The command to love in the politics of the world

Christ's ultimate command to his disciples is to "love" and we as his followers are bound to that commandment. In John's gospel, Christ also is clear in indicating that he will provide his disciples with an advocate (Jn 14.15-17) who is the Spirit of Truth. We need to understand what is meant in the provision of an advocate or paraclete. In modern terminology we often associate this with a lawyer but in reality an advocate is one who speaks for us or defends us and I often think that when we speak of an advocate in connection with this passage we think of it as a person who supports rather than speaks. If we are to realise this meaning in the word we, I think, need to re-look at the message that is being given to us.

Whilst an advocate will support us the main roll is in fact to speak or assist us to speak out into the world. If we look at Paul's speaking to the Athenian leaders in the Aeropagus (Acts 17.22-31) we see an opportunity that he utilises to bring the message of the risen Christ into the midst of the the political leadership of the Athenians. In the end it is the Spirit that enables him to speak to these erudite men. The Spirit advocates; he does not save him but speaks through him. The ideas that he uses to convey the message of Christ arise out of his observations which challenges us to understand that the Spirit enables us to see the truth. The courage to follow Christ is enabled (advocated for) but we must put in the hard yards to allow that to come to fruition. The thing we often forget is that it is the Spirit of Truth who is our advocate and perhaps this is the most important aspect we forget. For many of us truth is malleable and conforms to what we want, much as it does in the Acts reading for those listening to Paul. There are two things here that we need to take cognisance of  1) that it was Paul who was enabled to put his observations to the benefit of opening the eyes of some to the presence of God and 2) it was the Spirit of Truth that spoke into the situation through Paul.

Truth is not interpretation nor is it literal but it is what we do in love

If we cannot live the truth and speak the truth then we will not be enabled. So often we live what we want not what God wants in our lives. The truth is in the commandment to love not in our interpretation of that commandment. Once we start playing around with the truth in our lives we begin to fall away from God and our gospel is not supported by the Spirit nor does the Spirit advocate for us. Office bearers, no matter how high in life, tend to look out for themselves and those that they believe will look after them. No matter how much they protest that they follow Christ their deeds point to the truth. The letter 1 Peter talks about our actions towards each other (1 Peter 3:8-9) and yet when we rise to a position that wields power we tend to forget the principles of the Christ-ian ethos of love. We very rarely look to those who are on the marginal end of society but rather we look to our friends and those we think will assist us in our own lives. We only have to look at the bigotry, anti-love sentiment in many of our political leaders to understand this. The issue here is that we find it difficult to utilise the power of love in our relationships rather than the power of might and abuse. We lead in our pride and strength rather than in our humbleness and weakness.

It is when we begin to speak with truth, the truth of love, which is very up front and honest that we begin to realise what God's power is and how the Spirit advocates for us in the time of need. Our truth speaking needs to be in our lives as we are followers of Christ who is the truth. It is in how we mirror Christ to the world accurately and with truth that enables the Spirit of Truth to be our advocate in the world. When we live lives that are false in terms of God and Christ we lose the advocate and are unable to be the Christian people of the way. It is our honesty that bears witness to Christ and it is our honest living that enables us to be bearers of Christ's light. If we bear the honesty in our lives then Christ is ever present to us and the advocate  that is the Spirit of Truth bears witness for us.