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May 6, 2007
Scripture: John 13: 31-35
Title: “How to know”

When everything is about to change, we need to know how to build a new world. I think that’s what this text is about, right off the bat. “Little children,” Jesus says, “I am with you only a little longer.” There are only a few more hours left to the fleeting years of Jesus’ ministry. Soon will come the betrayal, the fear and the suffering and the death. And then the miracle. And after that—the new thing.

It’s not just Jesus’ presence that will be lost to these disciples and helpers and companions—all the named and unnamed swept up in this time. They will be losing clarity of vision, clear leadership, and guidance in their work. And this is their terrifyingly enormous task—what they had been doing with Jesus, they must continue to do without. They will look into the clouds for several long moments, and then a crick in their necks, the call of a bird, a growling stomach, will pull their eyes back to the earth and they will see only each other.

There’s going to be trouble. I think it’s significant that this passage comes right after Judas leaves the meal. There is going to be Judas and the passion story, and beyond that there will be persecutions and the gentile question and an opinionated upstart named Paul. Jesus anticipates all of this and gives them the plan that will see them through: “I give you a commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

A commandment is serious business. It’s a far cry from a suggestion, or a helpful hint, and there isn’t much room for discussion. A commandment is foundational—a truth meant to become so deeply ingrained in our thinking that we never question it.

The giving of this new commandment is the moment in which the new Church begins to form. Just as the Israelites stepped into their identity at the foot of Mount Sinai, the disciples sitting around a table with Jesus have just gotten their first good look at who and what they are supposed to become. They will love each other. It’s an order. And we must believe that it is still an order.

On the one hand, it’s kind of depressing that these followers of Jesus, after all they had been through together, and for all their shared beliefs and shared goals, would still have to be commanded to love each other. And it’s a strange thought for us to picture our community here as a group of people ordered to love each other. After all, don’t we already? And wouldn’t we anyway? And won’t we always? It might be depressing, but it is equally realistic. If we are left to follow our own inclinations then no, we will not always love each other.

We already know that maintaining love within a church can be difficult. Power dynamics and dual relationships are dangerous things, and they are also abundant things. We disagree about trivial things, we disagree about trivial things that are really symbols for more important things, and sometimes we even disagree about important things. When it really, really, matters, it won’t be enough to ‘agree to disagree.’ Beyond unexpected events and contested decisions, another roadblock to perfect love is that a single church is always home to many personalities—many incompatible personalities. We have different tastes and preferences, different histories and worldviews. It’s too easy to brush things like that aside and say they don’t really matter. They may not matter today, but they could very well matter tomorrow.

And ultimately I think there’s something even worse than open strife in the church, and something that we of this world are much more at risk of, and that is the maintaining of a formal sort of distance. We modern folks, with our desire for privacy and our unwillingness to display true emotion, are becoming increasingly separated from the people who live around us. We observe the rules of personal space, we confine ourselves to small talk, we rely on formality rather than love to keep us from hurting each other. This just won’t do. The church is meant to be so much more than a bus stop or a doctor’s waiting room. And it’s meant to be more than a social justice agency or a service organization. This is not just the place where we work, or the place where we spend a lot of our time, this is a place for us. This is where we come to love and be loved, not with the love of family or with romantic love, but as Jesus loved us.

You probably know that time out of mind four kinds of love have been identified, and as Christians we are taught that agape love, the love God has for the world and the love also called charity we can have for each other is the most superior. However, it is worth mentioning that John is the only New Testament author who seems to use two different words for love as synonyms. In John’s writings, philia love is linked to agape love and they appear to be interchangeable.

Philia love is most simply defined as the love of friendship. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes that it is the most deliberate and the least natural kind of love, because it is not motivated by family bonds or romantic inclinations. Rather, philia is a love that really has very little to do with the people involved. People who have philia love for each other are drawn together because of a shared idea, or a common object of adoration—because they see the same thing. This is a love that is always welcoming in new people, and one especially resistant to the perversions of jealousy or exclusivity. John does use the word ‘agape’ in this text, but when we know that the distinction between agape and philia is especially muddled in John we do well to keep both meanings in mind when we encounter either word.

I think this blending of two loves is important when we seek to draw meaning out of this passage, and I also think there is especial significance in the fact that what we are specifically commanded to do is love each other as Jesus loved us. What exactly is the nature of Jesus’ love?

Obviously Jesus didn’t love his disciples for what they could do or had done for him. The story contained in the gospels is basically one long list of how the disciples didn’t understand and didn’t do what they should have. And somehow I don’t think Jesus loved them because of who they were personally—for their obedience, their intelligence, their loyalty, their kindness. That doesn’t sound too familiar. I don’t think Jesus loved his disciples because of anything.

And that’s how it’s supposed to be for us today. Not love for a reason. We eventually come to love certain qualities in each other—a sense of humor, a willingness to help, a knack for making chili—but that’s not Why. That’s never why. We have been commanded to love as Jesus loved, and that means for only one reason—because we, you, us, them, are the people God has given us, you, them, as spiritual companions in this world. We love because God first loved us. We love because this is our church and that’s just what Christians do. We don’t need any reason other than that.

I’m not going to be sentimental and overly-dramatic and start talking about the supreme importance of love, how it’s a thing nobody can live without. Because I think the much harsher truth is that we can live without love, and sometimes we do. And one of the hardest things to recognize in life is that capability within ourselves. But, but, living without love is not God’s plan for us. The commandment that we love each other is our insurance that we will always have something we may not actually need, but what we would never be able to stop wanting.

This is how we know who we are. This is how we know who we’re with. This is how we know what this place is. This is the place where there is only one reason for love—this love without choice, this love that requires only one reason.

Let us pray.

God of love, thank you for making our church a place where we are always loved. Help us live out this love always. Amen.

Amanda Hatafield, Student Associate

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