Acts 11:1-18 Who was I that I could hinder God?
Revelation 21:1-6 See, I am making all things new.
John 13:31-35 I give you a new commandment, [in order that] that you love one another.

O God of love, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Now we’re five weeks into Eastertide, and our lectionary takes us back to the Gospel of John’s story of the night that Jesus was arrested. It’s like the Church is saying, “okay, it’s been a few weeks since Holy Week. Let’s review.” The scene of this last supper, according to John, is not a Passover meal, but a meal the day before the festival of Passover, the Feast of Freedom, was about to start. During supper, Jesus has washed the feet of his followers and commanded them to wash one another’s feet. Then, while Jesus and his followers were reclining Jesus revealed that Judas would betray him, by giving Judas a piece of bread. The story goes that “after Judas received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him,” and “Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’” You might remember that Satan means Adversary – the constant accuser of God (Who is Love) and of humans (who are made by and for Love). Immediately after that Judas went out into the night, and then Jesus said the words we just heard Susanne read. Just after our passage, Jesus told Peter that Peter would deny even knowing him three times before the rooster signaled the rising sun.

The other night at while the Emmanuel Church vestry was puzzling over this passage together in Bible study, we had some conversation about the word glory – glorify, glorified. “What does that mean?” we wondered. So later, I looked at what my go-to translation blog writer, D. Mark Davis had to say about this. [1] The root is the Greek word doxa – as in doxology (typically translated words of praise). So one translation of glorified could be made praiseworthy, as in “Now the Son of humanity has been made praiseworthy and God has been made praiseworthy in him. If God has been made praiseworthy in him, God will also make him praiseworthy in himself and will make him praiseworthy at once.” But that seems a little off to me. God was already praiseworthy – Jesus wasn’t making God praiseworthy. Another meaning of doxa is appearance as in manifestation. Our word paradox means different from or in contrast to (para) how something seems or appears or is in essence (dox). So the sentence could be translated, “Now the Son of Humanity has appeared and God has appeared in him. If God has been made manifest in him, Godself will also appear in him and immediately God will appear in him.” (the spiritual “soon and very soon, we are going to see the King” comes to my mind) So glorification is a manifestation of the Divine, which of course, is worthy of praise and celebration.

I mention what is going on right before the passage before us today, because, out of context, this passage can seem pretty sappy – overly sentimental. “Little children,” Jesus says, (but actually the word little isn’t there – it’s just children – maybe in the sense of tender and naïve, not fully matured or wizened? I don’t know why Jesus calls his friends children here. “I am with you only a little longer,” Jesus says. This passage is part of a very long and tear-jerking goodbye that Jesus delivers to his friends. He says, “You will look for me, and where I am going you cannot come.” This doesn’t fit at all with other promises attributed to Jesus, but in the verse just following our reading, Jesus clarifies – you can’t follow me now, but you will follow afterwards – still sad, but not permanently sad.

Now, keep in mind, that this is what the writer of John imagines Jesus said – he was writing, after all, about 3 generations after Jesus’s death. The reason I think it’s important to keep that in mind, because Jesus says that he has previously said something to “the Jews” and he’s now going to say to his followers. Jesus’ friends at the time of his death, were Jews, just like he was. Jesus’ friends’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their friends, 70 years later, were starting to distinguish themselves from other Jews. So the Greek word, Judayoi here should either be translated Judeans (in contrast with Galileans) or understood as completely anachronistic.

Whenever I encounter this passage, I puzzle over the line. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” And I always think, that’s not a new commandment. That’s as old as Moses (which is not quite as old as dirt…adamah…Adam, but pretty close)! Why is this getting called a new commandment? What is new about the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself? I like to say that it’s about as new as the new moon.

I’ll confess that I often hear this in a sarcastic or funny way, but I’m surely projecting the the Gospel of Mark onto the Gospel of John when I do. If Mark were telling this story, in its urgent and terse narrative, with Mark’s often impatient and cranky Jesus, Jesus’ tone would be more like this: “I’ll give you a new commandment. Love one another.” Here’s a hot tip – Love one another. Here’s some breaking news – God wants you to love one another. (Or perhaps it’s just my own irritation at Christian Biblical ignorance or arrogance.) The problem, is that this is the Gospel of John, a mystical and poetic lovesong. In the Gospel of John, Jesus isn’t portrayed as snarky with his friends, and I shouldn’t be either.

The thing is, I’m not so sure the command is to love one another. (And the word “should” is not here at all.) A closer translation is, “A new command I am giving to you in order that you may love one another, just as I loved you in order that or so that you may love one another.” The command that Jesus has given in the portion just before this reading is to wash one another’s feet. Serve one another, care for one another. Get your hands dirty – risk contamination, risk becoming unclean in service to one another. As far as I know, the command to wash one another’s feet, behaving as if we are all servants, is a new command. There are Torah instructions to wash one’s own hands and feet. There is customary hospitality to offer water and a place to wash, and when available, servants to help. But Jesus takes a towel, ties it around his waist, and he kneels down and washes his followers’ feet and then tells them to do that for one another. Wash one another’s feet. I think that’s the new commandment. I’m hesitant because a few years ago when The Jewish Annotated New Testament was published and we had a panel of New Testament scholars here, a question was asked about whether there was anything in the Gospels original to Jesus. After a long pause, the panel acknowledged that it didn’t seem like it. But this particular iteration of loving one another might be new. This command to wash one another’s feet might be the 614^th commandment!

The purpose is another way to demonstrate your love for one another. Just as I have loved you, so that you have love for one another. Jesus says, this is how people will know that you’re my followers – when you demonstrate your love for one another. Jesus says, “in order that, or so that, you love one another” three times. That means he really means it. It also means it probably wasn’t happening so much. If it had been happening, there wouldn’t be any need to write it down and to emphasize it by saying it three times. I mean, no one says three times “I’m giving you this new dish soap so that you will wash the dishes” if the dishes are already washed and put away, right?

So what might that look like? How has Jesus been loving them? How are we supposed to love? What do we look for when we’re trying to tell the difference between God’s love and other things that get called love? What I see when I read stories of Jesus’ loving, is encouraging, nourishing, healing, forgiving, redeeming, freeing, inspiring – most of all opening. Reading stories of Jesus’ loving is like watching a flower opening. You know how, when a flower is new, it’s kind of closed tightly in a bud? It reminds me of the story of a little girl who once asked her mom, “How come whenever I open up a flower it falls apart, but when God opens it up it stays together?” The mother didn’t know how to respond, but then the little girl said, “Oh. I know. When I open it up, I open it up from the outside, but when God opens it up, it is from the inside.” [2]

The kind of love that reveals the essence of God, works from the inside and meets us on the inside. It expands us – it gives us life – it opens us up, which of course, makes us vulnerable. When we give and receive that kind of love, I believe that it’s God’s love working through us and through others. Listen to this poem from e.e. cummings. It sounds to me like what Jesus was teaching about the way, the truth, and the life.

 
in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)
 
in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes
 
in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)
 
and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me.
 

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