Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering
A New Commandment
I give you a new commandment, says Jesus to his disciples, in the upper room, at his last supper with them. Well, the commandment to love is not new, since it was there before Jesus in the Old Testament, in his scriptures, where it tells us to love God and our neighbour. What is new is the change he makes to love your neighbour as yourself. He tells them/us to love just I have loved you. Jesus loves not with brotherly love, or friendship love, or erotic love. He loves with the love of God, the alpha and the omega of love, its beginning and its end, and its middle as well.
If we want to see what that means, we have only to look at his life, to look at his dying, to look at his cross. Mother Julian of Norwich, after years of meditating on Jesus on the cross, says: ‘love is his meaning.’ We do not have to wonder how to love, since he shows us the way. The challenge for us is to live his love in our situation, our circumstances. Like the good shepherd Jesus was teaching last week, love lays down its life for the other, gives itself to them, is sacrificial, spends itself for the sake of another, even if it does mean dying. That is the extent to which real love, God’s love, goes – from the beginning to the end.
Playboy Francis in Assisi loved the good life that money can bring – fine clothes, lavish banquets, music and dancing into the small hours – a bit like our princes – but God breaks in, and, dramatically, when Francis meets a leper on the road, a sight loathsome to his eyes, the stench of rotting flesh nauseous to his nose, and the risk of infection upper most in his mind - all compelling him to turn and run away – Francis goes up embraces the leper, and kisses him. But that is only the beginning: for the rest of his life, he visits the leper colony, to bathe the sores and to bind them, and to bring food to them and share it with them. Later, he gives a prayer to his brothers and sisters: ‘grant that we may be ready to die for love of your love as you died for love of our love.’
Love is his meaning: love is his action: love is what we are to live if we are to be disciples of Jesus. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’ Now that is another dimension to love: it brings love out into the open, it is for all to see.That is indeed how it seems to be in the very early church. In the second century, this remark by a pagan is contained in the writing Tertullian, a Christian thinker/theologian: ‘see how they love each other,’ or as quoted elsewhere, ‘See how these Christians love one another’, after seeing an gathering of believers. That is high praise indeed when much comment was hostile to the church, often to the point of persecution. But over the centuries, and today, the self-same words are now damning condemnation.
We have in the Church of England, two dispensations to cater for those approving of the ordination of women and those against it. Both are meant to respect each other, the people and the differences, but it is hard to see the respect in the word ‘contaminated’ and ‘enemy,’ spoken of those who support and receive from the ministry of women priests. ‘See how these Christians love one another.
In Holy Week, Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, was being pilloried even before he gave a reflection on the cross, probably. He was publicly condemned afterwards for not upholding a certain doctrine on the work of Christ on the cross. It is as if doctrine is becoming something fixed and final, at least in the minds of some, who are prepared to scrap in public about it. Even within the same camp argument has broken out over the understanding of the atonement. See how these Christians love one another.
Two parts of the Anglican Communion, on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, are in conflict over the sexual orientation of bishops, priests and people – if we want a face and a name, then we have Archbishop Akinola (Nigeria) and Archbishop Schori (USA). Archbishop Rowan is between the two, somewhere mid-Atlantic, walking on water, or treading water, desperately trying to keep the Anglican Communion true to its name. At the recent Anglican Primates meeting in Tanzanai, Archbishop Akinola was unable to make communion alongside Archbishop Schori at the final Eucharist. He cited back trouble that developed in the night before. ‘See how these Christians love one another.’
Many a time I want to be up on the roof top, shouting out loud: ‘Forget about the doctrine; forget about the interpretations of scriptures, and just get on with what Jesus means: LOVE.
Love is fine when everyone is living love. Love seems easy to do then. Love really comes into its own, shows what it really is, when we are up against it. Remember the mother of the teenage boy who died in Liverpool with a hatchet in his head, who forgives her son’s killers – love in action, love redeeming the evil.
In a Victim Awareness Course in Wellingborough Prison, a film is shown Mary a mother, whose son is dead, meeting Michael, the young man charged with her son’s death. During the meeting in a church, Michael asks to sit next to the mother; he holds her hand. She embraces him, and then she ‘does his head’ (his words) by saying, ‘Danny (her son) and I forgive you.’ She does so because, as she puts it, ‘Bitterness only eats away your life.’ Later, people ask her, ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘It was a very courageous thing to do.’ And she says, ‘Not guts,’ and, then, after a long pause, says, ‘A love of life.’ Whether she is a disciple I do not know, but the message of her life and her lips is love.
Yoni Jesner, 19 years old, was a brilliant young Jew, studying in Jerusalem, and already a legend in his short life, working with the young and old, teaching in synagogue classes, running a local youth group and so on. He is travelling on a bus, when a suicide bomber detonates his bomb, killing six people, maiming dozens more, and leaving Yoni brain dead, on a life support machine. His family take the decision to turn off the machine, and to donate Yoni’s liver, spleen and kidneys for transplantation. Abu Ramila, a 7 year old girl, is one of those who life is transformed by one of his kidneys. She is Palestinian. So Yoni, in his death, saves the life of someone on the other side, one of whose people had murdered him. Love in action. Yes?
Daniel Peach, an American journalist in Pakistan, was kidnapped, and videoed having his throat slit, and being beheaded. His father says, ‘If I fight hate with hate, I would only create more hate. Therefore, I fight it with love. That is my tribute to Daniel’s memory.’ Love in action.
‘It is stories like these,’ says Rabbi Sacks, the chief rabbi here, ‘when theology comes off the page and begins to transform the landscape of human possibility.’ ‘The faith that counts,’ he writes, ‘is the faith made real in lives, in deeds and words that heal some of the wounds of a fractured world.’ And redeem the evil.
Love one another as I have loved you. By this people will know that you are my disciples. So, in NIKE theology, Just do it. Just do it with the homeless down at St Jude’s, and on the streets; in Wellingborough or Gartree prison, just do it; in the asylum centre, just do it; with the strange and unpredictable and lonely and sad, some of whom come into the church when it is open, just do it. ‘Take responsibility for God’(a phrase out of Auschwitz), and live love and so enable God’s love to come to others, and for them to embrace love in their loves.
Just do it.
John Tearnan, May 6th, 2007
Office Address:
The Rectory
Church Walk
Kettering
NN16 0DJ