Sixth Sunday of Easter
Today's Mass Readings
In recent days there is much news about military offensive against the Taliban in North-West Pakistan. As a result, the media has reported that hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are caught in the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people have become refugees. As an Indian, my sympathy for the Pakistanis has been zero. India and Pakistan are traditional rivals. They have fought two wars. Moreover, I think Pakistani government has been playing games with the Americans and the Taliban, and so, my reaction has been, “the Pakistanis deserve it.” That is, till last week. Then I saw the picture of a man sitting and wailing over the dead bodies of his two children caught in the crossfire. They were his only children. This man plight was no different than any other person in the world crying over his dead children. Suddenly, I began to feel ashamed of myself. The question that popped in my mind was, “Am I a Christian?” How could I have become aware of suffering people and say, “They deserve it.” Am I a Christian first or an Indian first? What is it that should define my moral choices – that I am a Christian or that I am an Indian? I realize that my nationality has nothing to do with salvation. At heart, I must first be a Christian. At heart I must instinctively think like a Christian and act like a Christian. No other religion demands that its follower’s life parallel God’s own life to the extent that Christianity does. In other words, Christians are uncompromisingly called to be like Christ… period. Thrice in today’s gospel reading Jesus draws the parallel between his relationship with his Father and our relationship with him and the neighbor. In John 15:9 Jesus said, “As the Father loves me, so I love you. Remain in my love.” In verse 10 he says, “If you keep my commandments… just as I have kept my Fathers commandments, you will remain in my love just as I remain in my Father’s love.” And then in verse 14 Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” This demand to be “as” God and “as” Christ is at the very heart of Christianity.
Today, I want to deal with each of the three “just as” in the gospel as the practical implications from today’s readings:
a) “As the Father loves me, so I love you. Remain in my love.” Jesus exposes a triangular love story. The Father loves the Son; the Son loves us; we love the Father and Son. Sometimes we can miss the simplicity of the Christian message. At the core of all that we are is God’s in explicable love. That is why John says in today’s second reading, “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” That love is at the core of this Eucharist. That love is at the core of all the sacraments. That love must be at the core our prayer, our worship and our witness. The difference between a marginal Catholic and the genuine Catholic that a real Catholic understands God’s love for him or her. Please remember that our goal is to allow God to love us like Jesus allowed God to love him.
b) “If you keep my commandments… just as I have kept my Fathers commandments….” Our normal human life tells us that love makes us enter into commitments. Love makes us live up to expectations. Love makes us sacrifice ourselves for others. Husbands and wife expect each other to return home at the end of the day. Parents and children expect to be in touch with each other at all times. That is the expectation of love. “Keep my commandments,” says Jesus, “if you love me, just as I keep my Father’s commandments because I love the Father.” How can we be sure that we love God? The answer is simple – read Matthew Chapter 5, 6, and 7. If we are living by these three chapters, then we can be sure that we love God.
c) “Love one another as I have loved you.” One of our parish staff here goes for a cancer related treatment. And she was telling us of a man who spends his time talking and humoring cancer patients. He talks to them, makes them laugh and perhaps lets them cry. This is where the rubber hits the road. Our realization God’s love and our commitment to God’s commandments must lead us to the other, especially, the unloved. I hope we can say that our life has given hope to someone in need. Beyond our families, beyond our friends, beyond our acquaintances I hope there is a person in need who believes in God because we dare to love as Christ has loved us.
So there are three things: to be loved by God, to keep God’s commandments, and to love God as Christ has loved. In some way, these three things are celebrated at this Eucharist. Here we know God loves us. Here we keep Christ’s commandment in memory of him. Here we commit ourselves to love itself. May this Eucharist become love for the world through us. May we be Christians first, Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph