John
13:31-35.
31 When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of
Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also
glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer.
You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I
am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.35 By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.”
In the film, 42, which is the story about
Jackie Robinson, the baseball executive, Branch Rickey, is played by Harrison
Ford. Rickey was the man who spear
headed the effort to bring an end to racially segregated baseball and in the
film he gives different reasons as to why he makes that effort. In one scene he makes the observation that
his faith is why he is doing this because the Bible tells us eight times to
love our neighbor as ourselves.
I’m not sure that Rickey is right about
that. In one way or another, that
command to love others shows up time and time again. In the New Testament alone, one source says
it shows up 11 times, and multiple times in the Old Testament.
Way back in the Old
Testament book of Leviticus, we are told (19:18), “Love your neighbor
as yourself.”
Love is the key to the Christian faith.
There is a tradition in the history of the
church that the Apostle John, when he was an old man living in Ephesus , had to be carried to the church in
the arms of the younger Christians. Once
at the church worship, John was often asked to preach.
I mean think about it – here is John, the
last living Apostle. Here is a man who
walked with Christ, ate with him, saw the crucifixion, was there for the
Resurrection. Of course people wanted
him to preach.
John could have said something like, “Well
you know I remember one day Jesus and I were walking along the beach and he
told me this parable that nobody ever wrote in the Gospels, so I’ll tell it to
you now.
Or John might have said, “Besides the
Lord’s Prayer, Jesus also taught these other prayers, let me share them with
you.”
Or John might have said, “Rabbi Jesus,
preacher Peter and I walked into a tavern one day and Jesus turned to us and
said, “You know, that reminds me of a joke.”
How cool would that have been if John had told some joke, parable or
prayer that Jesus had spoken?
But John never did that. Whenever he was asked to preach, it was
always the same old sermon, word for word the same, without change:
“Little Children, love one another.”
As the
tradition goes, after a time, the younger Christians became tired of always
hearing the same words, asked, "Master, why do you always say this?"
"It is the Lord's command," was
his reply. "And if this alone be done, it is enough!"
Now this is a story that comes from St Jerome , one of the
early church fathers, but whether it is true or not, what is clear is that
Christians are to love others.
Why do we love others? Because first of all Christ commanded
it. Here in the New Testament lesson for
this morning in what amounts to a farewell address, Jesus is telling his
disciples that they must obey a new commandment: "Love one another.”
Love is active and real and difficult. Douglas John Hall of Canada's McGill University
notes that the law of Christ makes tolerance not enough: "It may be good enough, legally and
politically, but it is not good enough for the one who did not say, 'Tolerate
your neighbor', but 'love your neighbor."
Why do we love? Not just because Christ commanded it, but
because we are loved by God, even though we do not deserve it. St.
John wrote in I John 4:19, "We love, because God
first loved us,"
Why do we love? Because it is a way of life that, while
difficult, works.
James Kegel
tells of a story about a young woman named Sarah. “Sarah came from a family where there was
little love. Criticism, fighting, ridicule and violence were the rule. Never
spoken were the words, ‘I love you,’ or ‘I am sorry, forgive me.’ Then Sarah
found a new self in faith through Christ. She met Jesus and she began to act
differently at home. She would stop in the middle of a fight and ask to be
forgiven. She began to say, ‘I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad.’ She began
giving hugs. She began returning blessings for curses, compliments for
ridicule, forgiveness when wronged. Over a period of two years of giving blessings
to parents and siblings, the entire family met Jesus and gave themselves to His
love. Jesus commands us to love because it will change our lives and the lives
of others.”
OK, we get that love is commanded by
Christ, practiced by God, and works in our lives, but this command to love is
all old news. Jesus, in the New
Testament, says it is a “new commandment” but it feels familiar and old.
Love.
Love, love love love love love.
We’ve heard this in sermons so many times.
It’s old stuff.
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as
yourself. Yada yada yada.”
It was old news when Jesus gave his
farewell address to the Apostles in our New Testament lesson telling his
disciples, “I give you a new commandment…”
You ever buy one your brand of shampoo or
soap or pizza or whatever and see on the label, “New and Improved.” You buy it, take it home, use it, and it
turns out to be the same old stuff. You
can’t tell the difference.
Is this commandment like that?
Is Jesus saying, “New and improved
commandment here, buy ‘em while they last.”
