Love One Another
	Today’s reading from the Gospel of John returns us to the Last Supper. Jesus has washed the feet of his disciples, they have eaten the Passover meal, and Judas has slipped away to summon the Temple police. Tensions lift with the traitor’s departure, and Jesus takes the opportunity to offer his friends some last instructions. Wisely, Jesus doesn't give them a blow-by-blow description of what’s going to happen. Telling the disciples too much would frighten them,  perhaps to the point where fear would deafen them to everything else he has to say. Instead, he assures them that he and his Father have been glorified and are about to be further glorified by what is to come. He warns them that he is about to go where they cannot follow. And then, he gives them a new commandment: to love one another as he has loved them, assuring them that everyone will know they are his disciples if they have love for one another.

	Jesus’s new commandment to love one another is the heart of the Christian faith. We talk a lot about love in our churches. Outside the church walls, popular culture talks a lot about love, too. Love, especially romantic love, dominates our music, movies, television, books, and advertisements. It's a happy ending when the squabbling couple finally stop bickering and get together. Songs about falling in love, being in love, and hearts breaking when love goes wrong dominate our radio stations and streaming services. Madison Avenue takes constant advantage of our desire for love, promising that love will be ours if we just buy a particular product, be it perfume, mouthwash, or an adult beverage to share with a sweetheart on Saturday night. 

With all that emphasis on love, wouldn't you think that the world we live in would be a happy, loving place? And yet, one need only glance at the headlines or spend five minutes watching CNN to realize just how unloving humanity can be. In a world where wars rage, children starve, corruption runs rampant, and residents of impoverished communities are poisoned by pollution that the wealthy can’t be bothered to clean up, it sometimes seems like love is humankind’s last priority, not the most important command we’ve received from our God.

	Psychology offers many explanations for why human beings aren’t more loving. So does religion, although that story about two kids eating the wrong piece of fruit based on the advice of a talking snake may not carry much weight with people these days. Still, there’s no denying that something about humanity is a little off. As C.S. Lewis put it, we are “bent.” 
Jesus knew that. He knew every one of his disciples so well that he could predict with absolute certainty who would betray him and who would deny him before they did it. He had to know what motivated them. We still can’t be sure what drove Judas – John tells us that “Satan entered into him,” which is as good an explanation as any, but Jesus surely knew. Jesus also had to know how much Peter loved him, and how little his love would matter when people started asking tough questions. And yet, though Jesus was never a cockeyed optimist, he clearly believed that Peter and the other disciples would be capable of loving one another as he had loved them if he told them to do it. To understand his reasoning, perhaps we should consider what Jesus meant by “love.”

Although Jesus calls it a new commandment, there’s nothing new about God asking his people to love. The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves goes all the way back to Leviticus. What makes this commandment new is that Jesus is asking his disciples not just to love one another, but to love one another in the same way that he had loved them. That raises the bar considerably. Jesus’s love is ceaseless, limitless, and self-sacrificing. It puts aside the privileges that rightly belong to the Son of God and serves those who are beloved whether they deserve it or not. If we’re being honest, most of us don’t deserve it most of the time, and most of us struggle to love others with even a hint of our Lord’s steadfastness and humility. Trying to love others as Jesus loves us sometimes feels like an impossible task. 

But before we give up on the new commandment, let’s dig a little deeper into what Jesus said. John’s Gospel was originally written in Greek, a language that contains several words that can be translated into English as “love.” The Greek word that Jesus uses in this passage is agape, a kind of love that has nothing to do with moonlight, roses, and romance. In his 2024 sermon “Commanded to Love,” the Reverend Jake Hooker quotes an anonymous author who wrote that agape is “a type of love that lacks self-interest. It proceeds out of a heart of care and concern for others.” Agape is not about feelings so much as it is about actions. Agape is the conscious choice to put the beloved first, setting aside selfish desires and prioritizing the beloved’s highest good. In this passage, Jesus doesn’t command the disciples to be best buddies forever. Instead, he commands them to extend agape to one another, in other words, to look out for each other after he’s gone. And while Jesus first gives this commandment to the disciples, we shouldn’t presume that he means it only for them. Those of us who seek to follow Jesus must also choose agape, whether the people we’re being called to love inspire warm feelings in us or not.

In that sense, agape is easier to offer than one might expect, and that’s a good thing. Let’s take the disciples as our example. At this point in John’s Gospel, they’ve been traveling with Jesus for three years. They know each other well, maybe a little too well, and I think we can safely assume that each of them has his opinions about all the others. There are undoubtedly close friendships between some of them, rivalries that might or might not be entirely friendly, and perhaps some lingering grudges or hurt feelings, too. They are, after all, human. Jesus doesn’t tell them not to feel what they feel. He tells them to rise above their feelings and look out for each other, period. I believe he asks the same of us. 

Jesus would undoubtedly prefer to see the whole human race extend agape to one another. That’s a tall order that humanity is  unlikely to satisfy any time soon. In the interim, however, those of us who follow Jesus can practice agape in our faith communities and, as circumstances permit, elsewhere in the wider world. Selfless, sacrificial love is rare and beautiful enough that people pay attention when they see it. The better we get at agape, the more other people will notice and follow our lead. 
	Some theologians like to describe agape as “the highest form of Christian love.” They’re not wrong, but we probably shouldn’t suggest that agape is exclusively Christian. People who belong to other faith traditions or no faith tradition at all are also capable of self-sacrifice and benevolence. It’s probably better to say that Christians strive to live with agape because we choose to follow a God who commanded us to do so. Agape doesn’t belong to us. We belong to agape because we belong to Jesus, and we offer agape to the world because Jesus said we should. 

	But in this as in so many things, Jesus offers more than we might immediately recognize. Even if it’s difficult to love someone at first, agape often evolves into fond feelings. Sometimes, it’s because people respond well to being treated with kindness. Sometimes, it’s because looking out for people feels good enough that we come to care for them even if we didn’t much like them at first. In my own experience, the more effort I make to treat people with agape, the warmer my feelings for them become. The same may be true for you.

Jesus commanded us to love one another as he loved us. That’s reason enough for us to do our best, but that doesn’t mean our love has to be a burden. The more we choose agape, the more we show the world what selfless love looks like, and the more selfless love we can inspire. And if we can inspire enough selfless love, we might just change the world. Amen.