John 15:9 - 17
I wonder if sometimes we miss the point about what Jesus is telling us. Today he makes it very clear that just as he keeps his father’s commandments and remains in his love, so we are to keep his commandment if we are to remain in his love. And his commandment is simple: Love one another as I love you.
In another part of the gospels Jesus tells the crowds that each person is called to love his neighbor as himself, and he tells the story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate what that means. But I think there is a difference between loving each other as Jesus loves his disciples, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
If I am a healthy human being, I love myself. I see that I’m well fed, get enough rest, take care of my health -- in other words, I try to optimize my life. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We are chock full of instincts that work to that end. So Jesus tells the crowds, love your neighbor that way. See to it your neighbors are given what they need to be fully alive, to at least have the opportunity to become what God wants for them. And while it’s true that the Good Samaritan used his resources directly to help the half-dead stranger he met on the road, you love your neighbor as yourself in other ways as well -- donating to charity, working for justice -- and in a way this sort of activity is a force multiplier -- you can do more by pooling your resources with others, and that is loving your neighbor; and if you won’t rest until your neighbor has all the good things that you do, then that is loving your neighbor as yourself. You are the measure of when you’ve loved enough.
But in today’s gospel Jesus is telling his friends, his disciples, something slightly different. They are to love each other as he has loved them. And that is loving them enough to lay down his life for them. And he’s not telling them to go out and do that for the stranger by the side of the road; he’s telling them to be prepared to do that for each other, for the members of the little community that he’s formed -- a gathered community. The fishermen, the tax collector, the revolutionary, the guy who takes care of the group’s money -- I don’t know what each of the apostles did for a living other than that, but legend has it that Thomas was a carpenter, like Jesus; and Bartholomew may have been a scribe. And I suspect if they hadn’t been gathered by Jesus, except for the fishermen they probably would have had nothing to do with each other.
We are a gathered community, in much the same way the apostles were. We have been gathered together by Jesus, into this parish family. And I think Jesus calls us to love each other in a deeper, more self-giving way than we are called to love people who aren’t part of this community. That’s where supernatural love gets involved. Because human beings like to hang around people like themselves; we are most comfortable in that situation. And if we had to lay down our life we’d do it for a child, a parent, a spouse, maybe a best friend, but for the person who sits four pews over on Sunday that we’ve nodded at during the sign of peace? Not so much. And yet I think that’s what Jesus is calling us to do. It’s the way the first Christians lived. They held everything in common; when one was imprisoned the others would visit, even at the risk of their lives. When one became sick, others would tend to that person, even risking catching whatever horrible disease was killing her. If someone lost a spouse, they were there for them. And they would willingly go to their deaths rather than betray their fellow Christians; some of the early martyrs were tortured to give up the names of their fellow believers, but resisted unto death.
That’s the kind of love we believe exists in the Trinity- where God is pure love. The Father empties himself out, holding back nothing, to generate the Son. The Son gives himself up for the Father out of love; and the love between them is the Holy Spirit, love without limit.
But Jesus wanted that kind of love between his followers for a very practical reason as well; it was what spread the kingdom that he began in the world. And it did; the pagans looked and saw how these Christians loved each other, and many of them wanted a community like that for themselves and the Church exploded in terms of growth. Jesus saves us through the church he founded, and our parish is the local embodiment of his universal church.
It’s not easy to love each other as Jesus loved us and gave up his life for us. It’s not easy to love people who under normal circumstances you wouldn’t have much to do with. But face it, our Catholic church is not growing, it’s shrinking. But imagine how it would be if our neighbors in Longmeadow looked at our parish and said, “See how those Christians love each other!” That is the real challenge. We did not choose Jesus, he chose us and appoints us to go and bear fruit that will last, and that will come about when we love each other enough to give up our lives if it came to that.
