No Greater Love - 6th Sunday of Easter 2019

26 May 2019 

1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 15:12-17

In one scene in a movie, love is described as “biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate”.  What is most telling is the context in which it was said … and by whom.  It was the character of “Satan”, and he was trying to convince someone that feelings of love are overrated. 

To a degree, I suppose there is some truth to it.  Too often we confuse love with how we happen to be feeling at any given time, and I’ll grant you there is no warmer or more comforting feeling in knowing we are loved.   In Jesus’ statement about the true measure – and value – of love, however, He is not strictly speaking about being loved or even feeling loved.  He is speaking about the ultimate expression of the greatest love there can be – our willingness to do even for those who will not – perhaps will never – appreciate it or return the favor.

Jesus certainly knew this.  As we are reminded when we celebrate Holy Communion, Jesus knew His disciples would bail on Him and He knew Judas was about to hand Him over to the authorities.  Yet He continued with the celebration of true and genuine freedom, not only celebrating the Passover by which the Israelites had been set free from the bondage of slavery but offering the means by which we may be set free from bondage to sin and death.

Yet the idea of expressions of love received AND given is often reduced to a false notion of “legalism” which seems to suggest love is precisely an emotion to be felt rather than a commitment to the New Life into which we are reborn.  Obedience to The Lord as acts of genuine love for Him, in modern theology, has been deemed unnecessary.  After all, The Lord loves us "no matter what”, right?

Freedom, like key biblical terms as “grace” and “love”, is horrifically misunderstood and misappropriated in our modern society.  Too many think of freedom as “license” to do as one pleases with no regard for how our actions may affect others.  Yet the late John Paul II said it best; “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do as we should”.

This makes me think of a recent article I read (History.com) about what is arguably the very first Memorial Day commemoration.  The first national Memorial Day was in 1868 in Arlington VA, but the first record of an observance is said to have taken place in 1865 in Charleston SC following the Civil War. 

It is said there was a mass grave at a makeshift Confederate POW camp in which Union soldiers had been buried, but the freed slaves of the area who knew about it arranged to reinter these Union soldiers and give them each a proper burial.  The act was one of gratitude, mindful as these freed slaves were of what the Union had fought against.

They could have more easily walked away.  They were freed following the collapse of the Confederacy, but the gratitude they must have felt in that moment compelled them to stay, to do this thing that would honor the war dead who had given all they had to give for a principle few understood. 

But here is the point of discipleship altogether; it is not always necessary to physically die for a principle, but it is always necessary to fulfill the Royal Law: to “love one’s neighbor as oneself”, to put aside the freedom to indulge one’s own desires and, instead, give oneself over to “serve one another in love” (Galatians 5:13). 

So then perhaps we are compelled to ask ourselves if obeying Jesus’ “commandment to love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12) can be reduced to a feeling or if there is more to fulfilling this “commandment”.  We often say we cannot help how we may be feeling at any given time and we know circumstances can change in an instant, circumstances which may surely change the way we may be feeling.

It follows, then, that Jesus is not talking about feeling a certain way.  Indeed, this portion of John’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying, “I am giving you these commands so you may love one another” (vs 17).  Not so “you might” or that “you must” but in “you may”.  Though the statement has the force and authority of “commandment”, there is something even more compelling than this.  Jesus is freeing His “servants” and calling them “friends”! 

Some have suggested that in the whole context, it may have become necessary for Jesus to release His “servants” so they could become much more than mere followers who could do no more or less than whatever Jesus might do in their presence or tell them to do; to be set free from being mere observers.  In being set free from perhaps a self-imposed bondage of blind obedience without understanding why, they would have been less than capable of truly loving one another and those whom they would soon serve. 

The same principle applies to the freed slaves in Charleston.  It may be they had been enslaved to the Confederate POW camp in Charleston and had been forced to dig the mass graves, but in their newfound freedom they chose to give each of these Union soldiers a proper burial.  There is a profound difference in being forced to do something one might otherwise not do – and being freed to do that which love compels us to do.  If there was any measure of “feeling” associated with these men and women choosing to do what they felt needed to be done, it would surely have been a feeling of deep and abiding gratitude. 

In this nation and in the Holy Church, this kind of love is in exceedingly short supply, evidenced by our apparent determination to malign and destroy any who disagree.  The Christian faith has been reduced to a simple formula by which one is either “saved” or not.  While there is real power from a justified heart which has been set free from the sins of the past, we don’t always feel it nor do we feel a need to express that genuine, God-given power in appropriate ways, ways that will glorify Him and serve others. 

As Paul expressed to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:12-20), freedom is hard and must be handled with the greatest of care because with that freedom comes great responsibility.  We can do anything we choose to do, but we do not often consider or even care how our actions will impact others.  This freedom can never be taken for granted lest we forget we have been set free not for the sake of indulging our own desires but so we can truly, fully, freely serve those who need it most. 

There can be “No Greater Love” than this: to give of ourselves for the sake and the well-being of others.  It is not about being “tolerant”; it is about being faithful … to Him, to His Commandments, and to His Church.  In the Name of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.  Amen.