May 10, 2020
6th Sunday of Easter B
When I was pastor and campus minister in Almond and Alfred New York, I had ecumenical conversations with other Christians communities and interfaith dialogue with other religions – Jewish, Islam, Hindu, and Buddhists. I got to know a Hindu professor and participated in a Hindu feast for deceased members of the family. I remember the husband and father explaining to me that his marriage had been arranged by his and his wife’s parents. We came to love each other. I heard it put this way. In the West, you marry the girl you love. In the East, you love the girl you marry.
In the Gospel according to St. John, on the evening he is arrested and the day before he dies on the cross, Jesus gives his last wish to his disciples: “Love one another as I have loved you.” He gives the request as a command. How can the Lord command us to love? Doesn’t love just happen? Even our expression “falling in love” gives the impression that it is beyond our control. The command of Jesus is puzzling in a society that identifies love as a feeling, as an emotion. For many “to love” means “to like.” Real love, Christ’s kind of love, is not a feeling but an act of the will, a decision, a commitment to act for the benefit of another person no matter how we feel about individual.
The confusion of loving and liking causes many problems when we identify married love with romance – a feeling. Can romance be the foundation of a lifelong marriage? Can mutual emotional attraction between two people be a guarantee of fidelity? Feelings change, ebb and flow. When our feelings start to change, does that mean the marriage is at an end? “I don’t love him anymore!” Or can the change of feeling signal the beginning of a new, more mature, and honest relationship. I caught a segment of “Victoria” on PBS when Queen Victoria asks Prince Albert if he still loves her? They have been married for nine years with seven children and with a host of challenges as a royal couple. Prince Albert says to Victoria: “My love for you has changed.”
Love is a decision to seek the spiritual wellbeing of another person. Jesus commands us to love others as he has loved us. We see this unfold in the relationship Jesus has with Simon Peter. In our first reading, Acts of the Apostles, Peter goes to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. He would have preferred not to be there, but he has a sense of purpose, of seeing his presence as a Jew in a Gentile household as part of God’s plan. In the Gospel according to John, the Risen Lord appears to Simon Peter at the Sea of Tiberias (Galilee) and asks him three times: “Do you love me?” After each affirmation of love, Jesus commissions Simon Peter to feed and tend my sheep. The office of Good Shepherd is entrusted to Simon Peter. Jesus predicts it will take Simon Peter where he would choose not to go – except for Christ and the spiritual wellbeing of others. This is true love. This kind of love has the power to transform our world and great power to transform us. Recently, a woman shared her understanding of her marriage vow. In her mind and heart, she was promising to help her husband get to heaven. Many in our society would smile or even laugh at her words. But I find them to be especially beautiful and profound. “Love is of God … God is love” (2nd reading, first Letter of John). Love is forever.
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5th Sunday of Easter
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6th Sunday of Easter B
