Homily for Easter – 6th Sunday Year B 2018
Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17
Introduction
As I was reading today's gospel to prepare this homily, I was immediately struck by these words of Jesus: "just as I have kept my Father's commandments." I realized that even Jesus had to keep his Father's commandments! Even Jesus had to be obedient to his Father!
This realization is welcome relief, because obedience is often not easy.
- Teenagers ask their parents all the time: "Why do I have obey you? Why do I have to be home at such an early hour, 10pm?"
- Employees ask themselves why they have to obey a myriad rules and fill what seem like unnecessary forms at work.
- As a teacher, my students, often find it difficult to follow the simplest instructions, such as, don't be late to class, don't update your Facebook page in class, wondering why I make them do this!
We can turn to Jesus, in today's gospel, to teach us why obedience is important.
Scripture and Theology
Obedience is an essential ingredient in any relationship of love. There can be no true love unless there is also obedience. In fact, when Jesus spoke of his own obedience it was in the context of his teaching about love. He said: "If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love." In other words, for two people to remain in love, Jesus and the Father, the disciples and Jesus, the subordinate must keep the commandments of the superior; the child obeying the parent, the student obeying the teacher, the employee obeying the employer.
And so, Jesus is not simply demanding obedience from us, lording it over us from on high; he himself showed us an example.
- Good parents who expect to be obeyed are themselves obedient to each other, for example, not fighting in front of the children.
- Good bosses who expect to be obeyed are themselves obedient to their own bosses higher up in the food chain of the company.
- And good teachers show obedience by their own example of obedience.
In the case of Jesus, his example of obedience to the Father who sent "his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him" is shown in his willingness to obey. If you will indulge me, let me give you my imagination of what happened in heaven when God decided to send his Son into the world.
- Perhaps the Father said: "Hey, Son – the prophets I have sent to the people have failed to convert them. What do you think about going down there to resolve this issue, show them the way to heaven once and for all?"
- Do you think the Son thought, "Gee, dad, that sounds like a tall order. I suppose I would have to become human like them, be tempted, suffer and most of all die. Dad, I am really not sure this is a good idea."
But No. Instead he said, "Not my will, but let your will be done." As St. Paul tells the Philippians: "Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:7-8).
And so when Jesus issues his command to his disciples and elicits their obedience, he adds his own example, as an inspiration to love. He says: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." That is how Jesus loves; he lays down his life for others on the cross, and so must his disciples.
As we know, that very night Jesus actually puts his teaching into concrete practice. He lays down his life, for the world, for you and me. He is scourged, tortured and made to carry a cross. He undergoes untold physical suffering, to take the place of a sinful world. But his sacrifice goes beyond the physical pain; Jesus empties himself completely and gives himself body and soul to God, to redeem a world that rejected him. That is how he loves! That is radical love. That is the way he wants Christians to love a he has loved. In fact, a few chapters before today’s gospel passage, after washing their feet, after showing them a symbol of love, Jesus told his disciples: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
One more thing that Jesus says is this: "You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father." In other words, Jesus gives us the command to love as he has loved, not in the way a superior gives a command to a subordinate, but rather the way a friend asks another to do something for them. Children will sometimes obey mom only because she says "I am the mom and I say so," employees their employers only because they sign their pay-checks, and students and students their teachers because they grade their papers. But Jesus wants us to obey him, to follow his commandments, because we are his friends, because we love him and his Father, because we love our brothers and sisters.
I once heard a story about a married couple, who for years went to the opera. Several years into their marriage, however, it slipped accidentally from the mouth of the husband, that he did not like opera at all. When the wife asked him, "why then did you go with me all these years?" he said: “I loved the opera, because you love the opera and I love you.” That is when the wife also said, “I too only went to the opera, because I thought you loved it and since I loved you, I had to love it.” They cancelled their season tickets and found other mutual pleasures.
Christian Life
The challenge posed by today's readings for us is not just asking us to love, but challenging us to love as Jesus loved. Do we love because we are obedient to Jesus and to those we love or we do so simply out of obligation? Do we love only when we hope to be loved back or we love even the unlovable?
It is certainly easy to love those who love us. Every couple of weeks I call my mother back home, because this woman raised me and my siblings single-handedly and made me who I am. But what about those who I don't know, or those who have never done me any good or worse those who have done me harm – can I bring myself to love them too, like Jesus loved us?
It should then be clear that the kind of love that Jesus is asking of us his disciples is not the lovey-dovey, fleeting love of teenagers, but more like the love that entails commitment, such as that of spouses who have stayed together for 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, in sickness and in health, through joys and sorrows. This is the kind of love that Golde, the wife of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, describes so concretely when her husband asks her if she loved him:
Do I love you? For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes, Cooked your meals, cleaned your house, Given you children, milked your cow, After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?
Conclusion
Jesus says: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Even better, as Jesus says elsewhere, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, . . . For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have" (Mt. 43-45)?
May we love as Jesus loved us, loving even us who were his enemies, sinners, exiles, poor, useless, who were nothing!
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