Word to the Wise
Sunday, May 2, 2010 - Fifth Sunday of Easter
[Acts 14:21-27; Revelation 21:1-5a; John 13:31-33a, 34-35]I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Those of us who weathered the liturgical storms right after the Second Vatican Council can remember the hymn with the lines, "And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love: Yes, they'll kno-ow we are Christians by our loooove!" One doesn't hear the hymn quite so often now (and some will say, "Thank God!") but the very fact that it popped into my head when reflecting on today's gospel scripture testifies to the power of the idea! However, the words of Jesus should make us pause here. What does he mean by a "new" commandment. Already we know that the Old Testament commanded love of God and neighbor. The Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan make that clear! Even the scripture scholars I consulted scratch their heads a bit about the "new." My reflections here will "track" theirs a bit but I'll have my own "take off" point. One of the characteristic features of the Gospel of John is that Jesus uses a "sign" as a "platform" for a "discourse." A good example of this is the multiplication of the loaves and fishes which is followed by the "bread of life" discourse. It seems to me that in the thirteenth chapter of John we are given a "sign" in the washing of the feet of the disciples. What Jesus does is to specify what he will say later on about love! The "new" commandment is focused on how Jesus loves and how that must be our example. He will further specify this by his statement, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13) This is what Jesus will do as an example of love. If the disciples do not do this much for each other, how can they expect those from outside the community to pay attention to their preaching? In my pastoral experience, this question would arise when I had to deal with squabbles within the parish family! When we read in the Gospel of John about "love" and are tempted to consider it all too abstract, we need to remember the dirty feet and the bloody cross. Love doesn't get more concrete than that! AMEN
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