“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another…My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” Ok, we get the point Jesus.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s commandment is clear. Those who believe in Him as the Son of God are to love each other. But are we not also to love the outsider? Does not Jesus also command us to go find the lost sheep, as we heard a few Sundays ago? Are we not to love the world that God made? In his Gospel, John chose to leave those questions unanswered. What Jesus insists on in John’s Gospel, is that the we the Church love each other.
Of course, we are to love the outsider. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,” Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, “because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…freedom for the prisoners… to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). When we distribute beans and rice to the needy, Jesus proclaims Good News to them through us. But we must not forget to love each other.
One expression of that love is the Rector’s Discretionary Fund, which is used only for the relief of necessity. It has been used to help the outsider needing help. But recently, it has been used more to help those in our Parish Family needing help. Jesus commands us to love one another “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). When I can help a parishioner, my joy is complete.
You can share this joy next Sunday, the first one of the month, in which all cash offerings and checks not marked for pledges go into the Discretionary Fund. When we reach in, and reach out, we find balance between the renewal of old love and the growth of new love.
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