Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
[Jesus said:] "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another." Children’s : Images for god. Last Sunday, Jesus the vine and God was the care taker of the vine. This Sunday, we are reminded that God is love. I want to know what love is. Can you smell it, see it, taste it... how do you know love? How do you know that which is not love?
During these weeks of Easter, we have been reflecting on what we experience as the nature of God revealed in Jesus. For those first Disciples, the experience of Easter threw their lives into turmoil. God did not behave in the way they expected God to act. The God of Moses had separated the Reed Sea and brought the people to freedom. The God of Joshua had caused a day to stand still long enough to bring down the walls of Jericho. The God of Isaiah had brought the people back from Babylon. Never mind that the God of Jeremiah suffered, weeping rivers of tears. Never mind that the God of Isaiah grieved for the way Israel had turned from God. Never mind that the God of Amos kept loving even when betrayed.
Still more, this God revealed in Jesus loved all people. This God was outraged when the poor were ripped-off and tolerant when people strayed in their personal relationships. This God in Jesus did not condemn. This God in Jesus said, “ you can be more.” This God in Jesus even says “ You are meant to be more.’ This God in Jesus speaks of love as that which identifies the very presence of God.
From the First letter of John, the faithful are reminded that they are to live the commandments of God as a way of showing their love for God. 1 John was written as the people of this way of Jesus were starting to try to adapt a better fit with their society. And while their leaders remind them of the commandments, the one and only commandment we have as followers of Jesus is that we are to love - first God and then others as ourselves. That’s it and that’s everything.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples. Abide in my love by keeping my commandment that you may love one another. Abide in my compassion that you may keep my commandment to be compassionate to yourselves and to others. Jesus called his disciples to no longer be his servants but to be his friends.
Abide in my compassion, Abide in my love. Be compassionate. Become my friends.
1. Abide in my compassion, abide in my love.
Maybe you have visited a friend's home or a family member where you know when you arrive that you are home. You feel a sense of welcome, a feeling like you’ve come home. You sense the love that is in the air and in the food and in the eyes of those you come to visit. There is a feeling of honestly. There is a sense of being real, no putting on airs. And there is a welcome for you to be real.
This is the love that God calls us to live in not just when visiting that special place. This is the love that is all around you. Like a fish in water, God’s love is all around you. Now, allow yourself to abide in that love.
To abide in this love there are things you will have to embrace and things you must surrender. In our book study of the “Shack” by Paul Young, Mack the main character is going to have to give up what he thinks he knows about God. His image of God and his idea of God’s love are all too limited. He is going to have to surrender some of his beliefs about God’s love if he is to welcome the new revelation God has for him.
To abide in God’s love is just that, abide, swim, drink of it fully. Ah, but be careful. This love does not judge and yet, it will reveal you to yourself as your truly are and call you to become more than what you are now.
Mack has held on to his anger at God because God did not stop the murder of his little daughter Missy. In the chapters studied this week, Mack holds that the nature of God is one that punishes. Deep down, Mack feels that his own wrongs against his father, his wife, and others is the reason that God allowed Missy to die a horrible death. Was God punishing him? When he makes this argument to Sophia, Wisdom, she asks, “ Is that who your God is, MacKenzie? It is no wonder you are drowning in your sorrow”(p.166)
To abide in the compassion of God is to welcome a love that knows us better than we know ourselves and call us to become more than what we are now, calls us to live compassionately for ourselves and for others.
2. Abide in my love, abide in my compassion so that you can be compassion for others - Be compassionate.
To be compassionate is to love another as if they have come from the same womb. This is the love as Pace e Bene teaches, a love for how we are bond together by our common humanity. This compassion allows us to listen in new and deeper ways. Consider the teaching of Pace e Bene called CARA. when you come into a difficult situation, center yourself in your being in the reality of self that is you. Feel your feet upon the Earth and the air about your body. Articulate your truth, in “I” statements. Receive the truth of the other. And Agree on the shared truths. When you can find no shared truths, that may be your shared truth. Depending on the subject of disagreement, it may mean a parting of the ways. It may mean the loss of a marriage, friendship, job, or other relationship.
Abide in my love that you may act compassionately and in this way you become not my servants but my friends.
3. Become friends.
When you were a child, you looked to your parents to provide protection and nurture. Some of us got such parents who could nurture and protect. Some of us got more, some less. As we grew into the teen years, most of us rebelled in small or great ways against those parents, this is what needs to happen as we mature, It is part of growing up and becoming our own persons. And then, there is the time when some of us have adult children whom we call our friends. They are no longer just our children. They are our friends. I know one Mom who says that the adolescent years were so tough with her son. He got in trouble with the law. He had a dangerously bad group of friends and he came out of that. He turned his life around. he grew up. And he is one of her dearest friends.
That is what God seeks from us. It means that we have to mature in our faith life and relationship with God. It means that we come to a deeper and greater understanding of God’s love for all creation and how we are a tiny part of that creation. It means that we become involved and responsible. It means that the love relationship changes from God simply pouring out love to us and moves to us embracing that love, giving it back to God and sharing it with others.
Why live as friends of God;? So that your joy may be full. So that you may touch life as a more brilliant and richer, deeper, and higher way. So that you may love one another. It is in that love, that compassionate love, that we act for the changes in our society. Experiencing compassion, we become compassion to the world.
Footnotes:
The Revised Common Lectionary is © Consultation on Common Texts. Texts are from the New Revised Standard Version of Holy Scripture, © 1989 by The Division of Christian
The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, Published by Windblown Media, Newbury Park, California. Copyright 2007.
