May 21, 2006 - Year B - Easter 6

John 15:9-17

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love. 10 You will remain in my love if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

11 I have told you all this, that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than this, to give one’s life for one’s friends; 14 and you are my friends if you do what I command you.

15 I shall not call you servants any more, because servants do not know what their master is about. Instead I have called you friends, since I have made known to you everything I learned from my Father.

16 You did not choose me; it was I who chose you and sent you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. And everything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

17 This is my command, that you love one another.

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Notes from [The Community Christian Bible] 

After making it clear that we depend totally on him, Jesus repeats his commandment of love. There is a necessary order in building the Christian life.

If from the start we say: We should love our neighbor because this is the only commandment, we will achieve nothing; because each one understands love in his own way, while not having as yet interiorized the thinking of Christ. Moreover, we need to receive from the source of all love the ability to love selflessly. Christ asks us to first share his thinking: that is what the expression, keep my commandments means. Thus we become his friends, knowing him as a person who loves us and acts in us. Later we will produce the authentic fruit of love, whose source is Christ.

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Comments by Wesley

1. Can you think your way into love? Is this a decisional act? Yes.

2. Can you live your way into love? Is this an experiential response to life? Yes.

3. Loving one another can be a limitation on love. We love those who love us and expect those whom we love to reciprocate.

Loving one another can be an expansion on love. The diversity of those in the community with whom we are bound in love is wide enough to challenge us to grow in our love quotients of quality and quantity.

Through which lens have you been seeing this passage?