Neighbor

"Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” John 14:21 NIV

I'm wary of what it means for Jesus to reveal himself to me. How does a person who's not physically present reveal him or herself to another? If we get into that, we'd have to get into some pretty mystical stuff, and I'm in a season of life where the mystical is just not my cup of tea. I'm headed after logic, and none of this stuff makes sense.

But, is love logical? Here's the statement I find in today's passage:

Love neighbor as self = Love Jesus = Loved by God = Loved by Jesus = Experiencing Jesus

None of the statements in today's passage are logical. They're all spiritual. And so, to love my neighbor is, in essence, to experience Jesus, or, as the passage says, to have Jesus show himself to the one who's doing the neighbor loving.

The first thing I have to do in order to test this passage is to suspend all logical thinking. Just as all logic is thrown out the window when one tries to explain the experience of love, the same must happen when trying to figure out what it means to experience Jesus. But, there's another angle to look at this as well. In the original context, Jesus was present and he was speaking to real people in a real place at a real time. So, if I imagine I was one of the bystanders listening in on this sermonette, does it place the statements on a logical level?

Lets see:

I'm standing on a street corner in Galilee, trying to catch a morning time sermon. There's quite a crowd around me. I'm Jewish, and I'm about to go to work. I've heard quite a few of his sermons before, so I know the context that Jesus is coming from. His version of the commandments is to do two things: love God and love people. Evidently, those two things are a summary of all the laws the Torah (that I'm trying to unlearn) prescribes. As I'm listening, I catch the following: “Whoever has my commands . . .” I know that anytime I hear Jesus talking about commands, he's talking about what he calls the two greatest commandments – to love God with all of heart, mind, and strength, and to love neighbor as oneself. And then he says, “ . . . and keeps them.” So, I would probably be measuring myself up against the others in the audience, most likely some pretty well-known friends in the audience. I'd probably be running through the past few days to see how well or unwell I've held these two commandments. And then he says that the one who keeps them is “the one who loves me.” What's so special about loving a good Rabbi? How arrogant of him to puff himself up like that, telling a whole audience that loving him. I'd be kind of freaked out about this statement, because he's getting awfully close to making this about himself. I'd be debating whether I should leave or not. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize he's just inserting himself into the passage. He's being the “neighbor”, or, the recipient of said love. I realize he's inviting the audience into this mysterious action of love, and connecting it to something. So naturally, if any of us in the audience are practicing the “two greatest commandments,” then we'll be sure to love Jesus, since he is our neighbor. After all, we've known him since he was a baby. This is a small town you know. But he does bring up some points that ruffle the feathers of the higher religious leaders around here. They don't like it very much when he downplays the Torah and wraps it up in one sentence. In fact, I just saw a couple Pharisees walk away sneering. They may be forming a coalition against Jesus because he's definitely stirring up a hornet's nest of controversy.

He goes on to say, “And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father . . .” Now this is interesting. For my whole life, the only things that have been worthy of affection from the Father are visiting temple, tithing to the temple, making my sin and peace offerings, praying, and fasting. Is he putting “loving one's neighbor” on the same plane as these items? Now that's a concept I've not heard before, and it brings with it a relief. I probably start thinking of how this may change everything. And, I probably still question Jesus's right to even declare these things. Where does he get these notions? Did he make them up? Did he get a special message from the Father? Regardless, even the thought of not having to do these rote, monotonous disciplines sounds wonderful. I need a change.

He concludes the passage with, “ . . . and I too will love them and show myself to them.” This makes sense to me. He's just saying the obvious. When I love my neighbor, my neighbor loves me back and opens himself up to me.

The breakthrough concept in all of this is, we can put loving each other on the same plane as doing all these things that we've been doing in the hopes of receiving the Father's love. Better yet, we can replace all these things we've been doing (prayer, fasting, temple, sacrifices, offerings, etc.) with loving our neighbors, and experience the Father's love.

Now I know why those Pharisees scoffed earlier. This message isn't Pharisee-friendly, but an invitation to anybody who has the ability to love. Who can't love? Who is foreign to the concept of love? Jesus has just made the point-blank declaration that anyone and everyone has the ability to do what previously only the Jew could do. This is for sure gonna attract some Gentiles. I don't know how I feel about standing in an audience with Gentiles, listening to the same message. If anything, this is a new school of thought to me, and I'm very interested in coming back tomorrow to hear what else he has to say.