Jesus is obsessed with love. Are we?
Tests are completed. Books are returned. Lockers are emptied. The “have a nice summer” inscribed into yearbooks stings this time, as the recipient knows it’s the last summer before their lives are about to change forever. Caps are decorated with sequins and glitter, displaying a funny saying or a beloved cartoon character. Gowns are carefully ironed, so as to remove the crease that forms from sitting in a plastic wrapper for weeks. Stoles that signify academic accomplishments and memberships in honors societies are draped carefully on top of the gown, ready to be put on for the commencement ceremonies. Parents and siblings and grandparents and out of town relatives make plans to celebrate the accomplishments of their graduate. The last-minute details of graduation parties are in place. It’s all happening. The hour is here.
Graduation signals the completion of something big, the first step into new levels of responsibilities and opportunities. You finally have freedom to choose your own path in life, without some other adult dictating it for you. You ARE that adult now.
As parents and teachers and mentors and ministers, we hope we have prepared our students to be successful adults in a world full of attractive choices, some that are more advantageous than others, more life giving than soul-sucking.
By now, we hope we’ve taught them all they need to know about separating clothes into piles, one with colors, one with whites, a pile for delicates, a pile for towels. How important it is to use high efficiency soap onlyin a high efficiency washer, or risk a bubble catastrophe. or tricks like turning your jeans inside out when washing them. (is that a thing? My mom always told me to do that.) and pretreating greasy stains with a small blue drop of dawn.
We’ve taught them the dos and don’ts of driving in Austin which may or not be applicable in the small cities of their colleges, like Waco or Macon or San Marcos. But I bet the constant stop and go and weaving in and out of lanes doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue in places with less than a million people, unless you’re driving near the Sillos where road rage is real.
Our teachers have taught them how to read and write, they’ve taught them algebra, history, chemistry, English and literature, environmental science. They’ve modeled cooperation in team sports, orchestras, choir, and theater productions.
Here at church, our Sunday school teachers have taught them the bible, telling the stories of Jesus, the women at the tomb, the three wise men, of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Jewish exile. They’ve stressed the importance of healthy relationships with themselves and with others, teaching them to know when to bow out of a toxic friendship or when to step up in a time of need. They’ve prepared them to speak up in the face of injustices and to articulate their faith in a loving way.
Whether you are a Sunday school teacher, a parent, or a high school English teacher, all of us here today take some responsibility for preparing our young people to step out into the world with boldness and confidence that they have the skills needed to not only survive but thrive. We say goodbye, trusting that in all the ways we’ve modeled right and wrong, taught them life lessons about respect and love, and encouraged them to speak up for good, that our students feel ready to continue on the path we’ve set them on, without us.
In the gospel story today, we encounter Jesus beginning his goodbyes knowing he’s headed for the cross. He hopes he’s prepared his disciples well enough to continue on without him, because what’s about to come next isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to change their lives forever. The hour is here.
At the beginning of the chapter, the reader enters into a meal already in progress. The smell of freshly baked bread is in the air. Cups of wine are half full, bowls are filled with a thick vegetable stew, the bread used as a spoon. Jesus sits shoulder to shoulder with his disciples, unable to shake the sad truth that he was about to be betrayed and killed. Does it show on his face?
The meal nearly complete, Jesus calmly gets up from the table. All eyes are on him. Jesus takes off his robe, ties an apron around his waist and pours clean water into a basin. He calls each disciple over, one by one, even the one who will betray him, submerging their dust-caked feet into the basin, the water getting murkier and murkier after each foot is cleaned. His apron heavy with water, Jesus’ hands begin to smell sour from the dirty water. But he doesn’t care. This is what love looks like.
Jesus calls Simon Peter to the basin, but Peter refuses. “You’re not going to wash my feet- ever!” he proclaims. But Jesus persists, insisting that Peter participate in this intimate act, for he has a lesson to teach, as always.
Jesus knows he isn’t going to be around much longer to hold their hands, to affirm them or teach them. He really hopes they get it, that they see that love isn’t just a noun. It’s a verb of action. Jesus embodies this kind of love by modeling what he wants his disciples to do after he departs. He loves without grudges, without limits, without requirements or prerequisites. He doesn’t make excuses or make a cost benefit analysis on the risks of loving someone.
Jesus washed the feet of the one who would betray him right at the same time he washed the feet of his beloved disciple!
Jesus’s love doesn’t discriminate, or play favorites. He lowers himself to the position of a servant- a practical, physical way of loving someone else- getting involved up close and personal to all the muck and stank. He shows them the power of service to others, how it can break down barriers and unite an unlikely bunch. In this simple act of foot washing, the disciples experience a new way of being community for each other, creating spaces of trust within their vulnerability and fear of uncertainty.
