Where Is The Love?
34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
(John 13:34-35)
In John 13, prior to his crucifixion, Jesus had just washed the feet of and shared the communal Passover meal with all of the disciples - including Judas, who would betray him, and Peter, who would deny him - when he reminded them of his command to love each other as he had loved them. And the way Jesus had loved them was unconditionally, by serving them, and calling them to serve. Jesus never requested or expected flawless faith from his followers, just as he never intended that his disciples would become automatons who thought and behaved the same. Doubts and divergent understandings, were hallmarks of Jesus' disciples and
all of those whom Jesus called and served.
We are living in a particularly divisive time, and we seem unable to simply agree to disagree. We, instead, choose to adjust laws in an effort to restrict people from making choices, or living in ways, that some find objectionable. But why should some, other than on issues of societal safety, attempt to regulate how individuals live, or the choices we all have the freedom to make? The people of God have always been called to live purposely different, however, that difference is not rooted in an adherence to specific rules, but in an intentional care for the vulnerable, the outcast, the stranger. Even within Christianity, we struggle to allow one another the grace to live out our faith in diverse ways. Churches and denominations split over differences of opinion and understanding - opinions and understandings that have been deemed more sacred than the persons who hold them.
In Acts 11, Peter defended his decision to eat with believers who were uncircumcised, and who did not live according to Jewish customs, by recounting a dream in which God told him three times not to deem something unclean that God had made clean. After this vision from God, Peter realized that God's Spirit fell as freely on those who held to different traditions and different ways of living - even ways that he had found abhorrent - as on those who lived and believed as he did. May we be reminded not to deem anyone or anything unclean, unworthy, or unnecessary that God has cleansed, claimed, or called because God's command to love and serve is not excusive to those who live their lives, or live out their faith, in a singular way - it extends to all.
16 "And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" 18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." (Acts 11:16-18)
