Loving Above and Beyond...

 

Deacon Dave · Loving Above and Beyond...

Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024. Readings: Gospel of St. John 15:9-17. Theme: Loving Above and Beyond… 

 In today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that he is giving us a new commandment about love which goes beyond his original teaching which was, “to love your neighbor as yourself,” that is, to treat others as we would want to be treated. We know this was really nothing unique to Christianity because we find this original commandment in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. Mahatma Gandhi also advocated this kind of love in his Hindu-based promotion of peace. And Muslims, too, have a reflection of it in their sacred duty of extending hospitality to strangers. However, Jesus is calling us to rise above the old and strive to aim higher by living his new commandment. 

You know, some people don’t like that word “commandment”. It conjures up for them a legalistic form of religion filled with lots of “do this” and “don’t do that”. You see, they tend to think of commandments as restrictive moral laws or as a way for the Church to control our behavior. But that’s not the viewpoint that Jesus or the authors of the New Testament had when they used this word. To them a commandment was something very different and more personal than simply a rule or regulation. It was seen in a positive light, as a way of helping us to become what we were each created to be: reflections and images of God in a broken world. 

 The reasoning behind this was as follows: if people saw the way we lived and the choices we made in life because of our faith, then they would be curious about our religion and be able to get a glimpse or an idea of what our God is like and would be attracted to him. So, the commandments were far from being a restriction on our freedom but were meant to give us a plan of life that has a very noble purpose. Living the commandments of God is a tangible way to evangelize, that is, to spread the Gospel message of and about Jesus to others by our behavior more than our words. 

 The plan and purpose, the aim and goal of the New Commandment is to help us become an extension of Christ’s life-giving love. And to do so it begins where the old commandment leaves off and pushes us to go beyond it. The New Commandment urges us on to love others more than we love ourselves, and to prove or show this love by the choices we make and the way we act towards others. This means that we are to strive to love in a way that is self-emptying, self-forgetful, and self-giving, without concern as to what it will cost us as the lovers, the givers. It’s a call to place our personal freedom at the service of love which expresses itself in a willingness to accept even inconvenience to oneself in order to bring convenience into the life of another. And to be honest, it’s a kind of love that can seem like crazy love, like foolish love, because our human nature on its own, without the help of God’s grace, seeks to love with a “me-centered” heart. 

 It’s really important to realize that Jesus gave us his New Commandment at the Last Supper because he wanted us to link it with the Eucharist. By means of this Blessed Sacrament the Risen Lord makes us his living tabernacles who carry him to those with whom we live, work and socialize and then, because of his presence within us, we can find it possible to love them with his love. And the more often we intentionally do this, the more powerful his Presence becomes within us and the more we can love others as he has loved us. 

 This is why at the end of every Mass we are sent out to carry his love into the world. We are reminded of this divine commission at the dismissal when we are told to “go and announce the gospel of the Lord” or to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by our lives”. These parting words of the Liturgy remind us that the Gospel is best announced and God is best glorified when we go out and “be Jesus” for others by loving the way he loves. This is a way more powerful and influential form of evangelization than just speaking about Jesus. It definitely isn’t easy and we know full well that we won’t always be successful, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. 

 And you know, a very beautiful thing about the New Commandment of Love is that it enables us to live life with God and find deep meaning in our daily existence because, as St. John wrote in today’s second reading, God is love, and those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.