My Commandment

⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I 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. ¹⁶You 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. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John 15:9-17

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…I have appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Several weeks ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a fascinating article called “The Moral Bucket List.” The article was so interesting and challenging to read, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It really hit home for me this week as I pondered these words to us from Christ, thought about the commandment to love: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” In the column, Brooks ponders the difference between our resume virtues and our eulogy virtues, as he calls them. He writes this:

About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. When I meet such a person it brightens my whole day. But I confess I often have a sadder thought: It occurs to me that I’ve achieved a decent level of career success, but I have not achieved that. I have not achieved that generosity of spirit, or that depth of character. A few years ago I realized that I wanted to be a bit more like those people. I realized that if I wanted to do that I was going to have to work harder to save my own soul. I was going to have to have the sort of moral adventures that produce that kind of goodness. I was going to have to be better at balancing my life. It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?

Were you capable of deep love? Are we capable of deep love? We are not talking about a shallow, fleeting love, but a love that makes us deeply good to others, a love that enables us to listen without reserve; a love that calls us to look out for the good of others, a manner of love that is infused and oozing with gratitude; a love that brightens the days of others, a love that is selfless and reflects a generosity of spirit, a deep depth of character.

Are we capable of deep love? It is a question that should flow through our thoughts and hearts each day as we breathe and move and have being. Are we capable to deep love? It is a question that should abide in our hearts. What a question to be asked every day of our lives. But Jesus takes this question a lot further in our Scripture lesson from today—he asks the question about how we abide in love, but he takes the question much further by turning into a commandment. It is not a suggestion or a question merely to be asked, but a commandment to be lived out in our lives each day. Are we capable of deep love? We must be because we are commanded to be.

The Greek word used in this passage for love is not the “eros” love, the love of lovers, the love of romance and passion. It is not the “philia” love, the dispassionate kind of love expressed between between friends, coworkers, acquaintances. The Greek word Jesus uses in his speech here is the “agape” kind of love, the love of charity and benevolence towards our fellow brothers and sisters, the love that ensures our sisters and brothers are cared for, whether they are able to express that kind of love in return or not, the love that expresses God’s unconditional love for God’s children, the love embodied in God’s son who is sent to live and die and come back to life for us, the love that comes without condition.

In his explication of this passage in the Feasting on the Word series, David Cunningham explains this agape love beautifully:

Love in this sense is a theological virtue, an excellence of character that God has by nature and in which we participate by grace. Such love is primarily interested in the good of the other person, rather than one’s own. It does not attempt to possess or dominate the other. Nor is it limited by the scarcities that are imposed by time and place: once can have a few good friends and fewer lovers, but one can have agape for all…[this kind of love] is not possessive or subordinating, thus allowing genuine space for the other to be; and superabundant, such that it can be offered without reserve.

What a beautiful and rich way to describe the kind of love to which we are called here. Jesus calls us to a deep love and respect for each other, a love that doesn’t just come in and out of our lives, but one that abides in us, dwells in our souls, one that is superabundant.

There are so many important things Jesus tells us in this passage, so many that I could probably go on all day about them. I won’t subject y’all to that, though, so here are a few things that jump out here. First of all, Jesus calls us to this kind of agape love, calls us not through suggestion or hints, but through a mandate, a command. Much like the mandate that is given to us on Maundy Thursday to love and serve each other without reserve, he gives another mandate here: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” If we are truly the followers of Christ that we claim to be, then we have no other choice but to follow the way of love, agape love—the love that doesn’t attempt to possess or own or dominate, but to accept and forgive and understand instead; the love that radiates from our souls by its light; the love that is primarily interested in the genuine well being of those around us instead of ourselves; the love that is infused with gratitude instead of selfishness; the love of superabundance that we are called to give to all of God’s children no matter what. This is our way of love because we are children of God, accepted and loved and unconditionally. And because of that, we are commanded to do whatever we can to love the same way.

Jesus also redefines the word “friend” for us in this passage, as he does throughout the Gospels. We tend to think of our friends only as the people who we hang out with, the folks we trust with our fears and our dreams, our hopes and our desires, the people who accept us as we are and love us no matter what. Our friends are indeed those folks, but Jesus reminds us over and over again that our friends include so many more. Yes, our friends are the folks we share meals with in our community, but they are also folks from around the world who might not be able to find any food to eat. Our friends are the people who share the good times and the rough experiences with us, but they are also folks whom we might never meet who might be experiencing the same kinds of moments, rough and good. Our friends are the folks whose names we know and can always call out when we need them, but they are also the faceless, nameless folks whom we pass by every day. Christ calls us, commands us to love our friends so much that we are able to lay our lives down for them—but this doesn’t just extend to the people we know and love. This command mandates that we all share our love with each other, no matter what we believe or how we live or whether we will ever get anything back in return. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

And to show that this mandate, this commandment, is not merely made up of shallow words or fickle promises, Christ literally does lay down his life for us. It is impossible to read this passage without knowing the context of it, what comes immediately following. Jesus says, “This is my commandment” just as he is beginning his walk to the cross, to his death by crucifixion. When Jesus says to us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” his words carry such a deeper, fuller meaning when we realize that he is saying them as he is on his way to lay his life down for us—for all of us. Jesus doesn’t simply stop at commanding all of us to love without reserve, to love abundantly. He gives us the mandate and then he does it himself. The crucifixion is the perfect example of a selfless, non-possessive love, a love that is full of grace and gratitude, a deep, overflowing, superabundant love.

At first glance, it seems a bit odd that this passage leading to Jesus’ death is given to us in our lectionary so soon after his resurrection, just as we are still basking in the glow of Easter. But it’s given to us here so that we won’t ever forget, so that the command to love is always in the forefront of our minds and hearts. “I am giving you these commands,” Jesus says, “so that you may love one another.” The command for us to be people of agape love is given to us every day—as we journey through Lent, as we sit at the foot of the cross, as we celebrate the resurrection, and as we live each day as Easter people. Thanks be to God.