Bible Reading : John 15:9-17
Dear Friends,
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love.”
Again this week we read Jesus’ call to stay close to the Father. Then he pushes things much farther. There is nothing static about this call because you can’t static in community. You need to grow, and here we find the fruit of the vine. This is about loving everyone. But many things are called love. Love for a child and love for a parent. Love for the stranger on the street. Love for friends far flung and close by. Love for all others, even the difficult ones.
This is harder calling, but maybe that makes it easier to focus on. Jesus called us into community and that’s going to take work. Intellectual, emotional, spiritual, imaginative work. Vincent Van Gogh puts it this way: “The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”. The more we focus on love, the more we abide in God and know God’s love flowing through us. This is the work we are cut out for. And yet, and yet, despite all this sustaining love, I trip up. If you keep my commandments and then again at the bottom I am giving you these commandments. Can this be right? This feels like law when I’m craving the taste of grace. Is it love if I’m commanded to love? Duty alone can’t produce good fruit. How do we love if it is a commandment? How is that love?
Here is the answering call. As I have loved you. Not as duty dictates or as you can figure out for yourself. But as Christ has loved you. And the love of Christ is so much richer than duty. Christ’s love is deep, abiding love for the Father and shared with us. Christ love is the love for the stranger too. The people in the streets. The woman at the well, the tax collector in the tree. The thief on the cross. The beloved disciple in every age. Each are seen by Christ and met and loved. Keep my commandments. Share my thinking. See the world as I see the world. And Jesus sees the world with passion, loving
eyes, loving in so many ways. Maybe in each of these ways, Love is glimpsed, just as God is glimpsed in each of us.
Solomzi.