Thursday 27 December 2007

Background

This passage follows on from where Jesus washes the feet of hisdisciples. In doing so, Jesus is offering his followers a new modelof leadership that they are asked to emulate.

In today's passage Jesus informs his disciples that one of themwill betray him. The shock of this moment is then replaced byJesus' command that the disciples love one another - this is theradical nature of the new commandment - that they love one another,even the one who has betrayed them.

This new commandment from Jesus sits at the heart of the Christianmessage and has implications for inside and outside the communityof faith.

Inside the faith, the followers of Christ are asked to love anotherfor "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples" (v.35).The way in which the followers love one another will be a sign oftheir commitment to (belonging to) and their actual living thecommon life in Christ Jesus.

Sadly, as we reflect on the final echoes of this year; one in whichwe have remembered the bicentenary of the abolition of the slavetrade, many ancestors of enslaved Africans will reflect ruefully onthis text.

Even when enslaved Africans became Christians, there was littleevidence of this love ethic as displayed by their often ChristianWhite slave masters. Again there was little evidence of the loveethic shown when many of their descendents travelled to the UK inthe migration of the 1950s and 1960s. "Love one another?"

It is no wonder, then, that many enslaved Africans and, later,their descendents in Britain questioned the alleged nature ofso-called British Christianity. Looking from the outside in, manymay have wondered whether several 'good White English Christians'had ever read this passage at all.

To Ponder

In what ways have you failed to love yourneighbour as yourself in the last year?

How can the Church inspire people in Britain to'love another' as Jesus commanded?