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John 13:31-35
Easter 5 / Year C
Jesus said, “Love one another just as I have loved
you.” (John 13:34)
Michael Curry, when he served as the Presiding Bishop
of our church, often told audiences he had set one modest goal for his
nine-year term in office. He wanted to
make sure every Episcopalian memorized at least one verse from the bible and
could recite it chapter and verse. Then
he launched into this:
· Repeat after me: “I John”… “I John”, we all said.
· “chapter 4, verse 8”… “chapter 4, verse 8.”
· “God”… “God”
· “is”… “is”
· ‘love.”… “love”.
Then he would have us put it all together… “I John,
chapter 4, verse 8: God is love.” See,
now you too have memorized a verse from the bible. Practice it every day and make sure to quote
it to you Baptist friends. Not only will
they be impressed, they might even wonder what has gotten into you!
When John writes “God is love,” he is using love
as a noun. When he records the words of
Jesus saying, “Love one another as I have loved you,” he is using love
as a verb in the imperative form. God is
love, not love as in the intense feeling we associate with falling in love
(which we can also fall out of), but something else. The Oxford English Dictionary has
twenty-four different entries for love when it is used in the form of a
noun, but none gives a fully satisfactory description for what the word means
when it is used to describe God’s character and nature.
While we may not be able to come up with a good
definition, we Christians can point to the definitive example. We Christians hold the clearest, most
authentic demonstration of God’s love is found in the person of Jesus. St. Paul put it best when he wrote to the
church in Colossae, Jesus “is the visible image of the invisible God.” (1:15) So, when Jesus says to his disciples “Love
one another just as I have loved you,” he is saying they are to manifest in
their lives God’s true nature as he himself has made it known through his words
and deeds.
To understand better how Jesus embodies divine love,
we need to look at the context for today’s reading. It takes place at the Passover meal in the Upper
Room on Maundy Thursday. During the supper,
Jesus gets up from the table, wraps himself in a towel, and washes the feet of
those present. This is a lowly task
normally performed by a servant and certainly never by a master or rabbi.
It is a kind of enacted parable. And like any parable, its meaning and message
are hardly static. For example, the Parable
of the Good Samaritan’s teaching in not at all limited to what a Christian
should do if he or she encounters a wounded victim while travelling by foot on
the Wadi Qelt, the winding dry gulch which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho. If the teaching of a parable was confined
only to the exact elements of the story, it would be rendered practically useless. The power of a parable lies in its ability to
speak to a multitude of different situations we encounter on a regular
basis. Parables are intended for
application, make us work for discernment, and often drive us to prayer for guidance.
Jesus’ example of foot washing is like this. It is about so much more than an ancient ritual,
an act of hygiene, or even a display of hospitality. It is a demonstration of Jesus’ love, which
is nothing less than God’s nature revealed in human flesh. If I, in this sermon, attempted to spell out
for you exactly what the foot washing means for you, I would be locking it into
something like a check-list – akin to saying “Do A, B, and C
and you will be a good Christian.” It is
more like a filter on a camera lens which shapes the way a photographer sees a
subject, setting, or image. You honor
Jesus’ act by looking through it as you engage life and loved ones and ask “What
would foot washing look like in this specific moment or situation?”
There is more to Christianity than embracing a certain
ethic or moral posture. Jesus’ main
criticism of the pharisees seems to have been while they often did the right
thing, their heart was not in it. Their
actions could be construed as loving, yet they emanated from a sense of duty and
were not an actual expression of love.
They did the right thing, but their motivation soured its taste.
There is a mystical element to our faith. We sense the need to invite Christ’s love to
live in us. Short of this kind of
possession, all the good we seek to do may become little more than an
obligation and, if it becomes an obligation, eventually it will become a
burden. A good prayer each morning might
go something like this:
Fill me, O Lord, with your love. Fill me to overflowing so that today I might
love others as you have loved me. Amen.
