What Does Love Look Like?
By Rev. Karin Case
May 02, 2010
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Lessons: 31-35
This passage from John is often called “Jesus’ last discourse,” and these verses are referred to as “the new commandment”—for obvious reasons! As he prepares to depart from his disciples, Jesus says, “Where I am going, you cannot come. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
When we Christians start talking about “a new commandment” I get a little wary. To often, we speak about Jesus’ life as if it invalidates all that has gone before it—the rich soil of Judaism in which Jesus, himself, grew to faith and maturity. We contrast “the new commandment” with “the old law” in a false dichotomy that obscures more than it illuminates. We risk diminishing both traditions and even doing violence to Jews in the name of this “new commandment.”
As a child I recall singing, They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love—a hymn based directly on these words from today’s scripture: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The hymn made me feel good about my faith! Yet as I grew I wondered whether love was really a sign of being Christian. After all, couldn’t Jews or Muslims or even atheists express the same kind of love for neighbor? Certainly we don’t have a corner on the love-market!
And what about all the atrocities committed throughout history—by people who call themselves “Christians,”—some of them even in the name of Christ? Crusades, pogroms, the Holocaust? The list is just about enough to send any thinking person right out the doors of the church. Who would want to have anything to do with such a tradition?
Yet Jesus’ gentle presence testifies to another way. If we think that domination and “power over” are the way of Christ, we’ve got it wrong. The “new commandment,” the love of which Jesus speaks is a way of gentleness, compassion, humility, a way of kindness, a way of invitation and inclusion.
What makes this a “new commandment?” After all, hasn’t Jesus already told his followers (a lot of times!) to “love our neighbor as ourselves?” How are these words from John’s gospel any different?
I suspect they are “new” because of their context. They are some of Jesus’ parting words to the disciples: “Love each other the way I have loved you.” Jesus is speaking about his imminent death: “I am with you only a little while longer. You will look for me.” These words: “Love each other” are what he wants them to remember once he’s gone.
Perhaps the commandment feels new to the disciples because loving their neighbor is no longer an abstraction. They have walked side by side with Jesus on the dusty roads of Galilee and when he says, “just as I have loved you,” this time it has legs. They know what he means. They remember that when they felt unlovable, Jesus embraced them.
Matthew, the tax collector, remembers Jesus looking him in the eyes and saying, “You. Yes, you. Come, follow me.” The fishermen, Simon and Andrew, remember something so powerful it left them speechless, a love so compelling they had to drop their nets and follow. Loyal sons who couldn’t begin to explain to their father the new purpose that had claimed them. Rough, hardworking men, defined by honor and filial responsibility, whose lives were broken open by love.
Mary remembers pouring perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiping his feet with her hair. She remembers that when the others criticized and condemned her action, Jesus, alone, understood her profligate outpouring of love and fragrance.
The disciples all remember times when they were confused and uncertain, afraid, cross or prideful or argumentative, when Jesus was infinitely patient. They remember that when they hesitated to reach out to someone—because it was too disagreeable or troublesome or they simply felt unsure, Jesus didn’t hesitate for a moment. Jesus insisted—Let the little children come to me. Make another place at the table. Today, I am coming to your house. Rise and walk. Your faith has made you whole.
As we approach the feast that is set before us, let us ask, what that love looks like—not on the byways of Galilee—but today in 2010, on the streets of Boston and Cambridge, Lexington and Watertown. What does love look like? It looks like patience, humility, compassion, and gratitude. It looks like speaking truth to power and resisting evil.
What does love look like? It looks like people of faith coming together in a Daughters of Abraham group, to form friendships across the boundaries the world puts in place. It looks like people of faith coming together to say “no” to credit card usury. It looks like a team of American doctors operating in ninety-degree heat in a makeshift hospital in Haiti. It looks like working with immigrants to secure housing and work and medical care.
What does love look like? It looks like the feet of teenagers walking twenty miles—as some of our middle school kids are today—participating in the Walk for Hunger so that no one need go hungry.
What does love look like? It looks like a table spread in joy, full of memory and possibility, a table where there is room for all. What does love look like? It looks like bananas and turkey and cheese. It looks like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a brown paper bag. It looks like a drawing on the outside of that bag that says we remember Jesus and we remember you! Thanks be to God!