Rector's Reflection—Easter 5 C
May 2, 2010

I can't help but go back to last week's reflection and the 'new atheism' that I addressed. One of the fascinating things about some of the 'new atheists' is that they are convinced that if we can just get religion out of the way, everybody will get along just fine. No guilt trips. No forced community. Altruism would rule the day.

Although I guess they wouldn't agree, it seems to me that they are coming out of a (fancy word alert) prelapsarian mindset. Back before that incident with the snake and the apple, human beings (both of them) were without sin... without evil. Then came 'the fall' and all that changed. Ever since, sin has been a part of human existence. Love has not been the default behavior. If it were, Jesus wouldn't have had to make loving one another a new commandment.

In today's gospel, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. "Little children, I am with you only a little longer," he says. "... Where I am going, you cannot come. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." You can't come with me, Jesus is saying, but you can do what I do.

Based on Jesus' expectation, early Christians displayed a radical discontinuity with their culture, a contrast which seems to be all but lost in our day. They didn't go to hospitals because hospitals were the domain of the heathen god Aesculapius. They wouldn't attend gladiatorial combats in which prisoners of war and slaves fought each other to the death for the amusement of the people. They didn't sue one another, believing that quarrels ought to be settled by bishops based on the law of love. They refused to go to war. They wouldn't take unwanted children out into the woods and abandon them to wild beasts or robbers. Some did keep slaves, yet they treated them with kindness and respect, giving them the same rights as anyone else in the faith community. Truth be told, even with human shortcomings, without great influence from the Christian Church, the world would never have had universities, schools, or colleges. It would never have had hospitals, or better prisons, or the end of slavery, dueling, segregation, apartheid, and kinder laws.

There is a hymn we sing now and then, the refrain of which is "they will know we are Christians by our love." There's a lot of time spent in Christian education and preaching talking about what that means. Greek has at least four words for love, it is noted, whereas English has only one. Agape love is what Jesus means... true, genuine, selfless love... as opposed to eros or philia or storge.

Understanding all of that is important, but the world won't know us by our distinctions in definitions. Knowing about love is not the same as practicing it, and practicing it in a hostile world is not easy. Jesus knew that, but he expected it anyway. At the end of the day, we will all be known for something. Hopefully that something is a reflection of the love that Jesus has for us.

Susan+