The One Law

MAY 6, 2007: FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Acts 14:21-27     Revelation 21:1-5a     John 13:31-33a, 34-35

To the church in the diaspora[1]

& to the church of the unchurched[2]

Introduction 

A new commandment

At the Last Supper Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “My dear children I shall not be with you much longer[3].” Then he gave them a parting gift. “A new commandment I give you: love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:33-34). His discourse at the Last Supper was long, and he repeated himself saying, “My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you” (Jn 15:12). How did he love them? John says, “He loved them to the very end” (Jn 13:1). How did he love them? He rose from the table, girded himself with a towel and began to wash their feet (Jn 13: 4-17).

Just one commandment

Two thousand years before Christ, Moses came down from the mountain with two tablets in his hands and gave the people of Israel Ten Commandments to observe (Dt 5:7-21). In the sixth century before Christ, Buddha gave his followers eight commandments or Paths to observe: the Paths of Right Knowledge, Aspiration, Speech, Behavior, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness and Absorption.

In the sixth century after Christ, Mohammed gave Moslems the five commandments or Pillars of Islam to observe: Shahada (a proclamation of personal faith that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet), Salat (ritual prayer five times daily), Zakat (a fixed percentage for almsgiving), Ramadan (the great fast) and the Hajj (the once-in-a-life-time pilgrimage to Mecca).[4]

When Jesus came, he did not give us ten commandments like Moses or eight like Buddha or five like Mohamed. He gave us just one commandment: “A new commandment I give you: love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34). He repeats himself: “My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you” (Jn 15:12). In his epistles St. John writes often about Jesus’ one commandment to love one another (I Jn 3:11-18; II Jn: 5-6). The church proclaims it so often we sometimes don’t hear it, and the preacher’s great quandary is to say something new and exciting about our one great commandment.

Something new

The Lord’s commandment to love others is directed toward two kinds of human beings: those who are our enemies and those who are our neighbors. Jesus commands us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Mt 5:44). And he commands us also to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mt 22:39). Loving an enemy and loving a neighbor conjure up distinct and different images and scenarios, and the two need different treatment. An enemy is one who, we feel, has done us wrong. A neighbor, on the other hand, is simply one who lives close by us. In fact, the Latin word for neighbor is proximus—“the proximate one.”

Loving an enemy

Jesus commands us to love an enemy. ”You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’[5]… But I say to you: love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:38, 44). Loving an enemy is never easy and never pleasant, even when the enemy says he’s sorry. It’s difficult to forget the past or try to pretend that nothing has happened. But when an enemy says he’s sorry and means it, he ceases to be an enemy, and then we must let hate out and love in.

But when the enemy isn’t sorry, it’s almost impossible to make any sense out of a commandment to love an enemy. It’s almost impossible to “do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you and to pray for those who mistreat you” (Lk 6: 27-28). Love bin Laden? Do good to bin Laden who hates you; bless him who curses you as an infidel, and pray for him who so gleefully mistreated you on 9/11? Love him who is planning an even worse apocalypse for you? What in the world can loving such an enemy mean? Perhaps it means a decision not to become the terrorist he is and not to be consumed by the same intense hate that consumes him. If he succeeds in turning us into a terrorist and filling us with hate, then he has struck again.

Primarily for ourselves

At the end of the day, loving an enemy, especially one who isn’t sorry, is first and foremost for our own sake. We need it more than the enemy does. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “I’m sticking with forgiveness and love; anger and hate are too heavy a burden to bear.” They are, indeed, too heavy a burden. They mire us down so that we can’t get on with our lives. They consume our energy with angry self-talk or on pay-back instead of spending it on service. They turn our gaze constantly upon our offended selves instead of upon the sufferings of the people and animals around us. Anger and hate poison our human spirit with a negativity which can’t count blessings or smell roses or resonate with the glories of the season.

Loving a neighbor

Jesus commands us also to love a neighbor. That is a different scenario. A neighbor is one who simply lives close by us or works in the same building or is a member of the family. In the parable of the Good Samaritan a neighbor is one who is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, is waylaid by robbers and falls into great need. He is, indeed, a proximus as you come upon him.

Loving an enemy makes us clench our teeth as we try to forgive and forget. It’s against our nature. The old philosophers called it contra naturam. But loving a neighbor, especially one in need, though often not easy, is exhilarating and fulfilling. It is what we human beings have been created for. It’s according to our nature. The old philosophers called it secundum naturam.

