May 9, 2021
Love One Another, As I have Loved you
Recently I was talking with a few of the Confirmation Students. And I think the question that I ask them was…”what is one thing that you would ask of Christianity if you could?”
Two of the students essentially said the same thing:
“Why can’t people get along?”
I suppose I could end this meditation right there by saying to you all…”Hey your teenage kids are asking us why we can’t get along!” They are pretty astute noting that things are not going the way they would like…and they are asking about things.
I recall in college that we seemed to be on the verge of a new understanding of life and citizenship…if only…if only…we could solve Viet Nam…and solve race discrimination…and lift people out of poverty…and a couple more things…but no matter…we were baby boomers and our time was about to come and we would do it. After all, we had rock and roll and a certain consciousness from the post war boom years. We were asking questions…and we would answer them with our numbers and our determination.
Alas, here it is…fifty years later and two generations removed from Woodstock…my grandchildren’s generation is asking…”Why can’t we get along?”
I imagine my parents were saying that in the 1930’s as war was looming in Europe…as Hitler cast a shadow. I imagine my grandparents were asking the same thing in 1915…as war had broken out on the European continent.
I am not surprised that every generation asks the existential question of “why can’t we get along?” I am not surprised that the riddle of violence and peace cannot be figured out. And I think that I would be totally bummed out, if the question were no longer asked. To ask the question involves a certain amount of hope for the world.
To listen to the words of Jesus and to believe in them
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Let’s put this in context. Jesus has just finished talking about him being the vine in the Gospel of John and his disciples being the branches. I would imagine that was enough to confound the disciples.
Immediately afterwards Jesus moves to less metaphorically based lessons like…love one another. No vines or branches or wide rivers or high mountains or singing birds to illustrate the lesson. Jesus gets to the point ….”love one another, as I have loved you.”
We’re still trying to figure …love one another…just what DID he mean by that?
I imagine Jesus looking down upon us from his heavenly home and turning to his Creator God and saying…”Do you suppose I need to go down there again and point out what I meant by loving one another?”
In today’s passage we have the word “love” used no less than 9 times in 9 verses. And the word “joy” is used twice.
Next week, we begin again with worship in the sanctuary. This has been a long time coming…we have certainly waited until the time was right…safe. I commend this church for not pressuring to open too early. Church Council and the staff and worship committee…have exhaustively discussed the issue of safety.
But we look around and the idea of vaccinations has taken hold quite firmly in this congregation…though some may still not be comfortable…rest assured you can watch on live stream or recorded…no need to miss worship. We are grateful to our government and to science and pharmaceutical companies, local government and the National Guard.
We have lost many. Jobs and lives have been upended but it is the nature of human beings to push forward. We do so after war and we do so after disasters.
Slowly our lives return to a new-normal. But now, a new and unexpected dilemma. I read just this morning about the virus and its effects in India and Brazil and across many nations where vaccinations are scarce.
The opportunities are boundless. When do we share our vaccines? What is our obligation to our citizens; To the world? Surely we cannot say that we are blessed and others are not, just because we have the resources.
That’s the intriguing thing about “loving one another as Jesus has loved us”…it is not a win/lose proposition…it is an open ended invitation…that love crosses the borders of countries and the boundaries of religions. It is an open-ended opportunity to express love every day in multiple ways.
We Baby Boomers may have thought that we sort of invented this notion of loving everyone. After all, our rock and roll heroes were constantly singing about it in the 1960’s. But the truth is…the Gospel of John delivers the ultimate Baby Boomer refrain….”love one another as I have loved you.” Now, all we have to do is figure out how to deliver on that promise.