The Path of Life

The Path of Life

Monday, May 10, 2021

The indiscriminate love of God

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.

-- Fr. Joseph Cox, OSB