“A New Commandment”
May 18, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
As we continue our post-Easter time in the gospel of John we hear Jesus tell his disciples what he wants them to do once he is gone. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” Now I can imagine that this statement might have confused those present. A “new” commandment—yes, please Jesus. This is exactly what we signed up for. But what is it? Love one another? That’s it? Love? One another?
I mean, the Shema—the bedrock of Jewish faith (for we do have to remember that these were Christians who had probably started out as Jews)—was all about Love. Love of God. Love with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and all your might—love with everything you have. And in the Law, in the Torah, specifically in Leviticus, there were many admonitions about taking care of people—the widow and the orphan, the poor, the stranger inside your gate. In fact, when Jesus summarizes the law (in the other gospels) he pieces together the Shema “Love the Lord your God” and Leviticus 19:18 which says “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This “greatest commandment” as we often call it has become so familiar, it has almost lost it’s meaning. Okay, okay. We’re supposed to be nice to everyone. Okay, okay. We should do nice things for others. It’s what I should do because I follow Jesus. It’s all about “love” right? Didn’t the Beatles’ put it so well, “Love, Love, Love”—All you need is love…, Love is all you need.” Although the first disciples didn’t have that soundtrack in their mind, they might also have asked, “So what is new about Jesus’ commandment?” Didn’t the Torah already tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves?
And what exactly did Jesus say? Not just, “love one another, but…Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Just as I loved you—how has Jesus loved us?
Well, directly before this reading Jesus sat down with his disciples and took off his outer robe and began to wash the disciples’ feet. Peter is aghast at this. Only servants, lowly servants, washed feet—for they were dirty, being covered with the mud and muck of walking in sandals all day. They were smelly, because our feet get that way. It wasn’t something that was done by a master. No, No, Jesus. You aren’t going to wash my feet!
But Jesus responds, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” And later adds, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” I have set you an example. This is how you should love. We should do as Jesus does—be servant of all instead of thinking of ourselves as master of all. Because washing one’s feet isn’t just about getting rid of the grime and giving some foot pampering. It is a statement of solidarity. I don’t think I’m better than you. I don’t think I’m “higher” than you. I’m your servant.
In the last week or so we have welcomed a new pope, Leo XIV—and mourned Pope Francis. I remember, so many years ago, when one of Pope Francis’ first public acts was washing and kissing the feet of twelve inmates at a youth prison (on Maundy Thursday). Included in these (for the first time in papal history) were two women and two Muslims. This is “loving one another as I have loved you.” This is throwing away any power or privilege that might allow you to think you have an elevated status, and following Jesus by stooping to do even the most menial of tasks.
But it isn’t just the washing of their feet that Jesus has on his mind. He knows that his time on earth is coming to an end. He even says in our reading “Little children, I am with you only a little longer.” And he identifies that someone around the table (someone whose feet he has washed?!) will betray him. That betrayal will set in motion what he has been hinting at—that he will be tried and convicted and executed and rise again.
His love is not just when it is convenient, not just when it is easy, not just when it is uncostly. He is willing to go where this servant love, this love of neighbor, in fact, this love of the world (as John told us in the beginning of the gospel) takes him. Even if that means standing in front of the powers that be. He will not back down from that.
I was profoundly moved by the story of Keshia Thomas, an African-American teen who helped a man, shielding him from an angry crowd. Now to fully understand the power of this story, you have to imagine this white man. He had on a Confederate flag t-shirt, and he sported an SS tattoo. But Keshia defended him anyway. That is “loving one another as I have loved you.”
And where might we get the strength, the courage, to love in this way? This is where all that “glory” talk at the beginning of our reading comes into play. Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. This glorification—this lifting up of Jesus, foreshadowing the ultimate rising up from death, is talked about just as Judas leaves the table. God’s glory shines even in the midst of stupid choices that we make. God’s glory shines even in the midst of horrible things that we do to one another. God’s love shines even in the darkest hour. God’s love shines, and it shines on all, for “God so loved the world.”
And Jesus is the manifestation of that love. Love in the flesh. Love that we could see and hear and touch and maybe understand (dimly). Augustine talked about the energy of Love that flows from Father to Son back to the Father. And somehow, someway, God has chosen to loop us into that energy cycle—through the Holy Spirit. And so we too are loved. And we too are expected to widen the circle—to spread that love to others around us.
Think of how Jesus loved those around him.
--Meeting with one of the religious authorities at night (could it have been a set-up?)—Jesus so loved Nicodemus and had such in depth conversations with him that Nicodemus shows up at his burial, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes—weighing a hundred pounds—to anoint Jesus’ body.
--Sitting and talking with the Samaritan woman at the well: a woman, a Samaritan (who were looked down upon by those who worshipped in Jerusalem), and one who has had what we will call a “colorful” life. Jesus so loved the Samaritan woman and offered her water that springs up to eternal life and she tells everyone who will listen about him.
--Pushing aside his disciples who wanted to use a blind man as a starting point for a theological discussion about who sinned—Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud with the saliva and puts the mud on the man’s eyes—and the man realizes he is healed as he washing in the pool of Siloam. Jesus so loved this blind man and after receiving his sight, and having to face all kinds of questioning about it from the Pharisees (and a cold shoulder from his parents), he continues to follow the one who brought him to a better life.
--Raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, even though he knows that it will bring concentrated fury from the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Jesus so loved Lazarus, and Mary and Martha, that he was willing to show the breadth of his power, and the depth of his love.
This love isn’t just something to put on a plaque on your wall. It isn’t just something to sing pretty song about. It is subversive. It is expansive. It is all-encompassing. It is surprising in a world that does not think love is powerful. But it is Jesus’ signature—God’s signature in our world. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So, Jesus’ new commandment. It takes the old understanding, the old words, and underlines them.
I’m pretty sure that what Jesus meant when he said I’m giving you a new commandment is that he was giving them the old commandment but dressed up in new clothes. He was helping to write the old on their hearts. He was insisting that this “love thing” wasn’t just something that you said with your lips, not just something that you did once in a while, but it was to be “the way” one lived in the world. As he did. Because he did.
And because of Jesus we are invited to participate in the incredible power of love. In fact, we are commanded to love. To love those close by, and those we would rather not be near, and those who we don’t even know. God’s love throws us off our neatly planned paths, and asks us to see with new eyes, and hear with new ears, and stoop down to do unbelievable things, and then watch how our lives are transformed. How our world is changed. (Okay, maybe just a teeny bit. But changed nonetheless.)
That’s what Jesus is saying to his disciples at that last supper. That is what Jesus is saying to us today. Put love at the center of our lives. Love not just of the high and mighty, but love of the last and the least. Love as Jesus has loved us. And in acting out of that love, the world will know who we are and who we follow.
We are to be the next impulse of love beginning the ripple in the water around us. We are to be the thread trying to stitch together this broken world. We are to be the hands and the feet and the lips and the heart of God in our world. We are to be a reflection of the love that has touched us.
May it be so, always. Alleluia, Amen.