Love is the one commandment that God gives us through Christ and the Holy Spirit. A commandment that is contained in all the laws and commandments ever given and summarised by the commandment to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. Yet, in all of this, we immediately fail this commandment every single day of our lives because we are human and cannot see the beauty of love. All I have to ask you and for your absolutely truthful response "Have you ever turned away from someone either as a result of disgust, pity, prejudice, fear, for not being a friend, for not knowing them, the person that killed as a terrorist, etc?", if anyone was to say yes I would challenge that and put that person in the worst possible situation for themselves and see them turn away in disgust. This tells me that we are not able to love as Christ has commanded us without a lot of difficult and stressful prayer and practice of this commandment. I am not saying that it cannot be done I am just saying for you and me, normal people, we have a difficulty to love everyone.
Even in the earliest stages of Christianity there is an obvious hesitation over the acceptance of those that are other. The reading from Acts today (10:44-48) is filled with the negative understanding of those that are outside of the faith living as so called "pagans". Otherwise Peter's appeal would not be required, even if he is speaking with the Spirit. There is an obvious background of non-acceptance that has to be "forced" upon the faithful so that they understand that love knows no boundaries in the actuality of our lived lives If, then, at the start of the Christian movement there is hesitation over acceptance is it any surprise that we ourselves stand within the same dilemma. We just have to list a few examples of what people are willing to do for their beliefs for this to become true for us. Yet, at the heart of the Christian story there is an understanding that God is Love in the deepest possible manner. How then can we not be appalled at the treatment reserved for those that are part and parcel of this country and yet are shunned either because of colour, or where they originate from or their COVID status?
The writer of John's first letter puts it plainly in verse 2 of chapter 5 when he sates "It follows that when we love God and obey his commands we love his children too". We cannot profess a Christian understanding of the world if we are unable to follow this command in truth. No matter how we may dodge the question in word polemics or in doctrinal obfuscation if we are not seen to fulfil this plain request we cannot state our Christian heritage. Following on with the imagery of the vine last week this week's Gospel reinforces our embeddedness within Christ if we are to be true to God's way (Jn. 15:9). The commandments are easy as scripture tells us but easy does not mean that we are able to make them work in our daily lives unless we make them an ongoing part of what we do. This is hard work because it means we have to lay aside those things that inform our prejudices such as our up bringing, our parents and the society in which we live to provide a better way. This is after all what we take on by following Christ. The cross that we bear is the cross of our past, a cross that is heavy with blame and fault. We are asked to put this to the side and pick up a cross made with love.
The way forward for us, no matter our denomination, no matter who or what we profess to be is to embrace and be welded to love. We can no more proclaim Christ or even a belief in God without understanding and living the truth of this sentiment to the fullest. We can only attempt what Christ embodied as we are not Christ and we do not live in the more primitive era. The fact that life has become vastly more complicated is not though an excuse to cop out but rather to persevere to emulate Christ as much as possible. This may lead us to our own crosses but we do so in conjunction with Christ who would be crucified even today. Learning to love is something that is hard especially when we do not have our own figures of love to follow but only that which appeared in Christ. So let us go out and do what Christ asks Love each other as he has loved us.
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