A New Commandment?
Jesus tells his disciples that he will leave them shortly. He doesn't have a set of instructions, an organizational plan, or even a set of inspired writings. He simply gets their attention by declaring he is giving them a new commandment: "Love one another".
It is interesting that he doesn't repeat an earlier reference to the "greatest commandment" in response to fancy rhetoric from a Pharisee to love God and neighbor. This commandment is more to the need of the community of the faithful. Because if the community is not animated by love, love of God and love of neighbor grows out of fiction. What Christ is trying to establish is what grounds the community: love. Doctrinally, the Church is founded on Christ, which is all well and good; but it isn't a very practical statement without this "new commandment". Just as the popular phrase "believing in Jesus" isn't helpful in understanding what one must do with this belief, reciting doctrine or dogma can't substitute for love. Christianity is not merely a creed.
In our first reading, we get a sense of the heady times in the early Church. That although "it is necessary to undergo many hardships", people saw the love of Paul and Barnabas that drew them to worship Christ, which is to say, to join them on this "way". They "opened the door of faith" by inviting them to share the journey, a journey animated by love.
It is easy to get lost in the rhetoric of Christianity and forget the commandment left us by Jesus to love one another as the very practical way of suggesting that if we are not a model of the Trinitarian love we profess, our faith is a sham. If we don't love one another and walk together sharing the hardships of being a community of faith, then the mission becomes a philosophy club with weekly rituals and catchy phrases.
No comments:
Post a Comment