In today’s Gospel – John 13:31-33 & 34-35 – we hear yet again the great commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” That commandment seems to be straightforward, but centuries of experience would suggest it is anything but. For example, C S Lewis suggests how our “loving” can actually be “unloving” in The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape, instructs the young devil, his nephew, Wormwood: “Avail yourself of the ambiguity in the word ‘Love’.” He continues with cutting irony: “‘If people knew how much ill-feeling Unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit’; and again, ‘She’s the sort of woman who lives for others – you can always tell the others by their hunted expression’” (Chapter XXVI).
The same destructive influences that can undermine any of our attempts at good behaviour can also be at work in our attempts to love one another. Those influences may include, for example, selfishness and egotism, greed and vanity. Recall the devil’s temptation of Adam and Eve: “You will be like God!” (3:5). When we – implicitly or explicitly – displace God in our lives, everything we do will be tainted, including our attempts to love one another. The antidote, as Meister Eckhart observes, is to let God be God in you.
John explains in his First Letter: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. … for God is love. … In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us” (4:7-10). Jesus puts it beautifully in the parable of the vine: “Abide in my love” (15:9). This involves a radical, new way of being. Thus, he tells Nicodemus, you must be “born of the Spirit” (3:8). St Paul describes it as a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
It may, therefore, be better if we hear Jesus’ command to love one another as an invitation to receive and participate in the love of God, rather than as a moral imperative to imitate Jesus through right behaviour. Experience suggests that the latter can easily expose us to those destructive influences mentioned above. It is also likely to attach the expectation of reward and punishment to right behaviour. Reward and punishment, in turn, invariably imply judgment and fear. All of which will almost certainly distort and/or undermine the love we endeavour to put into practice.
Jesus’ command to love cannot be fulfilled if we focus on ourselves and what we must do. It can only be fulfilled if we are empty of our self-centeredness, if we let go of reward and punishment and surrender to God. Then we will begin to discover love as gift rather than conquest, a work of grace rather than self-mastery. God’s love – true love – liberates. It does not entrap or manipulate, it is never self-serving though it will in fact be deeply fulfilling because that is why we exist.
Journal and reflect on the following
What does Jesus truly mean when He says, “Love one another as I have loved you”?In what ways is His love different from the love we often see or experience in the world?
C.S. Lewis warns of the ambiguity in the word “love.”How can our attempts to love sometimes be distorted by self-interest, pride, or hidden motives?
What are the “destructive influences” that can quietly undermine your efforts to love others—such as selfishness, judgment, or fear of rejection?
Reflect on the phrase: “Let God be God in you” (Meister Eckhart).What does it mean to surrender your ego in order to allow God’s love to flow through you?
Do you sometimes approach love as a moral duty or performance, rather than as a participation in the grace of God?What shifts when you understand love as gift rather than obligation?
St. John says, “Whoever loves is born of God and knows God.”How does love deepen your relationship with God—and how might a lack of love indicate a disconnect from Him?
How can you practice self-emptying love this week?What small, genuine action could reflect the liberating, non-manipulative love Christ shows?
Discuss
Song - Oh how he loves us
Final prayer
Loving God,You are the source of all true love—patient, kind, and without end. Teach us to love not as the world loves, but as You love: with grace, mercy, and humility. Help us to let go of pride, fear, and self-interest so that Your love may flow through us, healing wounds, building peace, and drawing others to You. May our lives be a reflection of the love that never fails, and may we always remember that to love one another is to live in You. Amen.
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