NOTE: The following is a homily delivered by our Fr. Joseph Cox, OSB, at Mass on Sunday, May 9. It is based on the Gospel of John 15:9-17
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An ancient tradition about the last days
of Saint John the Evangelist says that he lived to a very old age and became so
feeble that he had to be carried to the meetings of the faithful. There,
because of his weakness, he was not able to deliver a long discourse, so at
each gathering he just repeated the words, “Little children, love one another.”
His followers became tired of hearing the same words over and over, so they
asked him why he never said anything else. Saint John said, “Do this alone and
it is enough.” This story may be true because the word “love” appears 57 times
in the Gospel of John; more often than in the other three gospels combined.
In the gospel for today (John 15:9-17) at
verse 14, Jesus says to his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I
command you.” What does he command us to do? In verse 12 he says, “This is my
commandment: love one another as I love you.” The disciples, like you and me,
sometimes don’t quite get it the first time. Therefore, Jesus must keep
reminding us. So, in verse 17, Jesus again says, “This I command you: love one
another.” That is quite clear because Jesus repeated it and called it a
command.
To love others does not mean to tolerate
others, in the sense of putting up with them. Jesus did not say, “Tolerate one
another as I tolerate you.” He said, “Love one another as I love you.”
God has given to each of us free will, so
we can choose to love or not to love. Love is the free response of the heart. Love
is an attitude, and all attitudes are the consequence of a choice. When it
comes to Christian love, we do not “fall in love”— we “choose to love.” Jesus
chose to love us. He called us “friends”. Love is not just romantic feeling,
physical attraction, or emotional attachment. Love is a choice and decision.
Love is willful commitment and faithful service. To love is to make a decision
of the will. Love cannot survive without action, and it cannot grow without
testing. If we depend on love to be a good feeling only, then it will be impossible
to love all people as God tells us to do, because many people do not give us
good feelings.
The fact that love cannot be completely
boiled down to an emotion is good, because then we are freed from limiting our
love to only feel-good relationships. We are free to love everyone. Love of
neighbor is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by Jesus. It
consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, we love even the person
whom we do not like or even know. This is grounded in an intimate encounter
with God through prayer; an encounter which has become a communion of will,
even affecting our feelings. Then we learn to look on others not simply with
our eyes and our feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus so that Jesus’ friends
are our friends. The divine indwelling is God dwelling in us. Jesus acts in us,
and we see with Jesus’ eyes. St. Paul said, “It is not I who live, but Christ
who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Jesus’ command to love others is not based
on the existing culture—whether at the time of Jesus 2,000 years ago or today.
It is not liberal, conservative, or political. It is the direct result of the
gospels. It is not a statement about the various roles people may be called to
fill in this life, or the honor we may or may not be given on this side of
eternity. It is a statement about our equal value in the eyes of God, and how
we should learn to view each other.
Rather than seeing humanity as a unity, it
can be easy to see humanity as a collection of separate groups of people. As a
result, rather than seeing people as being made in the image and likeness of
God, as the Book of Genesis tells us (Genesis 1:26), we can overemphasize
differences rather than seeing similarities. Consequently, it may appear as if everyone
must fall into a category: progressive, traditional; rich, poor; red states,
blue states; Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist; Russian, Chinese, American, Canadian,
Indian, etc.; black, white, red, brown; gay, straight; and many other
categories. It can be tempting to assign values to these individual groups of
people such as: good, bad; safe, dangerous; those approved by God, those not
approved by God. There are many ways in which our fears and biases play out in
our rash judgments of others.
God is pure love and is all knowing, and
so does not have our biases. God can love everyone because God is total love.
We are not God, so we still have our prejudices, insecurities, and suspicions
about certain people. Yet, the Lord wants us to love all people, not just some.
It does not depend on other people’s political party, sex, race, religion, intelligence,
sexual orientation, or personal status. Separating our brothers and sisters
into groups of “good people” and “bad people” just works to further divide
humanity rather than unite humanity.
When people are misunderstood and
separated into groups and then marginalized to the extreme, the results are
that they can be dehumanized, scapegoated, and oppressed.
A couple of years ago after visiting a
parish in Evansville, on the way back to Saint Meinrad I stopped at a Barnes &
Noble to look around. Afterwards I went to my car in the parking lot. Because
the store was crowded, the lot was almost full, so the car was way at the back.
On my way I noticed someone standing at the back of the lot. He was not getting
into or out of a car—he was just standing there. I thought, “Oh, I suppose this
guy wants money.” I was already placing him in a category. Then, I don’t know
what happened, maybe the Spirit moved me or something, I went up to him and
said, “Hi, I’m Joe. Who are you?” He said that his name was Michael and that he
needed money for a bus ticket. Whether or not that was true does not matter. I
gave him some money and I said that I would keep him in my prayers. He
immediately pulled a small, pocket-size version of the New Testament out of his
pocket and said that he was a person of prayer, too. We talked for minute, then
we shook hands and we parted.
I will never forget that encounter with
him. Instead of ignoring him, or giving him some money and then running away, I
engaged him, and we talked. I took a risk to go beyond artificial boundaries
and enter another person’s world. This has to do with treating people as human
beings worthy of respect and compassion rather than as problems or
inconveniences. When we don’t have some personal contact with those who are
different from us, then our prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged,
and we will continue to distrust and avoid them. But if we are willing to
listen to others and learn from them, we can lessen some of the “us” versus
“them” mentality that we all have, and try to see people in new ways.
Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
Although the Easter lilies are gone, we are still in the Easter season. Two
weeks from today we celebrate Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. During
these seven weeks of the season of Easter, we are called to think of Jesus’
love for us as shown by the Paschal Mystery, that is, the suffering, death, and
resurrection of Jesus. The Lord has destroyed death and offers eternal life to the
world. The only thing that can explain this is love. Not love for some people,
but for all people. The Lord does not discriminate in the offer of love.
How can we discriminate as to whom we
offer love? Through our Baptism, we have been incorporated into the Paschal
Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We have been made sons and daughters
of God and given new life. Since we are children of God, then we are brothers
and sisters to one another.
