For Sunday
Easter 6B

Collect

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reading

From John 15:9-17

“I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Reflection

I don’t really like taking orders. None of us does. Most of the time, when someone says “Go do this,” my first response is either “No” or “Why should I?” Or if I’m feeling particularly snarky: “What? Are your arms broken?”

In our world, commands come from a place of authority rather than friendship. Our superiors tell us to do something and we better well do it! But our friends? We don’t command each other. We might persuade or encourage.

Commands are an expression of authority. Something we associate with our place in a hierarchy. People above us give commands to us. We are allowed to give commands to people below us, but not above us.

Friends, on the other hand, are an intentionally equal position. We bristle at the idea of hierarchies among us.

That Jesus puts these two ideas together is likely no accident. There can be no doubt that Jesus is commanding us to love each other as equals. This is not a request, you know, if we’re up to it.

The love he shares is essential. Our acting in love is necessary. We receive this as a command.

But he also regards us as friends rather than slaves. So we have a relationship of mutuality, commitment, and concern. A relationship of interconnection. He is the vine and we are the branches. In a sense, it doesn’t matter if we are equal in status so much as necessarily so to each other and to God. We’re a package deal.

In this way, the command to love doesn’t come from a position of power over us, but from a deep connection to the whole. You and I love because we are made for love and so that God’s love can grow within us.

Jesus makes this command to set the ground rules. Ground rules that are essential for us all to win.