Progressive reflections on the lectionary #64

Monday 12th May 2025

John 13: 31-35 Love one another

Whether or not the gospel of John and the epistles of John were written by the same person, or people, is something that has been argued about for some time. My preferred idea is that these come from a ‘John community’ where certain teachings form the core values that feature prominently throughout.

Light is one of those ideas, as is truth, but at the heart of this week’s gospel lectionary passage is the all-important concept of love.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13: 34-35)

These words are unequivocal - we are left in no doubt about what we should do if we are to ‘fulfil the call of the divine’, or more simply ‘to follow Jesus.’

That there are many different kinds of Christianity is no great surprise, the use of the term as an umbrella under which prosperity preachers, ascetic monks, nationalistic zealots and communitarians can all sit alongside humanist philosophers and starry eyed mystics is evident.

Each of these, and any of the other hundreds (thousands?) of other types of Christian identity may try to claim for themselves the label of ‘true’ Christianity. In this passage we have a simple, if not simplistic, key to identify which of them have any credibility.

In the last two verses of this passage the phrase ‘love one another’ occurs, essentially, three times. The verb repeatedly used is ‘agape’ - the totalising sense of love which goes beyond ‘filial’ (brotherly) love. It is selfless, unconditional, the purest form of gift given without any expectation of reciprocity. This is the ‘divine love’ which we have been gifted, and this is the love which, if we can say that we ‘love God’ or ‘follow Jesus’ we must show towards others. In fact it’s not even best expressed as duty - it is more about logical inconsistency: these two things aren’t possible to separate.

There is no separation, there can be no separation, between love for God and love for others. If we seek to claim to follow Jesus, then we can only love others. To do or be any other way is claim the impossible. Love-for-neighbour love is not separate from love-for-God, rather these two are the same: ‘love of neighbours as the love of God.’

This has practical meaning. It is tied into Jesus’ mission to establish a different social and economic order, a revolutionary way of life in the heart of the empire, where social hierarchies and economic norms are upended. We cannot claim to love each other while we leave each other to starve. Love for each other involves finding ways to subvert the destructive impulses and impacts of, in our case, late stage capitalism. How do we protect the vulnerable in this society? How do we prioritise justice, mercy, and humility? The answers now are surprisingly similar to the answers then.

The same theme continues in the John letters: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:8). According to the John tradition: Anyone who loves their neighbours also loves God, because God is love. If love exists and it is true, then it comes from God and is of God.

“Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars… The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (1 John 4: 20-21)

When Jesus says, in our gospel passage, that he gives a ‘new commandment’ it is both simple and complex, because the real novelty proposed here is not just to love each other - that idea/imperative is a very old one. What is new here is this unique idea that love of God and love of neighbour are the same thing. That is the heart, and the core, of the Christian tradition.

This blog is taken from Simon's Substack email series, to subscribe please go to https://simonjcross.substack.c...

Image: Photo by Anderson Rian on Unsplash