Love One Another

Bearing Fruit

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.”

John 15:16-17

The Lectionary readings for today are all about love and inclusion. This passage in John is combined with one in I John 15, in which the apostle makes the decision to baptize gentiles and so include them into the early church. This must have been a leap for the Jewish apostles, who had spent their whole lives keeping the cleanliness and dietary laws demanded by their faith. They had not spoken with gentiles, much less eaten with them and laid hands on them in baptism. But that radical Jesus had broken all the rules. He had taken the hundreds of laws and distilled them down to one—Love God and your neighbor as yourself. He had used prodigal sons and Samaritans and fallen women, who would have been stoned to death, as examples of the Kingdom of God. He had broken every rule by eating in the homes of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus had been called a glutton and drunkard because of the company he kept, so what the heck! May as well baptize the gentiles!

Love one another that you may bear fruit that lasts. And here's the rub—one another includes everyone—Jews and gentiles, Arabs and Russians and Chinese, and yes, that guy down the block that has the really loud parties. Did Jesus truly expect us to love everyone? Surely he knew how limited we are in that category. We don't even love people whose politics differ from ours, or people whose sexuality is different from ours. Jesus surely knew how unloving human beings are—after all, he was about to go to his death when he gave the disciples this commandment. So why give them instructions he knew they could never carry out?

Jesus had gone to great lengths to show his followers how God would see something—with compassion and understanding, and not with judgment and punishment. God was like the father welcoming home a son who'd wasted his inheritance on loose living. God was like a woman who'd sweep her whole house to find one lost penny. God was like a shepherd who searches all night for a single lost sheep. Jesus was saying to his disciples, 'do your best to see through God's eyes.' Even if you hate someone, show compassion. Even if someone is stinking and filthy, give them something to wear and to eat. Show love even when the feeling of love escapes you. Bear God-fruit—the kind that lasts.

In the spirit,

Jane