasion with lots of hugs and smiles, but rather, a
self-sacrificing act which puts the well-being of others before your own. Love
one another as Christ has loved you.
And
this sort of love, Jesus says, is how people will know you are followers of
Christ. Not by our doctrines or our dogmas, not by our creeds or our diligence
in Bible study, not by our church buildings, or the clothes we wear, or our
family values. By our love. By the way we treat one another – even, and especially, in the
midst of the dark and difficult times that life offers us.
Sometimes
we do all right, sometimes not so much. This command can seem an impossible
task at times – in part because it is difficult to know just what Christ-like
love looks like in today’s world. It’s not too often that we have the
opportunity to die on a cross to save humanity, for example. So what does it
look like to love others as Christ has loved us? As I’ve been reflecting on
that question this week, I’ve kept my eyes open for some good love stories, and
also some not-love stories, and I certainly have found some of both – times
when people have gone out of their way to care for another’s needs, and also
times when people have found it difficult to love someone, because of
disagreements, or because of the difficulty of forgiveness, or because of disappointment.
Listen to some of these stories. See if you might find yourself in them, but
also listen to where you might find Christ in them.
Okay,
first story: although this is several years old now, it seemed timely given
recent events. Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, there were over 680
people injured and 169 killed. People rightfully wanted to see justice come for
those families, and Timothy McVeigh was to be executed. But one victim’s father
preached forgiveness instead of vengeance. While the families of the other 168
victims were hoping to see McVeigh’s execution televised, hoping it would bring
them closure and healing, Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed, was crusading
in the U.S. Congress and around America saying, “There is no healing from
killing people.” A difficult message to
preach for someone whose daughter has just been killed by this monster. You’ve
likely heard other stories of extraordinary forgiveness like this – the Amish
community who reached out to the family of a school shooter comes to mind. What
extraordinary love, to reach out of their own pain and loss, and offer
forgiveness and comfort to the one who hurt them.
The
next story is a bit more personal. As I have been navigating another journey
through breast cancer, I have talked with many women and heard their stories.
In a recent group discussion, we were talking about people in our lives who
have been either over-bearing on the one hand, or uncaring on the other, as we
endure the disease and treatments. Several women had been hurt by what they
called “bolters” – friends they had stood beside in their hour of need, but now
that the roles were reversed, these alleged friends were nowhere to be found.
Some felt the need, as a result, to cut these friends out of their lives.
Friendship goes both ways – I was there for you, so you ought to be here for
me, and if you’re not, then bye-bye. Perhaps you have found yourself in a
similar position, when people you thought were your friends were not there when
you needed them. How did you respond? It’s a tough call – especially when we
are rightly trying to care for ourselves, and surround ourselves with positive,
loving energy. Out with the bad, in with the good. I wouldn’t have blamed the
man Jesus at all if he had decided to cut his betraying, denying friends out of
his life – after all that he had done for them, and all that he was going to do
for them, they shouldn’t have treated him that way! But Christ-like love is not
tit for tat. How satisfying it is to give back what people deserve – good or
bad! “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” is so reasonable. You love me,
and I’ll love you makes perfect sense. How much more difficult it is to love
even when you don’t appear to be getting anything in return. And really, how much
more Christ-like.
Suzanne Guthrie offers our last story: “Not long ago,”
she writes, “I was driving to a meeting in an unfamiliar town on a rainy
Saturday morning. I stopped at a red light and noticed some kind of protest
happening on the street corner – a group of people wearing sandwich boards with
huge lettering. Some signs said, ‘Stop Abortion,’ while others read,
‘Pro-choice’ – both interspersed with harsher messages. These passionately
opposing individuals stood amidst one another, laughing and talking and
drinking steaming coffee in the cold rain. Nearby, two people wearing opposing
signs embraced. Ah, I thought, see how they love one another.” [Christian
Century, May 2, 2001] Some of the
hardest people of all for us to love are the people we disagree with.
Especially if the issue is very important to us – it is hard to maintain
respectful conversation if we feel our deeply held values are being challenged.
It becomes easy to place ideals in a higher, more important position than we
place people.
For a while, you may remember, those What Would
Jesus Do bracelets were really
popular. It’s a worthwhile question, but even a better one is, What – or Who –
Would Jesus Love? If we are called to love one another as Jesus loves us, then
we can start with knowing whom to
love. So let’s look at the first story – do we love the victim’s families? Do
we love Bud Welch, the forgiving father of a victim? Do we love Timothy
McVeigh? And in the second story – do we love those friends who help us when we
are sick? Do we love our friends by helping when they need us? And the friends
whom we helped, but who were nowhere to be seen when we needed it? And in this
last story: do we agree with those with whom we agree? Do we look at those who
believe differently about important issues – and I mean the big issues, like
abortion, gay marriage, gun laws, taxes, immigration, health care reform – do
we look at people on the opposite side of those issues and love them? And the
bigger question: how do we love them?
My favorite part of Suzanne Guthrie’s telling of that
last story is not so much that people on both sides of the issue were talking,
but that she catches two people with opposite signs embrace. She likens it to
the “new heaven” described in today’s reading from Revelation. She writes,
“Here is the holy city adorned as a bride for her husband. A new heaven, a new
earth, breaking forth through the rain, hidden as a sign on the street corner.
See how they love one another passionately enough to embrace this moment of
reconciliation and still more passionately to continue their opposing struggles
on behalf of others.” You don’t have to agree with someone to love them, see?
You don’t even have to like someone to love them. Jesus probably wasn’t too
pleased with his betraying, denying friends on that night that he offered this
commandment – yet he never stopped loving them. So loving someone as Jesus
loves us, you see, doesn’t mean liking their actions. But it does mean seeing
them as children of God who are worthy of God’s love, children of God for whom
Jesus died and rose again, for whom God through Christ conquered death so that
we all could live with God in eternal life. To love one another with this love
is more powerful than disagreement, more powerful than disappointment, more
powerful than the difficulty of forgiveness – indeed to love someone with God’s
love is more powerful than anything else on earth.
Let us pray. God our Father, you have loved us with
a love more powerful than anything else we know. Help us to see all people
through your eyes: as your children who are worthy of love. In the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment