Acts10, 25-26, 34-35 / 1Jn 4, 7-10 / John 15, 9-17
It
has to happen sometime in every relationship.
There comes a time when each of us becomes very aware of our relationship
with another person – with a wife or husband – with a friend – with someone we
truly love and care for. And there comes
a time when we ask ourselves: what do I want – deeply, deeply want – for the
other? My attention is fully on the
other person – his good, her welfare. What
do I want for my friend?
It’s
that kind of a moment that is being described in John’s gospel today. It forms part of what is called “Jesus’
Farewell Discourse” to his disciples – to those he calls friends, not
servants. Jesus knows he is leaving
them. Death will separate them. And his love for them prompts him to tell
them outright what he deeply wants for them from the very depths of his soul.
When
you think about it, Jesus could have wanted so many good things for his friends
and disciples. He could have wanted
great success and a warm welcome for them as they went about spreading the
gospel. He could have wanted for them an
invulnerability that would shield them from life’s inevitable hurts and
failures. Or, he could have wanted for
them the kind of power that would prompt others to quickly respect his
disciples and really think twice about disagreeing with them.
But
Jesus chooses none of these. He chooses
otherwise. He tells them what he most
deeply wants for them is quite simply God’s love. He wants for them the way he had experienced
God loving him. But for Jesus we accept
God’s love by becoming that love for others.
In his time spent with the disciples he had tried to show what it means
to become God’s love for others – what it means to become the human vehicle for
divine love. Discipleship is learning to
become that vehicle for God’s love. And
disciples must learn how to love in God’s own way. That is our work as disciples.
We
see that very process of learning how to love like God in our first reading from
the Acts of the Apostles. Peter is doing
the work of discipleship by learning not to limit – not to abbreviate God’s
love into an all too confining human love.
At that time there was division in the church about who was fit to
belong to the church. Many were
demanding that good Christians must submit to Mosaic law and observe the rules
for ritual purity. For them
table-fellowship and therefore Eucharist was only for the fit.
But
Peter learned by recalling Jesus’ attitude and practice of
table-fellowship. Jesus dined not just
with close disciples but also with people vastly different from himself. He openly contradicted all those purity and
fitness regulations that would prevent him from sitting down with those
considered sinners. Simply put, Jesus
ate with anybody and everybody. Jesus
ate with the “unfit”. And Peter asks:
should we be doing the very opposite of what Jesus did – all in the name of
Jesus?
Peter
is speaking also to us today. We should
come to the table of Jesus in order to learn how to love as God loves and to
learn how to fail less at such love. Eucharist
– communion is not a reward for the spiritually fit and pure. We are simply not doing the Eucharist in
memory of Jesus when we demand of one another to have our religious act
completely together. If we did make such
a demand, most of us, including myself, would not be here.
In
today’s gospel Jesus says to us: “As the Father loves me, just so I love
you. Remain in my love. ”We come to Eucharist – we come to communion
– so that we may remain in the love that already dwells in our hearts – so that
we may become the love we see the Father has for Jesus and Jesus has for
us. We come to Eucharist – we come to
communion – so that God may fill us with the full force of his love. And then – then we will hold and heal all
those who cry out for love. And then we
will gather to ourselves all the un-reconciled – all the un-noticed – all the
un-fit – whose homes and hearts are broken.
Then we will be becoming disciples of Jesus.
In
the Eucharist we become ever more truly, ever more deeply who we are: the Body of Christ given for the life of the
world.
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
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