Love One Another as I have Loved You: John 13:1-17, 33-34

Introduction

If you were to turn on the radio and listen to the songs being played, the vast majority of theme would be about one theme in particular. The theme of love, especially what we would describe as romantic love.

The trouble with the English language is that it doesn’t distinguish between different forms of love. For example, we may talk about loving a cup of tea, and loving our children, but we will mean two quite different things.

In contrast, the Greek language has four words for love.
Storge, meaning affectionate love. Referring to the sort of love a parent has for their children.
Philia, which can be described as friendship.
Eros, which is the type of love most commonly written about in songs. Eros refers to sexual love, that state which we call ‘being in love’.
Agape, used exclusively in the Bible, which CS Lewis in his book ‘The Four Loves’ translates as charity. And it is this word agape that has come to mean Christian love.

The Greatest Command

Jesus was once asked what is the greatest command, to which he replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbour as yourself.’ And on the night that Jesus shared his last supper with his disciples, he gives them the command, a new mandatum (where we derive the name Maundy from), Jesus says we are to Agape one another, love one another. And Jesus sets out how we are to do this, by following his example: Love one another as I have loved you, a command which Jesus again repeats in John 15:12.

The Example of Jesus

At the last supper, with his disciples, as John describes it in 13:1 Jesus shows the disciples the “full extent of his love.” As the meal is being served, Jesus removes his outer garment, wraps a towel around his body, and then getting down on his hands and feet he washes his disciples feet. In the culture of that time, any good host would make sure his guests’ feet were wash by a servant when they entered the house. But what would have surprised the disciples is that Jesus, the host, their rabbi, was washing their feet. That was part of Peter's objection to Jesus' washing of his feet.

When we think about the command to ‘Love one another as I have loved you’, how do we view this? Sometimes there is a tendency for us to think about it is terms of being nice to people, welcoming them when they come to our home or to the church. But Jesus was showing his disciples that true hospitality goes much deeper than basic good manners.

So what lessons can we learn from this action?

Self Giving Love

First of all, real love is self giving love, it means getting our hands dirty. Jesus couldn’t wash the disciples feet, without first getting down onto the floor, and taking those dirty feet into his own hands, and neither can we really love people if we are not prepared to do the same. Real love is about being prepared to make ourselves vulnerable, by entering into the mess and complication of life. After all, Jesus said he came not for the healthy, but the sick, he came not to call the righteous but sinners. (Mark 2:17) CS Lewis in his book ‘The Four Loves’ writes, “To love at all is to be venerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...”
Real love reaches out to all people, including those we find it difficult to love. It is highly significant that Jesus washed ALL the disciples feet. He washed Peter’s feet, who only hours later, despite promising to always remain by Jesus’ side, would deny him three times. He washed Thomas’ feet, who a few days later, would doubt Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, until he had seen Jesus for himself. And he also washed Judas’ feet, the one who that very same night would betray him. In washing even Judas' feet, Jesus was extending hospitality, his acceptance, even to the one who would betray him. Even though Jesus knew that Judas' act of betrayal would set into motion the events leading to his death, Jesus didn't push him out of the community. To the end, Jesus offered Judas a chance to change. What Jesus does is to embody God’s love, a love that extends to each and every one of us. Jesus tells his disciples: I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. If Jesus could include Judas, shouldn't we think very seriously about those we find it all to easy to exclude?

If you find this uncomfortable, and challenging, then I can reassure you that I feel the same way too. This type of love calls us beyond our comfort zone, it takes us to people and places that we would not normally choose to go. It’s about being prepared to get our hands dirty, to face possible opposition and rejection, or misunderstanding. It’s about learning to put others before ourselves, which I for one find very hard to do.

Jesus redefines what it means to love. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:43 Jesus says, “"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

On Sunday evening BBC 2 showed a documentary with Louis Theroux, entitled ‘The Most Hated Family in America’. In this documentary Louis spent three weeks with the Phelps family in America. For those of you who didn’t see the documentary, the Phelpses run the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, over many years they have led many picketing demonstrations against homosexuality, and more recently picketing the funerals of American Service Men killed in action in Iraq, claiming that their deaths are a sign of God’s judgement on USA. They even showed clips of children as young as 7 holding banners saying ‘God Hates Gays’. I was horrified by what I saw, and was left asking myself, where is the message of God’s love in what they are preaching. The point is that God’s love, as shown by Jesus, reaches out to everyone, no matter who we are, and the events at the Last Supper show us this.

In John 15:13 Jesus says “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus showed his love for us by sacrificing his life on the cross so that we might live. True love often requires us to make sacrifices, and giving of ourselves.

But how do we actually go about doing this? Paul gives us some guidance in Philippians 2:4 onwards:

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature[ God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who looked not to his own interests, but to the interest of others.

This doesn’t come easily, Paul himself admitted in Romans 7:19 that “what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” So it is something we wrestle with, and work at.

But with the grace and help of God, we can learn what it means to love others, and by making a conscious decision to try and love people the way God would have us do, is often the first step we have to take..

Newspaper columnist and minister George Crane tells the story of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. “I do not only want to get rid of him I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me.” Dr Crane suggested an ingenious plan: “Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy im. Make him believe you love him. After you’ve convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”

With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful He will be so surprised!”

And she did it with euthusiasm. Acting “as if” for two months she showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing and sharing. When she didn’t return Crane called, “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?” “Divorce?” She exclaimed. “Never! I discovered I really do love him.” Her actions had changed her feelings.

Conclusion

At the start of this sermon I talked about love songs, which tend to emphasis the emotional dimension of love. However, love isn’t just dependent upon how we feel towards someone, it is something we need to work at. And to love one another as God has loves us requires effort and time. But it is the sort of love that this world needs more than ever to witness. One of the things that marked the first Christians out from others was the love they had for one another. If people can see the love that we as Christians have for one another and for God, in our churches and in our families, people will be interested in finding out more about God. Because more than ever what people want and need is to feel they are loved and accepted. Many feet walk into our lives and into our church every day -- old feet, young feet, feet of different races, poor feet, children's feet, feet of the needy, feet of the arrogant, feet of the annoying, feet of those we love and feet of those we fear, feet of those who are like us and feet of those who aren't just like us. Whose feet would we be willing to wash? Whose feet would we rather not touch at all?Jesus showed by his example that we really don't have a choice in the matter. If we have, through our baptism, promised to live a godly life, to live by Jesus' teachings, to respect the dignity of all God's creatures, then we must be willing, literally or figuratively, to wash everyone's feet, no matter what. We have to be willing to show that same hospitality, that same acceptance, to everyone, no matter what. Washing each other's feet can be an intimately loving act, but we must also remember that there are other consequences of that unconditional love. Judas didn't change his mind -- and tonight Jesus begins his final way to the cross.