A Wednesday Holy Week sermon given by the Rev. Charles James Cook '73, Professor of Pastoral Theology, given in Christ Chapel on April 12, 2006

While reclining at table with his followers, Jesus offers the first words of what we now know as his last discourse: "I am giving you a new commandment -- Love one another, as I have loved you, so you too must love one another. By this will all identify you as my disciples -- by the love you have for one another."

Thirty-five years ago, when I entered seminary for preparation and formation for the priestly ministry of the church, the popular cultural understanding of love could be summed up in the phrase taken from a then young Yale professor's best-selling novel, Love Story. The catch phrase was simple, but seemed to embrace the feeling of the time -- "Love means never having to say you're sorry." That only works, I suppose, if you disregard the reality of human nature, not to mention the condition of the world at that moment, which included the anguish over the Vietnam War, and a Presidency in chaos and decline. It took Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal, in the cinematic version of Love Story, to assist in our denial of the condition of this planet earth, our island home.

Out of such a cultural context, we created a system of moral and ethical choice that based its fundamental premise on particular circumstance and situation, with the defining moment framed in the words, "What is the most loving thing to do?" It was also at this same time that the church's liturgical editors addressed the time-worn phrase from The Book of Common Prayer's prayer of confession: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us." The "no health" part was omitted, perhaps on the grounds that it conveyed an overly gloomy doctrine of humanity, and the new emerging theologies demanded the recognition of a divine spark in the psyche and soul. On the upside, the changes might well reflect the words of Dorothy Day who knew something about both the soft and hard edges of service and love. She said that if we could just remember that each one of us, friend and foe, carries the image of God, then that would make us want to love more.

Frederick Buechner, one who has a way with words, makes this observation. "To say that love is God is romantic idealism. To say that God is love is either the last straw or the ultimate truth...love is not primarily an emotion, but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to [love one another], to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to love them...with a cozy emotional feeling. You can as easily produce a cozy emotional feeling on demand as you can a yawn or a sneeze. Rather he is telling us to love...in the sense of being willing to work for another's well-being, even if it means sacrificing our own well-being."

Depth psychology has known this for a long time. Harry Stack Sullivan, the founder of what might be called American psychiatry, defined love as a condition in which your life becomes just as important as my own. In such a condition, there are indeed expectations and demands, not to mention responsibility and accountability -- one to another.

On this Wednesday in Holy Week, now midway on our annual pilgrimage to the cross, we would do well to focus on this phrase, one that embodies the meaning of love. Jesus says, "Love one another, as I have loved you." It is interesting, and not accidental, that these words are spoken after he has washed the disciples's feet. An act of humility and servanthood? Surely, that is a concrete example of love. "I have given you an example." But is there more to the foot washing than service? Is it a ritual of anointing, cleansing, purification -- in order to prepare for something greater? Earlier Jesus had asked them, "Can you drink the cup that I drink? Can you be baptized with my baptism, in the depths of those waters?" The answer to those questions would ultimately reveal whether the disciples understood the meaning of Gospel love. It would require both the head and the heart, body and soul.

In Shusaku Endo's remarkably disturbing novel Silence, there is a scene in which a Christian priest and missionary is held captive by those who want to drive Christianity from every corner of society and culture. Day by day, as he sits alone in his prison cell, a messenger comes to try to persuade him to recant, to deny publicly his faith in order to save his own life. He continually refuses. As time goes on, the pressure builds. The messenger tells him that other Christians are being tortured -- he can hear their cries of agony from a distance -- and the priest is told that if he will recant -- become an apostate -- then their suffering will end, their lives spared. Alone, afraid, and desperate, he prays for courage and strength -- it is not unlike Jesus' prayer in the garden.

He now knows what the next step will be. Life for him and for others rests in the balance. The messenger comes and binds him with ropes and chains and leads him from the prison cell. He is led into the public square where he will be forced, against his will, to perform a ritual. The object is placed at his feet. It is "a simple copper medal fixed on to a grey plank of dirty wood...it is the ugly face of Christ, crowned with thorns and the thin, outstretched arms. He is to trample it with his foot, over and over, symbolizing his rejection of the one he worships and adores. The messenger whispers, like the tempter, 'Go ahead, it's only a formality.'

"The priest raises his foot. In it he feels a dull, heavy pain. This is no mere formality. He will now trample on what he has considered the most beautiful thing in his life, on what he has believed most pure, on what is filled with the ideals and dreams of humankind. How his foot aches. And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest. 'Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share human pain that I carried my cross.

"The priest placed his foot on the image of the crucified Christ. Dawn broke. And far in the distance, the cock crew."

Jesus says, "Love one another as I have loved you."
Can you drink the cup that I drink?
Will you be baptized with the waters of my baptism?

If so, you will come to know the peace and love that passes all human understanding. It is into this love that Christ calls us. Like the priest in Endo's novel, we come to the task unprepared, unable, and, if the truth be known, unwilling. Because of Christ's sacrificial love, he bears our limitations, and gives us strength in our weakness, faith instead of fear.

As we ponder Christ's commandment, "Love one another as I have loved you, let us remember that he asks not perfection, but faithfulness. When we fall short, he transforms what once held us back into the unlimited possibility of becoming a new creation -- in his life and in his name. May it be so with us.

Sources:

The Holy Bible. The Gospel according to John. 13:21-35. NRSV

Brown, Raymond. John: A Commentary: Anchor Bible Series.

Endo, Shusaku. Silence. Sophia University Press. 1969.

Buechner, Frederick. Beyond Words. Harper. 2004.

Segall, Eric. Love Story. 1970.