The Lord be with you.
Your reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.
Glory to you,
O Lord.
When Judas had left them,
Jesus said,
Now is the Son of Man glorified,
And God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
And God will glorify him at once.
My children,
I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment,
Love one another,
As I have loved you,
So you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
If you have love for one another.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you,
Lord Jesus Christ.
I really wonder how much more simple Jesus needed to put this,
And how we have over the years so misinterpreted such a simple commandment,
Love one another,
As I have loved you,
So you should love one another.
This is one of the very few commands that Jesus gave,
Direct commands,
Love one another.
And yet,
I mean,
We don't have to look very far to see how we don't.
We don't even need to look further than our own hearts,
If we have to be very,
Very honest with ourselves.
We judge one another,
We judge ourselves,
And yet here it is so,
So,
So clear and so direct,
Love one another as I have loved you.
I don't understand.
I struggle really to understand how we don't do this.
But then on the other hand,
I also struggle very much to understand how to do it.
How do we really completely love each other?
And it's easy to sit here and to say,
Yes,
You should do that,
And to preach beautiful sermons on Love one another and Be there for one another.
But what does that mean?
And how do we do that?
Because a lot of times we sit with the challenge that I don't think we know how to really love.
I don't think we really have the knowledge on how to love unconditionally.
We have glimpses.
But to really do it like Christ did,
Think if that were to happen,
If any of us could do that,
We would automatically qualify for sainthood.
Because for us,
Love is usually connected to some form of need.
There has to be an exchange,
And this is the one teaching of Christ that goes completely against what a lot of the metaphysical teachings say of there has to be an exchange.
We expect that as we give,
We need to receive.
And this is not what Christ teaches us.
Now on a cosmic scale,
I do believe that,
Yes,
As we give without expecting anything in return,
We do get.
We prove ourselves to God,
But that's also not why we do it.
But the more we open ourselves and the more we enter into this energy of giving love,
Unconditional,
The more we connect with our divinity.
And so instead of the exchange that we oftentimes expect,
I think it happens on a much,
Much grander scale.
And that then brings us to what I think a lot of us also struggle with.
And that is,
Some of us love to be a martyr.
We love to say,
You know,
See how much I do for this one,
That they don't give it back.
See how much I give to my church.
See how much,
How active I am in whatever group.
And then we go further,
Woe is me because I don't have anything for myself left.
I do that.
I do that a lot.
So that's why I can hop on this and I can,
I see it in myself often.
And I uphold that in myself.
That's the way I try and be away.
And I ask myself in giving this,
In doing this,
What am I expecting back?
And if I then catch myself in expecting something back,
Sometimes it might just be recognition.
I don't stop giving.
That's one of the big lessons for me.
I don't know if somebody asks for food and I can give and I give and I notice,
Oh gosh,
But this is my ego giving.
It's not right for the other person then not to carry that through,
But just being away I think is really important of what is my driver for giving,
For loving.
We are all selfish beings.
We are all beings with ego in the sense of we need to survive.
That is what our ego does.
It helps us to survive.
And so it just doesn't always know its place.
And that is where the awareness of this ego of what is my driver is really important to me because God just said,
Love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples.
If you have love for one another.
And it sounds airy-fairy because we then say this is how we gather gifts in heaven and our rewards come in heaven,
Doesn't feed us,
Doesn't pay the bills.
So we need to be very pragmatic about this as well.
We need to be very,
Very aware of the fact that I can overdo things.
In my yearning to be a good person,
In my yearning to be a saint,
I can easily give too much.
I can easily empty my cupboards and not have food for the rest of the month.
And how does that work if I can't feed my family?
And that is where the balance comes in.
And that is where we need to be really,
Really aware of how much do I give?
How much can I give?
What is my driver?
Can I give from my own abundance?
Sometimes I give from my lack,
Which is also okay.
I know I'm talking contradictory now,
But if I have a little and I can give a little,
I would.
That's the driver.
Well,
That's the thought process as much as possible.
But it's not always about giving.
Jesus says,
Love one another and love does not have to equate money.
Love should not equate money.
But if I can just smile at somebody,
If I can just help somebody carry a heavy load across the street,
If my back isn't broken,
Then I think we start showing the love for each other.
And maybe as we go then into this week,
I would like for us to try and find one nice thing I can do for somebody else,
Small or big,
Whatever.
One nice thing.
Just because.
Thank you,
God.
Amen.
