What does love look like to you?

Jesus said, “But I am giving you a new command. You must love each other, just as I have loved you. If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.   - John 13:34-35 CEV

Does this scripture sound familiar?  We think of it a lot,don’t we? Jesus’ call to love one another. This command is found 13 times in scripture, but only twice said by Jesus. Can you tell that Jesus was preparing his disciples to live without him? Once Jesus is gone, they will need to embody this love for one another and for the world. The love the disciples have experienced from Jesus they will now embody with each other going forward. And so the disciples needed to hear these words.  We know that both love and betrayals have very tangible and real outcomes.  Jesus gives the disciples the promise of loving one another because of what they have just witnessed with Judas.  He’s telling them, this is how you don’t betray me! By loving one another.  And yet, we know that Peter still has yet to deny Jesus. How do we not deny our discipleship?  It’s by loving one another. 

Friends, our love is located in the reality of what we do to follow God.

What does love look like to you? 

I can tell you what it looked like to me yesterday, as we opened the Church Cupboard for the first time.  It looked like a little boy who fell down going to someone he didn’t know for a snuggle. It looked like the surprise on a lady’s face when someone offered her a cup of coffee. It looked like someone being thankful he could have his own food and not have to eat his elderly mother’s. 

Love isn’t a to do list…it’s not just a command to go love more, to do more. It’s a call to community and to be part of a community that loves others. We aren’t individual superheroes that God is sending to save the world.  It’s not each of our jobs to go do it by ourselves.  Each of us is called to figure out how to make this community a more loving space.  But we are also called to receive that love from one another and to rely upon it.  Both were necessary for the disciples, especially in Jesus’ absence and both are necessary for us. May our Cupboard be a way of extending the love of God into those inside and outside of our faith community!

Patient God, sometimes we are just too busy for our own good. We pledge ourselves to hectic schedules, demands on time, energy, and resources that erode all too quickly. The cries of those in need often go unheeded in our blur of activities which sap our energy, our resources, our spirits. Slow us down, Lord. Remind us again that we are responsible for the care of this world, for reaching out and offering your healing love to one another. Remind us again of Jesus’ words to his disciples when he told them that they should love one another as he loved them. May we take time to bear witness to that love in all that we do. AMEN