The Church of the Ascension
May 6, 2007
John 13:31-35

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

Many of you have met my dear friend Kathy Larue on her occasional visits from Jackson.  Her mother, Patsy, was probably the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  She was Miss Ole Miss 50 years ago, a beauty queen more times than anyone can count, exquisitely turned out whether going to the grocery store or to dinner.  As she lay dying a few years ago, several of us, including of course Kathy, were gathered at her bedside.  She was conscious right up to the end though weakened and difficult to hear.  With practically her last breath, she motioned for Kathy to move in close for some final important words.  With utter clarity and precise instruction, she said to Kathy, “honey, remember to moisturize your face every night.”  With that advice delivered, she breathed her last.

Final words vary from person to person; and though Patsy’s may not seem that crucial on the world scene, they were very important to her, so important that she wanted to be sure the one she loved the most in the world got the word just before she left this world.    These gospel words today come from Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples.  He knows that he is leaving them.  “Little children,” he says with great tenderness, “I am with you only a little while longer and where I am going you cannot go.   So I leave you a new commandment: that you love one another.  By this love you will be known as my disciples.”  Jesus did not want to go without saying it at least one more time.  I suspect the disciples on occasion got tired of hearing Jesus say “love one another.”  Love, love, love – that’s all he ever seemed to talk about.  He never once mentioned what they should wear or how they should worship – just love, love, love.

And, yet, in this final discourse, unlike earlier conversations about the commandment to love, Jesus put a new and final twist on the advice.  He tied it to their identity.  Identity was as important then as it is now; human beings search in many ways, some destructive, others evolutionary and life-giving, for identity.  The desire to know what makes us who we are is a central part of what it means to be human.  Jesus answered this crucial practical and existential question: the way others will know that you are my disciples – which was what they desired above all else – is by observing the way you love one another.

It is interesting to think about the ways we identify ourselves as Christians.  What are some of them?  Crosses we wear around our necks; churches we attend; moral positions we take on various issues; schools in which our children enroll; ways we vote; etc.  Some of us identify ourselves as Christians by talking about Baptisms, Confirmations, etc. that are a part of our lives; some of us directly evangelize; we say to people, “I am a Christian and I want to invite you to be one.”  Geri, Joel, and I are probably the only people here whose outfits directly identify us as some kind of a Christian.

All of that is what it is – neither inherently bad nor good, just what it is.  But none of it is what Jesus told his disciples would be the thing that set them apart as his disciples.  The way to show the world that we are disciples of Christ, Christians that is, is to love – extravagantly and even on occasion unreasonably.  “Love your enemies,” Jesus said.  What?  That makes no sense.  We need to hate our enemies so that we can live with the atrocities we do them.  No matter how lofty claims are about the philosophy of war, loving one’s enemies does not play a role in war.  “Love the little children,” Jesus said.  What?  They squirm, make noise, make unfiltered comments; they should be seen not heard.  Jesus said, “Love them for they are closer to the Kingdom of God than any adult.”

Does our way of loving truly distinguish us as Christians?  The probable answer is that sometimes we are known as Christ’s own by the way we love and sometimes not.  Very briefly, let me offer a few things – lifted from my own life - that I believe keep us from loving like that.

Surely fear is one of these blocks.  I am not talking in this case about fear of the enemy but a more insidious fear in some ways – the fear that we will be swallowed up by others, fears that we will be taken advantage of, fears that we might receive the smaller share in the distribution of emotional rewards.  In the vernacular of the day that is to say we fear being codependent.  Not all loving is codependent.  It is possible to give freely and generously of ourselves without “losing ourselves” in the process.

Anger is another block.  I know, I know that healthy anger is good, blah, blah, blah.  But ours is a culture out of control on anger.  One of our members told me of an experience this week of stopping at a yellow light only to be followed home by a driver (with a small child in the car no less), who proceeded to chew him out for stopping at the light.  And that is just the uncontrolled highly visible anger.  The deeper anger that is nourished by years of holding on to grudges and hurts is even worse.  Expressing anger may be therapeutically important but hanging on to it will kill us – not to mention causing us to live in opposition to what Jesus instructed us.  When we have been hurt or lighted, we think surely we are allowed one holdout, one person whom we may judge to be unworthy of our love.  But the truth is, whether we can do or not, the commandment does not have a loophole: it demands that let go of our pet hates and favorite hurts – if we want our loving to make us known as followers of Jesus.

Competitiveness also stands in the way of our loving in such a way that makes us known as Jesus’ followers.  Our society is deeply imbued with the desire to be number one.  Maintaining the competitive edge is essential to our understanding of success.  Most of our sporting and recreational activities involve someone’s winning and someone’s losing.  And it is not always good-natured, regardless of what we claim.  Our children learn early from us – their greatest teachers – how important winning is. 

I suppose that all of these blocks to Christ-like loving can be summed up as a problem of entitlement.  When I watch otherwise good people have a fit in a restaurant because some detail of the service is not up to par – or worse find myself getting stirred up by it, I am struck by how insidious a feeling of entitlement is.  Who in the world says we have the right to be utterly outdone because some relatively unimportant detail doesn’t meet our expectation?  Jesus just does not operate in a world understood as a series of entitlements.

Just before Jesus left these disciples whom he loved so deeply, he sat down on the floor before them, washed their feet, and said, “Love like this.”  Such love has nothing to do with being earned or deserved; such love does not recognize worth – it confers it.  As one has said, this love is “love on the house.”

“Love on the house” – that is how we shall be known.  Neither reasonable nor sensible, the commandment to love on another as we have been loved remains the principle, guiding ethic for us who call ourselves Christians.  When we love like that, when we refuse to take delight in the sordid of life, when we reject feelings of self satisfaction when others miss the mark, when we lovingly even though we have been hurt – THEN we know joy, deeper joy than we ever belied possible!

In the name of the one who loves with abandon and commands us to do the same.  AMEN.