Love

        This week’s Gospel reading is from John.  The end of the reading says this, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples,  if you have love for one another."

       I would define love by using St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

     Love surpasses and outlasts all things, as does God.  We cannot justify or reason our way out of loving anyone.  “They did this to me …” Nope, not a good enough reason not to love them.  “Look how they live; they …”  Nope, not good enough.  “They don’t respect …”  Nope, still must love them.  Nope, nope, nope.  We must love, love, love.  Love surpasses all. 

    We can dislike what other people do.  But we cannot cease to love them.  At least we cannot cease trying.  Because trying to love is trying to see the other person for what they are, above all else, a child of God. 

     I know that people can sometimes view others as “less than”, but in God’s eyes there is no “less than”.  That’s human, to categorize and stratify.  That’s not godly. 

     I know that people can sometimes view others as “broken”, but let us remember that we are all, each of us, broken in the same essential way.  And as it says in the Book of James, we should not be hypocrites.  “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”  In other words, we should follow The Golden Rule.