Love One Another

Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I 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. You 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. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” John 15:12-27

We have a simple commandment to follow and it turs out to be one of the hardest things to do for human beings. We always have self-interests and egos in the way, along with real needs of family and community. Yet we are called to love one another despite ourselves, our differences and our confusion. It is easy to take up sides against a stranger or new ways of being. It is harder for us to see the other as an invitation from God to expand our capacity to love. And love, indeed, is a gift from God, love begins in the heart of the Creator, and the more we plant the more our capacity to love grows.

Creator, God, source of all love

you made us in your image

alike and very different in culture

speaking languages, you only understand.

We live in fear all too much

thinking the stranger is dangerous

yet they too are made in your likeness

and have gifts we cannot even imagine.

Help us today to love one another

make our every task about loving

may we forgive and turn again

so we might deepen your love here and now. Amen.