The Imperative of Love (Sunday, Easter 6, Year B, 2021)

Before the fall, the created order was a paradise. But after the fall, creation was torn apart. Anarchy was let loose. The focus no longer seemed to be on what unites but on what divides. Hatred took flesh and manifested itself in racism, tribalism, sectionalism, rivalries, and so on. Divisive tendencies filtered into human relationships. People began to relate more on the basis of commonalities. The “other” more or less became a stranger, no longer a brother or sister. 

Christianity calls us to live above these tendencies that seemed to have become normal and natural. Christianity preaches the message of a God who was made flesh (incarnation). Christ left his glory, condescended to be born a human person and live with us. He chose to relate and mingle with humans though He was God. Incarnation teaches us to outgrow our differences and empty ourselves for the sake of the other. If an incarnation-consciousness is not activated, we will never outgrow parochialism and discriminatory tendencies. Racism, tribalism and sectionalism are still rife because our differences have blinded us from seeing that we have a common origin.

The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells a story of a Jew who went beyond racial and religious differences in his relationship with others. Peter was a Jew; Cornelius was a Gentile. The Jews and the Gentiles had nothing in common inasmuch as religion is concerned. A Jewish historian, Eusebius narrates that every Jew, upon rising in the morning, kneels down beside his bed and thanks God for not making him a Gentile, a woman and a slave. Against this background, do we expect Peter a Jew to come in contact with Cornelius a Gentile? Peter crossed such boundaries after he learnt from a vision that nothing God created should be despised by anyone. It became a special moment of conversion for him. St Paul made it clear that: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (cf. Gal. 3:28).  

             

John beckons us to “love one another; for love is of God; and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love”.

At creation, God breathed His Spirit into us; and we automatically became living beings, sharing His nature. If God is LOVE (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8), then everyone of us should have a propensity to love and be loved. But our greatest obstacle seems to be our fallen nature. We talk about love, but find it very difficult to practise; much more difficult to understand what it really means. Our fallen state seems to have beclouded our intelligence, suppressed our reasoning and crippled our natural capacity to love as God intended. Love is our mandate; it is our essence; it is an imperative. We will continue to be square pegs in round holes if we don't TRULY love. 

Amongst other things, real love must have the following qualities: it must cost something; it must hurt; it must be selfless. If whatever we think is love lacks any of the above qualities, then it is not love. Jesus says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.