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Thought for the Week 2 May – 5th Sunday of Easter
It’s
a short Gospel reading today but contains the essence of the Christian faith
for those that profess it. It’s no easy option, “Love one another as I have
loved you” says Jesus. Judas
has slid off into the night to initiate his act of betrayal and not until he
has gone can Jesus begin what are known as his farewell discourses which end
with the prayer in Chapter 17. With Judas’ leaving the end is now rushing
toward Jesus and he needs to tell the remaining disciples things he couldn’t
say with Judas present, and the first of those things is our Gospel reading
today. The
majority of people would have real difficulty in telling us exactly what love
is, to begin with. Trying to grasp what love is, is like trying to grasp a
handful of water! The problem is
probably a linguistic one, English has only one word for it but Greek, for
example, had four words, each of which describe a different kind of love.
That is the trouble with our limited word ---- it tries to cover a multitude
of emotions with one inadequate word and as a consequence we find ourselves
having to rely on Greek in trying to
distinguish the emotion involved. There
is for example, the love of children for their parents, there is love of
parents for their children, there is love of friends, there is
physical/sexual love, and there is the love of God for his creation. All are
differing forms of love with different emotional feelings involved. But all
having this one word, love, to cover them. Philosophers
have spent many man-hours over the years trying to fathom it out. There is no
need for us today to look at all these various forms of love that exist, for
in the New Testament there are only two sorts of love that are mentioned. The
first is what we would describe as brotherly love, or a love that gives us a
feeling of delight, friendly affection describes it well, it is not a
sexually pleasurable love and for convenience sake and to distinguish it
we’ll use the Greek word phileo.
For the other sort of love mentioned we’ll use the Greek word agape------- it is what we would call
parental love, its altruistic, unconditional and selfless. It’s the sort of
love that God has for humanity. It is also the love that Jesus was speaking
about when he said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind.” and referred to it as the first and
greatest of commandments. Paul
also refers to it at chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians -----
it is a well-known chapter and is a “must” at all church based wedding
ceremonies. Just
listen to what Paul says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy,
it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight
in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” The Greek word for this
love means a selfless concern for the well being of others, not prompted by
anything in the nature of the others to call forth this type of love, in
other words what is called agape
love. It
is precisely this agape love that Jesus asks of his followers ------- the
killer for us is not “the love one another”, we can do that easily and avoid
those we don’t get on with, see eye to eye with. Jesus said at one point “If
you love those who love you what credit is that to you.” The killer is for
us “as I have loved you”. Christ died
for all, he loved all. Remember “Father forgive them for they know not what
they do.” they chose Barabbas, they cried “Crucify him!” Remember the Sermon
on the Mount? “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Christ’s
love reflects that of God. John
3 vs.16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, That
whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The same
John wrote in his first letter “This is love: not that we love God, but that
he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear
friends, since God loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has ever
seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us." It
was not the first time that the command to love others had been given. We
find in Leviticus at chapter 19 the command to love your neighbour as
yourself but the command in our reading goes a lot further and in a way Jesus
makes it his own by adding the words
“…as I have loved you.” And just what do these words add? Well in
chapter 15 Jesus talks of the Vine and the Branches and says these words “My
command is this; Love each other as I have loved you.” Then prophetically he
says, “Greater love has no-one than this that he lay down his life for his
friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” In fact Jesus laid
down his life for us all. The
command that Jesus gives is to love one another as he has loved us ------ so
that by that not so simple act “All men will know that (we) are his
disciples.” Well we have as Christians certainly messed that one up. Montesquieu,
the French philosopher, writing in the eighteenth century said, “No kingdom
has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.” and it is Christians, so
called, that give God a bad name. We are called to love one another and yet
we have persecuted, burned at the stake, excommunicated, shunned, hated other
Christians simply because their interpretation of scripture, usually, or
their interpretation of how we should live was different to ours. And still
suspicion exists. And yet we have a faith based upon love, “God so loved the
world ………..”, “ …………… love as I have loved you”, James in his letter writes
“Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.” Putting it another
way Dean William Inge said “Religion is a way of walking, not a way of
talking” and Walter Colton wrote “Men will wrangle for religion, write for
it, fight for it, die for it, anything but ---- live it.” The
early Christians had a hard time of it as well. They were of course still
Jews and found it very difficult to love their Gentile brothers and sisters
who were subsequently convicted of the love of God, and Jesus, for them, as
the reading from Acts tells us. Surely these people cannot be followers of
Jesus if they do all the things that we, as Jews, are not allowed to do and
the men are not circumcised. Peter himself struggled with it. “Surely not,
Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” he says to God
when explaining his vision to the Christians in Jerusalem. It took three
attempts to persuade Peter that what God had made clean was not impure. Those
early Christians, after hearing Peter out, praised God and recognized that
Gentiles were granted repentance unto life through Jesus Christ and were as
much loved by God as they were. One can assume therefore that Jesus’ command
to love as he had loved spread out from the Jews to the Gentiles. But then we need to think about
what Romans 8 has to say. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble, or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or
sword? ……….. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels
nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” That
in the words of Paul is the extent to which Jesus loves us. The question that
we are left with is how do we measure up? It’s
necessary to point out that to love one another in the way Jesus loved us
does not mean to say that we have to agree with everything a fellow Christian
determines. It does not require us to agree on what may be perceived as
controversial matters ---- it does require us to respect the other’s point of
view, it does not preclude discussion, it does mean that we can agree to
disagree. Christians do not need to agree on all things that pertain to the
Christian life. But
relationships, and that is what we are talking about, are difficult at the
best of times. We have to learn to compromise, to live with one another, to
forgive, in other words to love. But we have emotions ---- oh yes and don’t
we just! We get angry, resentful, possessive, self-centred, obstinate, we
downright refuse to see the other’s point of view. Today of course we have
rights, legally protected rights which under no circumstances are to be
infringed. Very often justice is about the protection of those rights, often
called Human Rights. Jesus taught us another way, a way which in fact
surrenders those rights, a way which encourages us to keep short accounts, a
way of kindness and of love which asks of us to look at the needs, rights, emotions
of others. Paul in Romans tells us to make up our minds “not to put any
stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.” “It is better not to eat
meat or drink wine or to do anything which will cause your brother to fall.”
he says. This is kindness, this is love for your brother. No,
it is not easy. The Christian life is not easy, but we are called to follow
Jesus and to love as he loved. Paul again put it succinctly in his letter to
the Ephesians, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one
another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as
beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up
for us. Mel
Fancy: Reader, Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |