May 11, 2006
Will
Easter 5B Jn 14.15-21
It’s Mothers Day.
And what Jesus said to his disciples in today’s gospel selection reminds me of my mom, more or less. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14.15). My mom never quite said it like that. Rather did she say, “Whether you love me or not, you will keep my commandments.” Usually with a knowing, but no less firm smile on her face.
Somehow, it sounds like the kind of passive-aggressive codependency that shrinks frown on, but all the while simultaneously thrive on. As for my early family life, I have little trouble connecting up to my mom’s interpretation. On the other hand, I can’t very well at all associate it with Jesus. Nevertheless, there it is, and right smack dab in the middle of Mothers Day 2006.
But that’s not all that Jesus said. And I’m not all that convinced it’s quite the way he said it. He knew already, like many of us take a lifetime to learn, that love is a choice. Love is an act of the will. The vows, the covenants we make as Christians are not “I do” vows. They are “I will” vows. One of the ways, one of the very important ways we love one another is with our wills, our choices, our making and keeping commitments. The reason for this is that “willing” has staying power, continuity. “Doing” just shows up for the occasion and goes its way for another day.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” Jesus said to his disciples. You make that commitment now in the immediacy of our relationship, and you choose to keep it for the duration. That’s what loving is about. That’s what our relation is about.
These parting words are initiating words. Jesus establishes a relationship for his disciples with himself and for us with himself and through them that can be sustained only by the spirit to make us whole and to keep and direct our wills in him. In him we experience a spiritual awakening now — and again to come wholesomely for the church at Pentecost. You might say that once committing ourselves to Jesus in our baptism, we begin the recovery of our basic humanity in which God created us.
Keeping Jesus’ commandments to love God and neighbor and self sums up the law, completes it, as it were, and opens to us the collegiality of the Holy Spirit. We don’t recover alone. We recover in community, for that’s where Spirit resides, nourishes, and sustains us.
Jesus’ little homily in this morning’s gospel is his prelude to Pentecost. What you work out with your mom — and your shrink — is more or less up to you. I hope God smiles on it.