Fifth Sunday of Easter 2022

John 13,31-35

Rev. Neli ML

 

After the celebration of the Good Shepherd’s Sunday in Easter, we notice the farewell tone of the Gospel lessons. These lessons are appropriately placed in the context that precedes the ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost we will celebrate in the coming weeks.  In John’s Gospel we find an extensive passage of four chapters (13-17) where Jesus, as a good teacher and shepherd, comforts his disciples and teaches them how to be a community in the world after his departure. Jesus’ teaching in these chapters is about love.

Today’s passage is taken from Chapter 13 where, in the middle of the Last Supper, Jesus commands his disciples to love one another as he has loved them. This commandment is given amid a community of disciples whom Jesus loves deeply. In the preceding verses we read that Jesus gets up from the table and taking on the role of a slave, he washes his disciples’ dirty feet. What a way to tell his disciples how much he loves them!

While the meal and the conversation continue, John notes that Jesus is troubled in spirit. Jesus knows that his arrest is approaching and that Judas, one of his disciples, is going to betray him, so he declares, “I tell you, one of you will betray me.” (13,21). Jesus knows who the traitor is but does not expose him. Jesus speaks to Judas in a coded language that only him can understand. It seems that Jesus is giving Judas a chance to change his ways, but he does not take it. So, when Judas leaves to prepare himself to deliver Jesus to the Jewish authorities, Jesus tells his remaining disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (13,34). Thus, in a context of betrayal, rather than promoting hatred and revenge, Jesus speaks about love and urges his community to love one another just as he has loved them, including the one who conspires against him. What would we have done in this context?

While Judas prepares to hand Jesus over to the Jewish authorities, the community remains gathered, and Jesus continues telling them about his coming suffering, which his disciples still do not understand. It is Peter, the know-it-all, who dares to say to Jesus, “I will lay down my life for you.” It seems Peter wants Jesus to know that he does understand the commandment of love and that he loves Jesus to death (Really Peter?).  Jesus responds, “[dear Peter,] Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.” (13,37-38). Jesus does not want us promising love and denying him in our actions but acting in love in everything we do.

Dear sisters and brothers, Jesus’ commandment of love is not given to a perfect community but to a community where there is betrayal and denial. However, this is Jesus’ community with a teacher who has modeled love for his community and has called it to be an inclusive community where there is forgiveness and reconciliation as signs of love. In this sense, Jesus’ commandment to love one another becomes a call to a radical kind of love.

A community that includes all its members in the circle of love is a community of Jesus’ disciples, as Jesus says, “. . .by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13,35). Are we this community?

In a world full of hatred, revenge, indifference and discrimination, Jesus calls us to practice radical love and to be the community that washes others’ feet and includes all in the circle of love. Amen.