This is what love looks like in action.
As if they weren’t filled with enough anxiety already, Jesus issues another reminder to his remaining disciples that he is about to leave them and they’ve got to do this without him. Where he is going, they can’t go. He can’t hold their hand anymore. There is work to be done here and it’s up to them to take responsibility to do God’s work. So he gives them a new commandment, an already familiar command, but with an added twist. He says, “love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus says that this kind of love is the true mark of discipleship, not right belief, not wearing a cross necklace, not reciting bible verses, or saying the sinner’s prayer. It’s not your political leanings or moral purity, or those bible verses you post on Facebook. It’s so much more than all of that. It’s loving as Christ loves you.
it’s love in action.
it expects activity, and doesn’t rely on sentimental feelings. It’s not the “hallmark card” kind of love. It’s acknowledging the humanity of the person begging for money on the street corner, asking their name or simply looking up from your phone to smile. It’s going out of your way to treat someone experiencing homelessness the same way you’d treat your best friend or someone you really want to impress. It’s extending the hand of friendship to someone you so deeply disagree with, to a republican. Or a democrat. It’s washing the feet of someone who hasn’t washed them in a very long time. It’s sitting with someone in their hospital room who has no family to sit with them.
It’s radical and it has the power to transform everything.
Radical love looks betrayal in the face and says “I’ll love you anyways”. It wades in the water of mud and murk because as Leander Keck put it- “to love one another as Jesus loves us is to live a life thoroughly shaped by a love that knows no limits, by a love whose expression brings the believer closer into relationship with God, with Jesus, and with one another. It is to live a love that carries with it a whole new concept of the possibilities of community.”
When people show up for each other in service, we experience a tangible sign of what it means to abide in Jesus. This kind of radical love can revolutionize communities. it’s how we can remember the way Jesus loved us first, unconditionally, without limits. Radical love loves in spite our want to hold grudges against someone who wronged us,
it looks past embarrassment, or failures. When we love like Christ and can see first-hand how transformative it is, our motivations to serve others begins to be less about ourselves and more about experiencing Jesus in person.
But Radical love doesn’t mean putting up with abuse and mistreatment. Sometimes the hardest thing we can do is acknowledge that we have to walk away from a toxic relationship. Radical love is knowing that saying goodbye to someone and breaking the cycle of abuse is the most loving thing we can do.
In the new book, “Educated,” a memoir about her life, Tara Westover tells the story of growing up in rural Idaho to a survivalist Mormon family, isolated from others, lacking a proper education and never once seeing a medical professional as a child. She didn’t have a birth certificate until she was nine, and even then, she isn’t 100% sure her birthday is correct. When she was a teenager, she began to suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her own brother. When Tara confronted her parents about her black eyes and broken wrists, they didn’t believe her brother was responsible. Their relationship began to crumble as Tara spoke openly about the abuse, her family in denial about that truth of the situation. Knowing the most loving thing to do was walk away, tara severed all ties to her family. Says in an interview “you can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them. You can miss a person every day and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
Radical love means refusing to be mistreated or becoming the victim. It’s flipping the expectation that loving like Christ means you must take whatever someone gives you. The world tells us to think of ourselves,
get what’s ours.
Women are taught to put the needs of others ahead of theirs, suppressing their true needs for fear someone will stop loving them. But being a doormat is the anthesis of radical love.
Radical love means challenging an oppressive power. It’s standing up to injustice and demanding equality. Radical love extends a hand to the oppressed, pulls them up, and walks hand in hand together, fighting for equality. Radical love is standing up for the rights of women to receive equal pay and access to adequate healthcare and paid maternity leave. Radical love means paying your property taxes to fund schools that educate at risk students so they can have an opportunity to thrive in a society that already has them two steps behind. Radical love holds institutions accountable for sexual abuse and harassment. Radical love means reducing our dependence on oil to reduce the damage being done to the earth God has trusted us with. Radical love means standing up to racial injustices in our criminal justice system that dis-pro-portion-ate-ly incarcerates people of color.
Yes, to love as Jesus loves is radical. It’s going to take effort and a lot of practice. People are going to think you’re crazy. They might question your motives. But how else are we able to experience Jesus’ presence on earth if we don’t put our hands in the dirty water to wash to our neighbor’s feet, just like Jesus did? Serving our neighbor knowing the risk involved, but doing it anyways, because that’s what Jesus does. Jesus loves without limits, loving in the face of betrayal and heartbreak. What a radical way to live life!
Jesus is obsessed with love. Are we?
AMEN.
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