John 13:31-35
Raise your hand if you remember those bracelets that were so popular in the 90’s, WWJD. What Would Jesus Do? Now keep them raised if you had one, and still now if you wore it!
I totally had one, if not a few. Rainbow and neon colors, proudly dawned on my wrist for all to see who it was that I looked to for how to live my life. But I have to admit, the question always seemed empty: What Would Jesus Do? I mean… I don’t know.
Then, I heard our Gospel passage for this morning and it struck me, I never needed to ask the question “What Would Jesus Do?” Because, if I had been listening to the Gospels, or following his teachings, or more so obeying his commandment, the one he gave hours before he would be betrayed, and denied, and killed, then I would know the answer.
What would Jesus do? Jesus would love! And yet still, if it is that simple, why does it feel so hard? I mean if everyone wearing that bracelet simply followed the life and teachings and mandate of Jesus to love, then why does the world look the way it does today?
Why aren’t things better, why isn’t society better, why isn’t religion (or more so Christianity) better, why aren’t people (or Christians) better? I mean if all we have to do is love, what’s the problem?
Having been married a mere 12 years, I say mere in all sincerity, knowing that in the scheme of things 12 years is just a blip, especially considering that as we celebrated the life of John Hobart we also honored his 68 year marriage to Frankie.
All to say during the blip of time I have been married I have learned (thanks to the infamous love languages movement) that we do not all love the same. I acknowledge and show love with words of affirmation and gift giving, whereas Drew acknowledges and shows love by telling me to stop looking at my phone (I mean quality time), and going through the laundry list of things that need to be done (I mean acts of kindness).
In the end leaving us both to feel as if we have worked so hard to show the other love, while completely failing to see the other’s acts at all. Which, more often than not, can land us in a prickly space, to say the least.
I’ve noticed the same with the children, one of my children loves physical touch, another quality time, and still another words of affirmation, and when I fail to attend to each language for each child, they can end up feeling left out.
This is all to say, while we may often note Jesus’ greatest commandment to be “love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love one another as ourselves.” We might do well to remember that in his final hours (as we hear this morning) Jesus stated: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
Because while I may try and show the love I want to you, it may not be the way you wish to receive, or acknowledge, or even understand love. So, how do we love as Jesus loved?
I think we can actually learn a lot about how Jesus loved from his miracles. From the first miracle at the wedding of Cana where Mary, his mother, came and asked that he might allow the party to go on a bit longer (by way of fine wine), defying natural laws in order to appease his mother (of course) and more so to reveal the abundance of joy that is God’s desire for us all.
To healing the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, approaching and recognizing a person who for too long had been ignored and disregarded, not allowing any to be left behind or overlooked, as he simply asked the man, “Do you wish to be made well?” Allowing the man to respond as he stood up able to rejoin his community and life. Even to Jesus walking on water, surpassing physical boundaries to be present to his disciples in their time of need.
It is all miraculous to say the least. Because, I would guess, and maybe even argue, it is love in its purest form. Love shown abundantly, joyfully and in order that all might be reached, that all might be brought in, even if it required crossing bodies of water on foot.
Even more, I think we can see this kind of miraculous love throughout history and even today. Because, it is this kind of love that allowed Martin Luther King, Jr. despite the opposition and backlash and hate, to have a dream. It is this kind of love that allowed Desmond Tutu in the face of apartheid and racism to see forgiveness as the only way to heal both individual hearts and the whole world. It is this kind of love that allowed Pope Francis when approached aboutLGTBQ people and the church to respond with “Who am I to judge?” It is this kind of love that empowered our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry to continually remind us that if it is not about love, then it is not about God.
Love as the answer to all the problems in our lives and the world, at first, seems like a trite, easy, maybe even trivial answer. The late 19th century Theologian G.K Chesterton once wrote that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
Often this is true because the kind of love Jesus is asking us to participate in, the kind of love that ought to be the Christian ideal, requires us, like Jesus, to see the divine in each and every person and honor that whether they look or vote or live like us. It requires us, like Jesus, to be vulnerable enough to share what we have expecting nothing in return. It requires us, like Jesus, to be fully present to those around us, eating with the rejecting, touching the untouchable, and enjoying time with our friends and loved ones washing their feet, accepting their gifts and having honest conversations.
At the end of the day, if we seek to follow the way of Christ, to use the mantra WWJD to order lives and our days, then we would do well to remember that Jesus may have reminded us of the Golden Rule, love God with your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.
But, in his last hours, as he faced the most excruciating, brutal, and dehumanizing form of death Jesus gave us a final mandate as he said to his disciples, and to us today, “Little Children,…I give you a new commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you. By this everyone will know” that you do as I do, that you are about what I am about, that you have the power that I showed in the world, which is love.
A love that like Jesus is miraculous, a love that like Jesus meets people where they are, a love that like Jesus sees beyond sin, and labels and whatever else may have at one time or another separated us from God, from others, from ourselves.
https://www.stpaulssmithfieldnc.org/podcasts/sermons/page/2
by Rector Kate Byrd, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Smithfield, N.C.