I like for things to make sense. I like to see snow in January and rain in April. I like to hear the noon whistle at noon. And I like to think that gasoline prices reflect the deep concern and compassion the oil companies have for the American consumer.

    Here we are in the middle of the Easter season, when we should be talking about the resurrected Christ, and our Gospel proclamation today takes us back to Maundy Thursday . . . back to the night Christ was betrayed. The scene is just after dinner, and the eleven are taking their ease with Jesus - Judas having just left to do what he had to do - and Peter about to stick his foot in his mouth saying he would lay down his life for Jesus. So why this flashback to a pre-Easter scene here in the midst of Easter? Perhaps it is included here for its relevance to us today in our post-Resurrection world.

    Today’s Gospel reading is the beginning of a long discourse Jesus had with his disciples after supper during his last night as a mortal among them. It was important that he use the opportunity to impart to them what he felt to be most important - a summary of his teaching perhaps - and in the course of it he gave them a new commandment: “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

    And while Jesus calls this a “new” commandment, it really is not foreign to the tradition in which he and the apostles grew up. Consider the last line in today’s reading from Leviticus: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” All the rules God laid down about not oppressing or cursing people, or slandering or hating, and not stripping your vineyards - these were not delivered to mankind as simply laws for the sake of laws, but as patterns for behavior which would reflect the ideal and promote love among us. In telling his disciples to love one another, Jesus was revealing that when we love one another, creation more closely reflects God’s glory, and is more fully restored to what God intended.

    Love is what Christians are all about; love has always been the identifying trait of followers of The Way. And there are plenty of examples throughout history of the love that followers of Jesus bear one for the other. But those on the sidelines, those who are skeptical of the veracity of our faith, are not convinced - and rightly so. There are plenty of times when we Christians are not the finest witnesses of Jesus’s command to us. When the body of Christ becomes preoccupied with unholy infighting, active persecution, pettiness and political correctness, then we have admitted disease into the body and we have lost The Way.

    So how do we end the disease? How do we love one another? We need first try to understand what Jesus was talking about. The selfless love of Christianity is that where we refuse to put ourselves before others . . . it is that genuine care and concern we have for others which is equal to that which we have for ourselves. St. James asked, “If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?” James realized that because Christ taught us to love each other, we should reflexively care for other’s needs as naturally as we tend to our own.

    A good friend of mine once told me that she was actively practicing hypocrisy. Because she did not feel fondly towards a person, she constantly said good things about the individual and praised them to the sky. She reasoned that if she couldn’t think her way into a better way of acting, then perhaps she could act her way into a better way of thinking. I am not surprised to find folks who approach their obedience to Christ’s command in this way. When feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and tending the sick and dying become Goals, the doing of these things is suddenly more about us and how it makes us feel than it is about the people we serve. We reason that Christ fed people, so he was showing by example what we should do! Christ healed people - that’s what we should be doing! But that’s not really the case at all.

    Sure, Jesus fed people . . . and healed people, and some folks will argue that he made great strides toward the empowerment of women. But he did not do these things to show his love or, worse, to engender love - he did these things because he loved these people and couldn’t help himself. These things were reflexive outpourings of his love - and that’s how he wants us to love.  We cannot act our way into loving each other . . . we must love our way into acting for each other.

    But I give to the church, and I support the food pantry . . . and I am in favor of sending money to the Dominican Republic, the Sudan and other places in need. What more can I do to show my love?

    Every day I have to come to grips with the fact that there is a very fine line between what I do for love, and what I do for charity. Although they often appear identical to the naked eye, love and charity, when viewed through the eyes of Christ, are very different. There is a distinct element of the “me” in charity – it’s not always selfless. In fact, recognizing that something we do IS charity, rather than obligation and obedience to Christ, is an indication of where our hearts really are.

    We live in a “bottom line” world. Everything we do, everything around us, has a monetary value. We measure our own worth, and that of others, by how much money we make, what kind of car we drive, and what kind of clothes we wear. We all do it whether we realize it or not. So why should we be surprised when we find ourselves feeling smug about helping out somebody in need? After all, isn’t the end result the same as if we actually did love them? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it - the end result?

    As a matter of fact, it isn’t. Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to perform charitable acts. He told them to LOVE one another . . . to love one another “even as I have loved you,” he said. Jesus knew that if we could feel about each other the way He feels about us, then the power of Satan which became manifest in Man’s fall would be diminished, and we would become more fully the creation God intended.

    But loving each other as Christ loves us is tough, especially since some have no idea of the depth of Christ’s love for us - and that is to be expected. Love is divine, a gift from heaven. God’s love for us came down from heaven in Jesus Christ, and through him was made manifest to the world. Since love came to us through Christ, we then should take it to others in the same way - through Christ. By drawing nearer to Christ and plumbing the depth of his love for us, we in turn, with God’s help, will be able to more effortlessly permit that love to flow into us, and around us, and through us. In order to love one another, as Christ commanded, we must first allow Christ to love us.

    At the outset I said I liked for things to make sense. However, in a world where the internet, telephone, newspaper and automobile have made us so globally interconnected, we seem to no longer find it necessary to know our neighbors. That doesn’t make sense to me. But what does make sense to me is that although I can scarcely fathom the love Christ has for me, I can attempt to understand it by letting it act in me and through me in the lives of others.

    Only by loving Christ, and letting Him love us, can we hope to love each other as he commanded.