In case anyone local wondered what I said when preaching away last Sunday, here it is:
Morecambe 28/4/13
John
13:31-35
A New Commandment?
Did
Jesus actually do anything new? Good question. Better question than
you would imagine. Feeding miracles? Nah, Elijah did that. Walking on
water? Joshua and Moses didn't even have to do that, they parted it,
and for a reason not just to show off. Healings? Again the Old
Testament prophets were there first, also with raisings from the
dead. One of the reasons people thought Jesus might have been Elijah
was because of the myth of him being carried off into heaven in a
chariot. He hadn't actually died so he may come back. Constantly John
and Jesus were confused with Elijah.
But
Jesus did give sight to the blind, something no OT prophet ever did.
And whilst the ten commandments were a sort of back stop - so it's OK
to beat someone half to death as long as I don't actually kill them -
the new commandment in this Sunday's Gospel from John is to love one
another as Jesus loves us. And this stated at a time when the full
extent of Jesus' love - what he was going to do in what we know as
Holy Week - was as yet unknown although John, as he wrote, knew the
outcome.
Jesus'
standards, at the time he was said to have spoken the words, were
compassion, healing, exorcism and resuscitation. He had spoken of,
but not yet carried out, laying down his life for his friends.
They
are the standards we are set when we hear of the new commandment. The
highest possible. Not that you do not murder. Not that you do to
others what you would want them to do to you and vice versa. Not that
you love your enemies. But that you love one another the Jesus way.
Unconditionally putting others first.
At
a wedding I often explain to a couple that they are not making an
agreement but a covenant. Then I explain the difference. Joining
hands the groom makes his promises to the bride and then hands are
loosed again. Then the rejoined hands hear the bride make her
promises. This is not 'I will do this for you if you will do this for
me.' It is 'I will do this for you whatever.' We, the witnesses to
this imaginary wedding, hear two separate and unrelated promises
going on in parallel. Nothing this other person can do will stop me
keeping my promises, for my promises have no conditions attached. But
if the strength of those two promises motivates both parties in a
marriage and they say them with meaning and commitment, and repeat
them in their hearts every day of their marriage until parted by
death, then the marriage will surely last.
Of
course we all know that the road where one party means it and the
other does not is a road to abuse, violence, manipulation, doubt and
mistrust. A horror package. One party might become a doormat.
And,
of course, this is not a tale of marriage but a tale of Jesus'
unconditional love. What happens when one party begins to demonstrate
loving one another without waiting for it to be reciprocated. The
trouble with starting to love unconditionally is that someone needs
to go first.
And
that is what Jesus did. He went first. In pursuit of love he went to
his death voluntarily.
Some
people suggest that churches are emptying around the country because
the Christian faith is inadequate as an expression of what life is all
about. On the contrary. At its heart. At its crux (a word that means
cross) is a standard so high it is not that it is inadequate but
over-adequate. We ask too much. Instead of asking people to be
second-milers we wonder if they wouldn't mind awfully going a few
yards and then getting someone else to take their turn on the rota.
Church.
A place where people who toil and don't seek for rest, fight and
don't heed the wounds, labour and ask for no reward save that of
knowing we do God''s will. Nice words. Someone should make them into
a prayer.
You
are tough. You are here. You want to identify with this man who took
all the hundreds of positive and negative Old Testament laws that the
scribes and teachers tried to explain and expound and boil them down
to one simple, pithy saying. We'll go out from here and we'll love
others as Jesus has loved us, using our weekly communion together as
refreshment and recharging. Well? Will you?
I
might try. Probably last a couple of hours before someone annoys me. After all I have to embrace the M5/M6 junction on my journey home. But I'll give it a go. Join me?
One day, says Revelation 21:5, the risen and ascended Jesus will make everything new. Meantime, by by
this 'new' way of living says Jesus, others will notice. You bet they will.
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