St. Martin's Episcopal Church

Love One Another as I Have Loved You

The Reverend Shirley Smith Graham

St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, Virginia

Maundy Thursday, March 20, 2008

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

 

This night of Maundy Thursday takes its name from the new commandment of Jesus expressed in verse 34 of the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John.  The word “Maundy” is anglicized from the Latin mandatum.  From this same Latin root, our English word “mandatory” is derived.  In so many ways we are people accustomed to hearing commandments, or instructions, for our lives.  We rely on these instructions to help shape our lives in ways that lead to good, not ill.  We rely on these instructions to keep us walking on a right path with God, instead of wandering astray.  We rely on these instructions to tame the instincts that would otherwise lead to actions that would hurt others or ourselves.  Like road reflectors outlining two opposing flows of traffic, these commandments guide our progress through life.

We’ve heard a lot of these instructions during the Sundays of Lent as we’ve started each service with the Ten Commandments.

You shall have no other gods but me.

You shall not make for yourself any idol

You shall not invoke with malice the Name of the Lord your God.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not commit murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not be a false witness.

You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

In addition, people who attend the early service on Sunday mornings hear the two great commandments articulated by Jesus, as they are recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.  Directly after the opening of the service and the Collect for Purity, we hear these words:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets (BCP 324).

In sum, love God, and love neighbor as self.

            But here tonight, on Maundy Thursday, we hear what Jesus describes as a “new commandment.”  Importantly, it is the only commandment that the writer of John’s gospel chooses to identify as explicitly spoken by Jesus to his disciples.  It can’t be that all the other commandments were judged to be of no value.  Rather, the writer assumed the importance of all the other commandments; he grandfathered in all the other commandments and then included this additional, “new” commandment of Jesus because of its paramount importance.  And here it is:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13.34).

Well, you might rightly wonder, how is this commandment new?  Wouldn’t the disciples gathered around the table with Jesus be bound by God’s previous command to love one’s neighbor as oneself?  How different can loving one’s neighbor be from loving one another?  Is this a distinction without a difference?  I think not.  On the night Jesus is betrayed, he makes significant the difference between being neighbors and being one another bound in the fellowship of table and service.

A clue to the difference is found in the context and the preceding verse.  Remember that the disciples are gathered around the table for a meal together before the Passover.  Jesus is very clear that he is on the cusp of the moment when he will be leaving the disciples.  He will be leaving them to give away his life in such a way that God will be glorified.  Immediately before, in verse 33, Jesus says, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer.  You will look for me … [but] ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’”  So then, this is the fabled “11th hour.”  What is important enough to be done must be done now.  Therefore, knowing this is precious, limited time, look at what Jesus chooses to prioritize and do above all other things:

He has a meal with his disciples.

He washes their feet.

He gives them a new commandment: to love one another as he has loved them.

Just as with every moment since the Incarnation of God in the life of Jesus, just as with every moment since Christmas, Jesus is rooted in earthly, fleshly things: Jesus gathers people to eat.  Jesus gathers people to serve them.  Jesus gathers people of flesh and blood to teach them how to live at the very heart-beat of God.  Yet the next day, all that the Incarnation has been will stop.  Tomorrow, God-with-us will be with us no more.  Jesus is preparing to leave and chooses the one most important thing for them to know.

What he says is like the parting word you say over your shoulder as you leave for work in the morning, when the thought occurs to you that, just in case this is the day I get hit by a bus, this is what I want my beloved to know: “I love you” or “be careful” or “be good to each other” or “eat your carrots.”  So then, this is the one most important thought that Jesus tosses over his shoulder as he prepares to walk out of the door, never again to see his disciples gathered all together.  Jesus says, “Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

It is no accident that these three things occur together, that Jesus shares a meal, washes their feet, and then tells them to love one another as he has loved them.  In each of these three acts Jesus makes intimacy possible between he and his disciples. [repeat]  In each of these three acts Jesus makes intimacy possible between he and his disciples.  And, in the case of the third thing, in the case of the commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved them, Jesus reveals how to live with God, even when the earthly presence of God-with-us is gone.  And this is critical knowledge that Jesus is imparting because it is impossible to have life with God without the faithful action of loving one another.  In order to live in God, they must live with one another.  They must love one another.

Loving one another can sound so warm, cosy and tame.  Loving one another – isn’t that nice?  It sounds so agreeable that we can easily miss the challenge.  Of course, it’s easy to love one another in theory.  Just ask anyone who has been married for more than a year: promising to love one another on the wedding day carries a different burden than practicing the skills of loving one another a year later when the spouse isn’t dressed all up and looking pretty.  As one scholar has written, “[I]t is no easy task for Christians to love one another.  In many ways, it is easier to love one’s enemies, because one might not have to deal with them every day” (Gail O’Day, in “John”, The New Interpreters Bible, p. 734).

This new commandment, unlike the one about loving one’s neighbor, is specifically about love within and among members of the faith community.  And the faith community, like any family household, knows stress and strain.  Every congregation experiences the close quarters of living with one another, and this close proximity recalls the axiom familiarity breeds contempt.  People living closely experience the very best and the very worst of one another.  So loving one another as Jesus loves us is, by no means, an easy or soft ethical demand.

But more important than this commandment’s ethical demand is the way it encapsulates the mystery of the union of God and humanity.  For in this very instruction to love one another is Jesus’ power to knit us together in the divine fellowship.  If you want to live at the heart of God, says Jesus; if you want, even after I am gone, to know the power of my presence; if you want to see God; if you want to taste living water and eat satisfying food that will feed your soul; then love one another.  Be willing to be bound to one another.  Be willing to be connected and stay connected to one another.  Be persistent in forgiving the other, even when that other has caused offense and there is every good reason to feel wronged and demand better – forgive.  Continue to share in table fellowship, continue to wash one another’s feet, continue to serve one another … even when a person in your fellowship betrays you; even when a person in your fellowship abandons you; even when a person neglects you, continue to love them and do acts of love in service toward them – and then you would see Jesus.

This sounds quite tame and civilized until we consider the context in which Jesus gives the commandment.  Jesus is reclining beside the one who is about to betray him and turn him over to the authorities who will put him on trial, torture him and execute him.  Jesus is looking at the disciples who fall asleep even as he pleads with them to stay awake to give him support during his misery.  Jesus is eating with the disciple who will deny even knowing him.  Jesus is washing the feet of the friends who will use those same feet to run from the sight of him dying on the cross.


Yet, Jesus is feeding them;

Jesus is washing them;
and Jesus says,
love one another like this.  Amen.


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