Readings (Year C):
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Psalm 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
1 Peter 3:15-18
John 14:15-21
Reflection: Jesus calls us to be united in the love of God
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!
This is one of my favorite Psalms. Its feature in today’s liturgy is fitting, considering where the gospel reading takes us. As our gospel reading establishes, when we cry out to our God in joy, we are crying out to the wellspring of joy within ourselves. Let us consider what this cry might awaken.
To fully appreciate this week’s gospel reading, we must consider the context in which Christ spoke these words: to his disciples at the last supper. This context is important to fully embrace what Jesus means when he emphasizes that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. For those of us with trauma around rigidity and legalism, that can feel like a nervous system-activating guilt trip!
Let us consider, however, what has just happened in the previous chapter of John’s gospel. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples in an act of loving, selfless service, setting an example of the selfless service he wants us to offer others. Then Jesus relays what John refers to as a new commandment: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Jesus commanding love above all else is not an isolated teaching. The other three gospel writers also proclaim this truth. Although similar affirmations of the gospel of love appear in Mark 12:29–31 and Luke 10:25–28, the version in Matthew 22:37–40 has long resonated for me. Jesus proclaims, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The idea of keeping Christ’s commandments does not feel so frightening when I consider that love is at their root. Love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self are the foundation.
In our gospel teaching, Jesus goes on to promise us the Holy Spirit, the advocate that he describes as a spirit of truth that the world cannot accept. And then Jesus destroys the myth of separation. He proclaims, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Even if you’ve heard this line read many times throughout your life, listening to the Christian scriptures, I encourage you to take a moment to really contemplate what he gave us with that teaching.
While Christians can be familiar with accepting the oneness of the divine through the gift of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—how often do we contemplate our ordained role in this mystery? In our gospel teaching for this week, Jesus establishes that he, and thus the Father, lives within us. They are not some magical beings on a cloud lording over us, raining down blessings and shooting thunderbolts of judgment.
This idea is important for me to remember when God feels distant and far away. And usually, when I feel that God is inaccessible, it’s because I am buying into many of the images of God as the commander on a cloud with which I was raised.
Jesus came to show all of us many new truths. Namely, that God is a God of love, and that God shows up in our fellow human beings with whom we inhabit this planet. And when I encounter one of them, I am encountering God. When I find another person difficult to love, what can that relationship teach me about myself and where I may be denying myself love and compassion? When there are problems to solve in the world and people in need of care, do I simply leave it to that idea of God on the cloud to sort it out, or do I realize that I am responsible for washing their feet as an act of love?
A love that will reverberate to others, to myself, and to the divine within me. It is all connected. We are all connected. Nothing and no one is separate in God’s love.
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