It’s not a suggestion

‘My children, I shall not be with you very much longer. You will look for me; but I tell you now what I told the Jewish authorities, “You cannot go where I am going.” And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you   have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.       (verses 33-35)

Read John 13:31-35

Jesus does not tell us to like each other but to love one another. It is not a suggestion, where we can choose whether to do it or not, or choose who we will love and who we will not love. It is a command, and it’s an expectation.

It is a command given to the Christian community, the church. We are to love each other. And we are to love each other as Jesus loves us: totally, no strings attached, no one excluded. And there is a good reason. There is little point in using all our witnessing or evangelising skills on unchurched people in our community if all we have to bring them into is a community where there are power struggles, feuds. cliques, people who refuse to forgive each other for long-lived hurts, destructive criticism, and people who insist on their own way and desires, even if these are hindering the growth of the church. People coming into a community like this would not know they are among Jesus’ disciples.

And so we are to love one another. We are to do this so that Jesus’ love may be found among us, may be lived among us, and may strengthen the new disciples we are also commanded to make.

Jesus, you have loved me, lived for me, and died for me. Help me show my love for those you bring near me in the way I love them, live for them and serve them, joyfully, with no strings attached. Amen.

by Robert Turnbull, in ‘Renewed Hope for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2000)

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