FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

I’ll summarize this popular yet simple parable about love, and I bet you’ll know the title and the author. 

Without knowing what the other did, one sold her long, beautiful locks of hair and the other sold his treasured pocket watch, an heirloom handed down to him from his grandfather. 

Della uses her money to buy an expensive chain for Jim’s watch. Jim buys a special comb for Della’s beautiful long hair.           

That’s right: the title is The Gift of the Magi, and the author is O. Henry. The moral of the story is they both sacrificed something that was special to themselves so they could share their unconditional love with each other, without counting the cost. Their love is what we call self-sacrificing love.

This is the type of love that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel today. “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you should also love one another.”

Jesus didn’t say, “Now, friends, I think it would be nice for you to love one another.” No, Jesus issued a command, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

What makes this commandment new? In the Old Testament, God said to Moses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind. And you should love your neighbor as yourself.” What makes the commandment new is that Jesus asks us to love one another, just as, not similar to, but just as Jesus loves us. This is a radical love and a sacrificial love.

I remember reading about a youth race where nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled for the 100-yard dash. They were at the starting line when they heard that exciting command, “Get ready, get set, go!” They started out with enthusiasm, perhaps not exactly in a dash, but with a desire to run the race to the finish and win. All except one little boy, who stumbled on the asphalt, tripped, fell on the track and began to cry.

The other eight racers heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked behind them. Then they all turned around and went back. Every single one of them! One girl with Down’s syndrome bent down and said, “This will make you better. I love you,” and then hugged him. Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line.

What a wonderful example of self-sacrificing love and loving like Christ would love.  

There is a Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown pleads with Lucy, “Lucy, you must be more loving. This world really needs love. You have to let yourself love to make the world a better place.”

Lucy whirls around and punches Charlie who does a backwards flip. Then she screams, “Look Charlie Brown, the world I love; it’s the people I can’t stand.” 

We may relate to that remark. We may love the world and things of the world, but then there may be some people that we just can’t stand. However, as Christians, we are commanded to love even the unlovable.

There are some people who don’t know how to love because they have never been loved. Here is a true story to illustrate the point. It is about a man whose life seemed doomed from the start. 

He had been born to a dominating, unloving mother who worked long hours and often left him home by himself. The neighborhood children rejected him. His classmates ridiculed him. He dropped out of school. He joined the Marines but eventually was court-martialed for some offense. He married a woman who, like his mother, belittled him. One day, he took a gun with him to work. The rest of it is history. The man was Lee Harvey Oswald; the person he assassinated was President John F. Kennedy.

I spent 25 years working in the prison system, ministering to some inmates who admit that they never have been loved by anyone. They admit that they are incapable of loving or being loved. 

Yet we are commanded by Jesus to love as Christ loved us. Jesus didn’t say it would be easy. It takes lots of work to love. How do you love terrorists? How do you love a mass shooter?  How do you love a hit-and-run driver who kills an innocent victim?

Like Christ, we love the person but not the evil act that the person does. 

Christ doesn’t command us to do something without giving us the strength to do it. But we have to ask for His Divine help, “Lord God, help us to love others as you love us.

The story is told about a priest, who for six weeks in a row, gave the very same homily. It was short, simple and accurate because it came right from Sacred Scripture.

No matter what the scripture readings were for that weekend, the priest would clear his throat and begin, “My children (the parishioners didn’t like being called children), “I will only be with you a little longer.” (Parishioners liked that). “I give you a new commandment: love one another.”

“As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

After 6 weeks in a row, this wasn’t so new, and in fact it was boring.  The parishioners got together and went to the priest with their complaint: “Father, just how long are you going to keep repeating that same sermon?”

The priest’s response was short, simple and accurate, “Until you understand and practice what the Scripture demands of all of you:  that you love one another as Christ has loved you.”