Are You Half or Whole?

 

Deacon David Previtali · Are You Half or Whole?

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, May 19, 2019. Readings: 1 John 4:7-10; Gospel of St. John 15:9-17. Theme: Are You Half or Whole? 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to us, “I give you a NEW commandment…” so that might make us ask ourselves: what was the old commandment? Well, you might recall that the prior commandment concerning love was this, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus taught this to his disciples up until the night when he “tweaked it”, we might say or, better yet, until he raised the bar so much higher! 

The new commandment calls us to love others as Jesus loves, and the context in which he which he spoke these words shows us what he means. He spoke them at the Last Supper, right after he had instituted the Eucharist, the Gift of his Body and Blood, the sacramental pouring out of himself for the Father’s glory and for our spiritual healing. He spoke them in conjunction with washing his disciples’ feet, an act of humility that only a lowly slave would do. And then after giving us the words and examples of this new commandment of love, he went out and put it into action it by embracing his Passion, freely offering up his life for each one of us. 

So, to love as Jesus loves means, yes, to observe the prior commandment but not to stop there. It pushes us to go beyond it. It urges us on to love others MORE than we love ourselves and to prove it by the way we act. This is what is unique to Christianity. It is really what we are supposed to be all about. To be able to put it all together, we need to know both the what and the why of this commandment. Otherwise we run the risk of just going through the motions. So, let’s ponder that for a moment… 

The “what” of the new commandment is really obvious because we just heard it: “love one another as I have loved you”. This means that we strive for having a Christ-like love that is self-emptying, self-forgetful, self-giving without concern as to what it will cost the lover, the giver. And to be honest, this is a way of loving that is not easily understood by many. From our naturally and all too often selfish point of view, God’s love seems like crazy love, foolish love. And yes, I would agree with such people that Christ-like love is indeed “crazy stupid love” if we are looking at life with selfish eyes and living life with a “me-centered” heart. 

And this brings us to the why” of the new commandment. As Christians, baptized into interpersonal union with Christ and anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit as he was, we are called to spread his message and continue in his mission. Each one of us, no matter what our state or vocation in life, is called to become like Jesus. But we can’t do this of our own power or ability of course. This is why we have the new commandment. There could be no grater commandment that to love as the Lord loves, because he is the God of love came to us in the flesh. Everything he did and said was out of love. We cannot image him or become like him in any other meaningful way. Loving is the greatest and most unmistakable witness to Jesus that we could possibly give. 

So, it seems to me we have a choice to make: are we going to be, what I like to call, a half-Christian or a whole-Christian? A half-Christian only relates to the first part of being linked with Jesus, the sacramental part. I guess we could say that a half-Christian is mostly a “taker”, satisfied with having been baptized and confirmed but pretty much drawing the line right there. A whole-Christian on the other hand embraces the entire package of Christianity, and is a “giver”. These disciples know both the what and the why, and so they strive to live out their baptism and confirmation by spreading the message and participating in the mission of the Risen Christ. 

The whole-Christian knows full well that he or she will not always love as Christ loves, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. They know that they depend utterly upon their relationship with Christ in order to keep on loving, and so they nurture it daily by prayer from the heart. They ponder the Word of God - and especially the Gospels - so that they can better know and spread the message. They faithfully receive the Eucharist so that Jesus-living-in-them can love others through them. And when they fail to love as they should, they go humbly to Confession, knowing that Jesus will heal the wounds of their selfishness and teach them to be both patient with themselves and compassionate with others. 

The whole-Christian knows that opportunities to love are all around us if we just open the eyes of our hearts to see them. And so, they are sensitive and mindful of the needs of those with whom they live, work and socialize. They know that the beautiful thing about real love, about Jesus-love, about being a whole-Christian is that it lifts us up out of ourselves, and raises us up to higher realms of living. And they find joy and deep meaning in what St. John wrote in our second reading today, that loving puts us in direct contact with God, because God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God in them.