Marching Orders (Fifth Sunday of Easter)
Sermons on YouTube…
Sort of counterintuitively, as we reach the last couple of Sundays of Easter, we begin to read stories of what Jesus said on the night he was betrayed. In one sense, it’s sort of odd, because it harkens us back to Lent, which thought we were done with by now!
But in another sense, it’s actually an important part of Easter, because what Jesus was telling his disciples on the night before he died weren’t just words to remember him by. Instead, he was really giving them directions on how they were to live as his Risen body in the world. He was actually giving them marching orders for after his Resurrection, even though they probably didn’t realize it at the time, and even though WE probably aren’t reading those words in that way during Holy Week.
But we get another chance in Easter! Today’s Gospel reading is part of Jesus’ last words to his disciples, and at the conclusion of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
And Jesus goes on. He says, in fact, that “by THIS, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This isn’t just one of many things Jesus tells his disciples. This is Jesus’ parting instruction.
And remember, these are not simply words to remember Jesus by. These are the marching orders for how his disciples, then and now, will live as representatives of his Resurrection. These are the words that tell us how we’ll be known as followers of the risen and living Jesus.
So these are words we should pay careful attention to. Because Jesus could have said a lot of other things. He could have said, “everyone will know that you are my disciples if you…”:
- have the most correct and perfect theology …
- are the most morally righteous people around …
- become the most successful and popular group in town …
But Jesus didn’t say those things. And it’s not as though Jesus was endorsing bad theology, or immoral behavior or making a virtue out of failure. But in the end, Jesus was saying that if we want to be people who are identified by the world as disciples of Jesus, we need to be people who in our words and deeds and attitudes reflect God’s self-giving love. That’s what God was doing in Jesus when Jesus died for us. And if we don’t reflect that kind of love, none of our theology, morality or success will matter… (and it’s important to remember that the “love” that Jesus speaks of isn’t a feeling, but an action…)
So why is this kind of self-giving love so important? Perhaps it’s because self-giving love is always focused on the other, never on myself. And one of the best definitions of “sin” is to be focused in on oneself. And it’s all too easy for good and religious people to become inwardly focused when they get too hung up on the correctness of their theology, or their own good behavior, or their own success at being God’s people. Certainly, that was the case in Jesus’ day …
And many Christians throughout the centuries – and even today – can get caught up in making Christianity about ourselves. And that can happen whenever we forget that reflecting God’s self-giving love in Jesus is the most important task of the Church, and instead speak and act as though faithfulness to Jesus is most clearly reflected by our:
- perfect theology – which is why we sometimes even speak of different Christian denominations as different “religions” …
- moral righteousness – which is why some Christians refuse to have anything to do with other Christians if they’re not on the correct side of an important social issue …
- ability to be successful – which is why sometimes Christians get more hung up on “how many people we’ve brought to Christ” or “how well our church is doing” than on how faithfully we’ve reflected Christ’s love in our dealings with one another …
But in his final instructions to his first disciples, Jesus reminded them – and he reminds us – that our primary job as his disciples is to reflect his love in the lives of others. And when we get too hung up on our own good theology or our own righteousness or our own success, other people who aren’t Christians will simply think that our religion is really about us, and not about God’s love in Jesus.
And even though good theology and good morality and successful strategies for reaching out to others are all good things, Jesus reminds us again that these aren’t the things that will help others to know that we’re really Jesus’ disciples. They won’t show people the Resurrection.
Instead, it’s by reflecting God’s self-giving love in Jesus that everyone will know that we’re all about Jesus and not about ourselves. It’s by reflecting God’s self-giving love in Jesus that we show the world that we’re willing to live a different way because Jesus is risen. And it’s by reflecting Jesus’ self-giving love even for people who don’t like us and don’t agree with us, that we show the world that the Resurrection and new life we say we have in Jesus isn’t just an ancient story we talk about, but a present reality in our lives.
Amen.