John 13:31-35
May 2, 2010
Where are you going?
What is your direction?
Are you going in the way of Jesus?
Jesus was headed toward glory. “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified…. God will also glorify him in himself… will glorify him at once”. What does that mean? What is it be glorified? To win a prize for being the best, the greatest? To stand above and beyond all the rest? Is it to be the grand champion? Gold medalist? Recorder holder ad infinitum? Can humankind be glorified or is glory only relegated to God? Is glory something to be sought, or something that simply is the result of faithfully being and doing what is embedded in one?
The Gospel writers do not seem to imply that Jesus was a glory-seeker. John’s gospel seems to imply that glory was 'laid upon' Jesus as a result of living fully in the intention of God. Jesus fully embraced and lived the God-life within him and that resulted in glory or praise to God and glory and praise to Jesus. How did he live fully in the intention of God? In the writings attributed to the disciple John, ‘whom Jesus loved’ (13:23), a mystic of the first century, the good news of Jesus the Christ was simply and profoundly about love. God’s intention from the beginning was love (I John 3:11-24). Living fully in the intention of God was and is living love fully. The result is glory, but the way is love, the focus is love, the intent is love.
In todays scripture Jesus is speaking of glory, and then says to his disciples that they can not come where he is going just as he had said to “the Jews” (that is the pietistic hold-outs) that they were not able to go Jesus’ way. (Perhaps they were not able because they were seeking glory rather than seeking love?) When Peter, however, questions where he is going, Jesus responds differently, “you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward” (13:36). We know from the resurrection account in the 21st chapter (15-19) that Jesus indeed “commands” Peter to come and follow him by nurturing Peter's love to be beyond friendship and brotherhood to a willingness to enter God’s sacrificial love. So it seems that Jesus’ followers would be going Jesus' way also, going toward glory by the way of love; loving God and loving God’s people even in the midst of betrayal and denial. That is selfless love. That is God love. That is what agape` is all about (the Greek word for love that is written in John’s writings).
Going where Jesus has gone is following the commandment to love one another. The intention of this kind of love (agape`) is selfless, sacrificial, steadfast love (hesed – Hebrew - Ps. 136), the kind that can only come from God. This is not the romantic, sentimental, smitten-love of infatuated lovers (eros>erotic), nor the love families and friends share because they are bound together by blood ties or mutual fondness (philio>Philadephia). This agape` love Jesus is a command, not a suggestion or invitation, but a command to those who would go where he is going, the laying-down-your-life-for-another-love; love that willing goes through pain, suffering, even to the point of death in behalf of the other; love that only God-infused presence can offer (Jn 15:12-14; I John 4:7-21).
This is a “new” command; a new kind of love. The word, “new” from the Greek is a “brand new”, a never-before-new. This is not a remodeled command. It would seem that what is new here is that previously people would love those they liked or were associated with and did not need to love those beyond their own kin or choosing. Only God had to love everybody and everything. In Hebrew scriptures God’s love was from everlasting to everlasting, was able to pardon, was pure grace. That love was common for God but not expected of people. Jesus, however, says if we are to go where Jesus goes we must love like God loves, we must love like Jesus himself has loved. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”. Jesus fully embraced and lived the God-life within him, which from the beginning was love. Now it our turn to do the same.
If you want to know if people are related to one another, you look for resemblances; family of origin, nationality, race, even geographic regional influences. My twin daughters don’t look like me. They share all their father’s physical features and coloring. They have even been asked if they were adopted. Appearances can be deceiving at times and so one has to look deeper, for even adopted children can become more like their adoptive parents as they choose to live within those same values and patterns. Jesus said that the way in which those who followed him loved one another would be the resemblance, the indicator, the identity card attaching them to him, just as the way Jesus loved united him in God. If we are go the way of Jesus, if we are to look and act and be like Jesus, the way in which to go is love, loving as God loves. It’s that simple and that hard. God love looks and is different than what is seen in this broken world. It’s the only love that can transform the world and save the world, the whole cosmos.
This new command of Jesus as written by John is given on the night of Jesus arrest, on the eve of his death. Jesus has washed his disciples feet and given them an example of servant love. His command to love one another is sandwiched between his telling of Judas’ betrayal and of Peter’s denial. God love isn’t about loving those who are perfect. Going the way of love is loving the other even when the other inflicts deep pain, the pain of betrayal and denial, the hurt of disappointments, lies, disregard. It is loving the other because one is still able to see the God-seed planted in the other beyond the broken places. Going the way of love is forgiving and not holding wrongs against the other. Going the way of love may even require death. Going the way of love seems impossible for mere humans to do and yet that is exactly what Jesus commands, to love like God does.
How does God love this world, all its people, all its creatures, all its substance? How can I love like God? How does God love me when I fail to live fully and intentionally as God desires for me? How do I love myself when I fail? How do I love when others and even the world fails and falls down. If God so loved the world and if Jesus commands us to go the way of God-love, do I have a free pass to love less than God? Thank God I am given lots of opportunities to practice God-love. I am given lots of people and occasions– my husband, my children, our families, friends, neighbors, a community of faith, The Church, the world, strangers along the way, leaders, teachers, offenders, warriors, homeless, the self-absorbed, and the selfless, one and all, who allow me to practice God love. And what of enemies, those far away and those within? Yep, Jesus said to even love them as God would. (Peter and the Early Church learned this inclusive love in the story of Cornelius, also the lectionary passage for today. Acts 11:1-18. God’s Spirit gives all people the “turn around”/repentance/metanoia that leads to life. Love.)
If we want to go the way of Jesus, if we want to live fully in the intention of God, we must look like Jesus, look like God, and be clothed by God love.
O loving God, who beckons us to love
in the same way we have been loved,
help me to always have your love in
heart, mind, and in every act.
Love was the beginning.
Love will be the ending.
God is love. Love is God.
Help me to be live and be
fully united in Love.
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