“This love can change our world.”

This is the manuscript from the sermon preached on Maundy Thursday.  The Gospel text is John 13:1-17, 31b-35.

Jesus saw the writing on the wall.  He knew where the events of the evening were going to lead.  John has made this very clear for us.  In a few hours, Judas will walk into the darkness of the garden with a detachment of soldiers and betray Jesus into the hands of the jealous religious leaders.  In the dark hours of the night Jesus will stand trial before the whole council and in the early morning he will be taken to Pilate.  His cross was only heartbeats away.  But he still had time for one final meal with his disciples.  Jesus still had a few things to say.

            So after Judas walks out the door on his way to betray Jesus and perhaps after the plates are cleared away, Jesus stands up before his disciples and says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”   

Now for three years Jesus had been teaching and healing, rewriting the book on how we are to live.  Jesus had talked about the depth of God’s love for the world and how we can respond to that love.  Jesus had been showing his followers what it looks like to live as a child of God.  And now he is about to leave them.  Jesus knows that he is not long for the world.  The glory of God is about to be reveled through the cross.  So here in the waning hours of his life he sums his whole ministry in two short sentences.  He leaves his disciples with new commandment to follow; “love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

            Here John uses one of his favorite words for love, agape; “to take a high level of interest in the well-being of another.”  Three times in two sentences John uses this word.  Remember this word does not describe an emotion, something that we feel.  This Greek word describes a way of interacting with those we encounter in the world.  If I were to give you a picture of the human body and ask you to draw where the agape lives in each of us, it would not be in the heart, but in the hands and feet and mind.  Agape lives in the decisions that we make and the way in which we carry out those decisions.  How do we engage the people we pass on a daily basis?  How do we use what we have been blessed with to serve those around us?  These are the questions of agape.  This word agape is not found in Hallmark cards, it is found in the way we live our lives.   

            And for Jesus, agape is found on the cross.  Jesus speaks these words of agape just hours before their true meaning would be revealed to the world.  The cross is where God takes a high level of interest in the well being of the whole world.  The whole world; everyone, to include you and me.  Just hours before he is to die Jesus tells the disciples, who will end up deserting him before the evening is over, that he has taken a high level of interest in their well being.  They won’t understand this until after his resurrection, but Jesus wants to make it very clear that regardless of how the events of the evening would play out, he loves his disciples.  His love for them knows no bounds.  His love for us knows no bounds.  Through the cross Jesus demonstrated his high level of interest in our lives and became a blessing to the whole world. 

            But we are not called to just admire the depth of his love.  That’s not what tonight is about at all.  Listen again to what Jesus tells his disciples; “I give you a new commandment, that you love another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Just as I have loved you, just as I have taken a high level of interest in your lives, you should also do the same.  But that word “should” is not really what Jesus is saying.  We translate the sentence as an imperative command, something we have to do or should do.  But you and I know it’s not that simple; you cannot force someone to love.  You cannot force someone to follow.  What Jesus is actually saying here is, “I have loved you, so that you might love one another.”  “I have loved you so that you can love one another.”  Jesus is providing us with an opportunity to respond to the love that he has shown us.  “I love you, so you have to love others” is not a relationship and it is certainly not grace.  The love of Jesus is a free gift to the whole world, a gift of new life poured out on the cross.  Jesus is inviting us into a relationship based on that love.  

              I was talking with one of my friends from seminary here recently about how internship is going for her.  She tells me that her internship site is in a diverse community and throughout the year she has been working with her congregation in the area of immigration.  She’s hosted Bible studies and talked with people about what it means to be welcoming, what it means to show hospitality to immigrants and strangers in our midst, a call that is grounded in what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

She told me about the project that she is going to start after Easter.  She is going to invite a bunch of women from different cultural backgrounds into a kitchen where they will share with one another their culture’s recipe for bread.  The women from Latin America and Mexico are going to teach about “tortillas.”  The white women of Swedish and Norwegian descent are going to teach about “lefsa.”  The women from Somalia are going to teach about “injera.”  Instead of asking the question “why can’t they be like us?” these women are going to have the opportunity to learn about one another.  Through the baking of bread they will have the chance to learn why that particular kind of bread is important to the women who bake it and why it is important for their culture.  Instead of remaining separate, they are going to take a high level of interest in one another and hopefully learn what it means to live in community with one another.  This is a living, breathing agape of God opportunity.  It’s taking a chance and opening yourself up to the life of another.  It’s taking a high level of interest in the well being of another so that the boundaries of community are extended and not closed off.      

            That’s what we have come together to remember this evening.  On the night in which he was betrayed Jesus took a loaf of bread and broke it for the world to be fed.  Tonight all over the world, faith communities will gather around tortillas and lefsa and injera and unleavened bread in remembrance of the new life we have in Jesus Christ.  This bread fills us up and reminds us that we have been set free to love.  That’s what we have come together to remember this evening.  As we gather around the table of Jesus, we are reminded of God’s endless love for us and we are empowered to share that love with the world.  Through the love of Jesus Christ we have the opportunity to take a high level of interest in those we encounter as we walk through this world.  As we gather around the table this evening I invite you to listen to the words of Jesus.  “I love you,” he says, “so that you can go out and love others.”