A parable

A version of the Good Samaritan parable, recently brought to light, reads as follows: Once upon a time a Jew traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho was waylaid by robbers, stripped of his money and left half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest hurrying to the University of Jericho to deliver a philosophical paper on the nature of man and his creation. He saw the poor man, crossed the street and passed him by. Along came a Levite (the priest’s helper) who also crossed the street and passed him by. Finally along came a simple and not very philosophical Samaritan who was hurrying to Jericho for a very important business meeting. (Samaritans, you know, traditionally dislike Jews.) Seized by an innate urge of his human nature, he stopped to pour the oil of compassion into the poor man’s wounds. Then he hoisted him onto his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn where he provided for the man’s care and cure. As the Samaritan continued on his way to Jericho, there was a song singing in his heart (Lk 10: 25-37).

Two victims on the road to Jericho

This past week the media featured two news events about victims waylaid on the road to Jericho. One victim was waylaid by cancer and the other by a car accident. Both events were about loving a neighbor, especially one in need.

Tony Snow, White House press secretary, has been battling cancer for a number of years. After a recent bout with it, he returned to work this past Monday, April 30, 2007. Whether you like President Bush or not, there’s something wrong with you if you don’t like his press secretary Tony Snow. Before TV cameras there was a “manly tear” in Tony’s eyes and in his voice as he thanked all those good neighbors of his—fellow workers-- whose good wishes, prayers and concern, he said, lifted his spirit and helped him back to work. The crowd gave Tony a standing ovation. It was all about people loving a neighbor, especially one in need like Tony.

The other news event was about Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey. His SUV driven by a state trooper was clipped by a truck and slammed into a guard rail. Corzine was not wearing a seat belt. After multiple injuries which will require a long period of rehabilitation, he was released from the hospital on April 30, 2007. He addressed a crowd outside with more than a “manly tear” in his eyes and voice. He apologized for the very poor example he had given a lot of young people. Then he added, “Nothing counts more in life than those people who care about you all the time, in moments of joy and the moments of pain.” That, too, was all about people loving a neighbor, especially one in need like Governor Corzine.

Both news events happened on the same day, and it gives us pause. There’s a lot of such love of neighbor all around us to lift our spirits and make us rise to a standing ovation. In contrast, the ominous images of sectarian carnage in Iraq and of the shooter at Virginia Tech splashed all over the media flatten our spirits as they distract us from the goodness which abounds.

The laws written on paper.

Moses, the law-giver of the Old Testament, came down from the mountain with two tablets in his arms and on them were written ten laws (Dt 5:7-21). Jesus, the law-giver of the New Testament, came down from heaven with one tablet in his arm, and on it was written only one Law: the Law to love (Jn 13:34). That Law written by God the Creator on our human hearts makes us act as human beings. But when that Law slumbers or is dead in our kids and us, then we need laws written by humans on paper to make us act as though we were human beings.

When the Law in us slumbers or is dead, then we need written laws to outlaw hate-crimes and gay-bashing and more written laws to outlaw vandalism, graffiti and boomboxes, and more written laws to outlaw bullying classmates and bringing weapons of mass destruction to school. When the Law in us slumbers or is dead, then we need written laws to outlaw bare breasts and butts, and more written laws to outlaw child abuse and elderly abuse and animal abuse. Then we even need a Good Samaritan Law to obviate any liability for stopping to minister to someone dying by the wayside.

After so many written laws, we end up with not much more than human beings who aren’t really human at all, but who are simply acting as though they are human.

Conclusion

The Law written on the heart

The Jewish priest and Levite on the Road from Jerusalem to Jericho needed another Good Samaritan Law which would have outlawed passing by anyone dying by the roadside, and which would have made them, at least, act as though they were human. When the sun set on that day, and they had returned home in Jerusalem, there was an empty nondescript feeling in them. It was the feeling of human beings who aren’t really human.

The Good Samaritan didn’t need a Good Samaritan Law written on paper to act as though he were human. He had a Law written on his heart to be the human being he was created to be, and he was alive to that Law. When the sun finally set on his long and arduous day and he arrived back home in Jerusalem way past midnight, though exhausted by the unexpected ordeal he had stumbled upon earlier that day and though disappointed with his business meeting in Jericho, there was a song singing in his heart. It was the song that sings in the hearts of people who are the human beings they were created to be.

One of the early church fathers wrote that, “Man fully human is the glory of God.” Man fully human is also the glory of man himself.

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[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!

[2] By “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!

[3] Jesus’ words speak of his first departure from his disciples in his death. The words also strike the first note of the ascension (his second departure) into heaven. Ascension Sunday this year is May 20.

[4] Sometimes listed as the sixth commandment or Pillar of Islam is the famous (or infamous) "Jihad": the obligation to spread Islam (which easily deteriorates into "holy war").

[5] [5]Jesus is quoting Ex 21:24 and Lv 24:19. “Anyone who inflicts an injury on his neighbor shall receive the same in return. Limb for limb, eye for eye, tooth for tooth!”