Fifth Sunday of Easter

I’ve been learning French on Duolingo over the past few years.  One of the first verbs we learned was the verb “to want”, “vouloir”.  We learned it early on because it is very useful for asking for things, and for asking and answering questions about what other people want to do and what you want to do. 

As I’ve been proceeding through the lessons, I was surprised to learn that while “vouloir” means “to want”, “en vouloir” means to be angry at, to blame, or to hold a grudge against.  “To want” and “to be angry at” seemed like opposites, and I wondered why the same word would have opposite meanings.  I googled it, and someone explained that literally the phrase means “to want some from someone” because when you’re angry with someone it’s because you want something from someone that they’re not giving you.  You might want an apology.  You might want respect.  You might want the $20 you loaned them that they haven’t paid back.  You might want the person to agree with you.  You might want the person to change in some way.  All of those things you want and don’t get cause anger, blame, grudges.

That explanation made a lot of sense, not only in understanding this French idiom, but in understanding where anger often comes from.  And it also provides a helpful way of understanding today’s gospel passage. 

Today’s passage, which we also read on Maundy Thursday, takes place when Jesus has gathered with his disciples for the Passover dinner, and Jesus has washed his disciples’ feet.  It comes from a very ominous section of John’s gospel.  Jesus has told his disciples that one of them will betray him, given a piece of bread to Judas, and said, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” In fact, the first verse of today’s passage refers to the fact that Judas has just gone out to betray Jesus.  Then, immediately after this passage, Jesus talks about his crucifixion, Peter insists he’ll lay down his life for Jesus, and Jesus says before the cock crows, Peter will deny him three times.

So right in between Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s betrayal, Jesus tells his disciples about his crucifixion, tells them he will leave them soon, and tells them not only “love one another” but “love one another as I have loved you”.  What is striking to me about how Jesus loves them, is that he loves Judas even when Judas is already hurrying down the road to betray him.  What is striking to me about how Jesus loves them, is that he loves Peter even knowing Peter is about to betray him before morning.  This is the amazing real thing of unconditional love.  It is giving love regardless of whether you get anything in return.  It is giving love regardless of whether the person loves you in return.  It is giving love regardless of whether the person rejects your love.  It is the capacity to love without wanting something.  This kind of love is the opposite of anger; it is the opposite of wanting to get something. 

There are times when it is the right thing to do to intervene in a situation to change it, or to ask another person to change in some way, and John’s gospel gives us examples of Jesus doing both of those things.  But Jesus’ love is not dependent on us or our behaviour.  Jesus’ love continues unconditionally.  When Jesus tells us to love one another as he has loved us, it’s this unconditional love he’s telling us to aim for.  I say aim for because I know I, for one, fall way short of that kind of unconditional love on a regular basis. 

It is so different from the kind of ordinary love we normally have in mind that it seems unnatural to love without wanting something in return; it may even feel wrong. 

Still, I think of various people at various times in my life who gave me a feeling that they just loved me without trying to get something from me.  They saw my flaws, and they loved me even with my flaws.  They didn’t need to change me.  They didn’t need to improve me.  They didn’t need to manipulate me.  They didn’t need to control me.  While they appreciated my love for them, they didn’t require it.  They were at peace regardless of what I did.  They came across as peaceful people, not angry people, not people who were always wanting something.  I felt safe with them.  Paradoxically, since they weren’t trying to change me, I often felt more motivated to change myself for the better.  And I noticed that even when someone didn’t respond well to them, even when someone rejected them, or when they had to end a relationship with someone for their own well-being, these loving people let the person go, peacefully and lovingly.  None of them were perfect at unconditional love, but there was enough good there that I could feel it, and I could feel its effect on me. 

When Jesus tells his disciples, during this deeply painful evening, to love one another as he loves them, it is this kind of unconditional love that he’s talking about.  He’s about to show them in his life and in his death how unconditionally he loves them, that he loves them even with all their failures and sins.  And here in his farewell to them he tells them to love one another in this unconditional way.  To be a disciple of Jesus means loving as Jesus loved.

Learning to love this way is a lifelong process.  We will inevitably fall back into our old habits of focusing on what we can get from people, and being angry when we don’t always get what we want.   Still, we always have the opportunity to confess, be forgiven, and start anew, so that instead of wanting to change the other person, we mind our own business and change ourselves to be more loving, by the grace of God.  We no longer have to speak the language of anger, and we can learn a language that’s better than any earthly language; we can learn to speak the language of Jesus, which is the language of love.