Love one another?
Same old stuff we’ve heard before. Love love love love. Yada yada yada.
Nothing new here.
Or is there.
Elsewhere we are told to love others, “as
we love ourselves.”
Now Jesus as saying for the first time,
“love as I have loved you.”
The bar is being raised.
It is not just that we are to love others
as we love ourselves, now we are being told to love others as Jesus loved.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is approached by a teacher of
the law. "Teacher," he asked,
"what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied.
"How do you read it?"
He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied.
"Do this and you will live."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
And that is what we want to know.
We are perfectly willing to love others, as
long as they deserve our love. We love
good people. We might even love evil
people as long as they are behind bars at the time.
But when Jesus loved others, he never asked
if someone deserved his love.
He loved freely, and abundantly.
We are to love as Jesus loved.
The person who is nice and pleasant to us –
yes, we need to love that person.
The person who is rude to us and says
something that hurts us – yes, we love that person, just like Christ loves that
person.
The person who breaks into our neighbor’s
home – or even OUR home. Yes, we love
that person just as Christ loved and died for the thief on the cross.
Those two brothers in Boston ?
The one who is dead and the one who is under arrest for the bombing? Yes, even them.
This new and improved commandment is not
easier – it’s harder. To love others
like we love ourselves is one thing. We
might justify ourselves and make excuses.
We might say, “terrorists are not our neighbors.”
But this new commandment says we have to
love each other – as Christ loved us.
And that raises the bar considerably.
We have to love everyone – AND we have to love them as Christ did.
Not easy.
And there are those times when we don’t like it. There are times we would like to justify why
we should NOT love specific people.
But this is not debatable. We love, because Christ said so. We love because God first loved us. We love others just like Christ loves them.
Ernest Gordon was a Presbyterian minister
who died just a few years ago (2002).
Before becoming a minister he was an atheist. During World War II he
served as an officer in the Pacific Theater.
He was captured and held prisoner by the Japanese army. During the Second World War, history shows
that Japan
treated their prisoners of war with extreme cruelty. The death rate was quite high, and at one
point Gordon was placed in the “Death Ward” where fellow prisoners took care of
other prisoners who were expected to die.
While in the Death Ward, Gordon was treated
by two fellow allied soldiers, both devout Christians. One of them, Dusty Miller, never met the
cruelty of the enemy with anger or discouragement. Two weeks before the end of the war, a
Japanese guard who was so frustrated with Dusty’s sense of calm in the face of
hardship, crucified him. The guard literally
put together a cross and nailed the prisoner to it and watched him slowly
die.
In his book, Miracle on the River Kwai,
Ernest Gordon described how the Allied soldiers not only cared for their own,
but for the guards who were so vicious to them.
Gordon’s book tells of a very moving incident in which British prisoners
of war tend the wounds of injured Japanese soldiers and feed them. The Japanese
are encrusted with mud, blood and excrement. Their wounds are badly inflamed
and infected. Their own army had left
them uncared for, because there were simply not enough resources. When the British prisoners saw them, they
took pity on them, bathed their wounds, and shared with them a little food to
eat.
Think of that – these soldiers were caring for
their enemies who had starved and beaten them, killed their comrades. God broke
down the hatred and conquered it with love.
The natural thing to do would have been for
these POWs to hate their enemies. But these
prisoners loved those guards, as Christ loved both groups.
The natural way to respond to people who
hurt us is to hurt them. Christians,
however, respond to the world with Christ-like love.
The natural way to respond to people who
cheat us is to strike out against them.
Christians, however, respond to the world with Christ-like love.
The natural way to respond to how things
are in this world is to be like the world.
But we are called upon to respond to the world with Christ-like love.
In Boston
two brothers responded to their world with homemade bombs and with the killing
of innocent people. They accomplished
nothing for their cause. They
accomplished nothing of value. Their own
uncle said it best when calling them losers.
Imagine what would happen if those brothers had responded to their world
with acts of love? It’s true that the
world would probably have never heard their names, but it is also true that
these two would have made great differences in the lives of those around them.
And now we are called upon to love those
two brothers and their families.
Because our ability to love as Christ loves
is what makes us different from those two brothers.
The ability of those British POWs to love
their enemy guards is what made them different.
It is not easy. It is hard.
It is Christ’s command, not
suggestion. “Love one another.”