From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Second Week of Easter
John 15:12-27
‘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.’
I have marveled over the past several weeks at the thoughtful, informed, and courageous leadership of Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, addressing the multiple and complicated issues presented by the Coronavirus pandemic. As best as any modern-day politician can, he is making decisions that address the needs of the whole, without regard to political posturing. Yesterday at his daily press conference, he was asked by a reporter: “which is worse, death or economic despair?” The question obviously was asked regarding whether or not states should go ahead and open up for business, despite the increased probability of new infections. Cuomo was resolute. He said the lives of our neighbors always take precedence over economics; that life is more valuable than economic security, as bad as economic insecurity can be; and then he said something that resonated with me. He said, “this is not about me… this is about we.”
That I think is at the heart of John’s Gospel, that after all theologizing is said and done, the bottom line is that we are ‘to lay down our lives for our friends,’ our neighbors. John makes much ado about the Greek philosophical concept of friendship. Friendship in classical philosophy is not a casual acquaintance, a golfing buddy, or a bridge partner; a friend is one for whom one would sacrifice their life. That, in a nutshell, is the high call of John’s Gospel. It is the radical opposite of our post-modern idol of self-interest. And we, brothers and sisters, like it or not, are radicals. We are born for the good of our neighbor; the good of the whole. It is our life’s work. It is not about me, but about we.
This art of befriending tells us everything we need to know about God; that God’s modus operandi is sacrifice. Our God does not rule over earth aloof in the heavens; our God washes feet. Our God is always giving God’s self away for the good of God’s beloved. God is not about me; but about we. That is what our presiding bishop calls “the way of Love.” And Love is a collaborative process between God and the human community made in God’s image for a commonweal of shared abundance, justice, peace, and mutual regard.
And Jesus warns his disciples that living a life for Love will be challenged by the forces of hate and evil. We know that to be true in our own time. During this pandemic we are seeing the violence and squalid abuse that self-interest can perpetuate against the powerless and the least among us. The writer of John calls that “the world.” And John goes on to say that we do not belong to that world. We belong to Love. If our actions, our daily living, are about me, then we have acquiesced to the ways of the world. If we are about sacrifice and serving first our neighbor… if we are about we, then we are in Love, which is to be in God. We’ve all come too far in our lives of faith to live otherwise… haven’t we?
A Prayer for Vocation in Daily Work (BCP p.261)
Almighty God our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth: Deliver us in our various occupations from the service of self alone, that we may do the work you have given us to do in truth and beauty and for the common good; for the sake of him who came among us as one who serves, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
