Never give up loving
Sixth Sunday of Easter
There was a Hindu who saw a scorpion struggling around in the water. He decided to save it by stretching out his finger, but the scorpion stung him. The man still tried to get the scorpion out of the water, but the scorpion stung him again.
A man nearby told him to stop saving the scorpion that kept stinging him.
But the Hindu said: "It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting?
Don't give up loving.
Don't give up your goodness.
Even if people around you sting.
Today we hear Jesus that never gives up loving you says, "If you love me you will keep my commandments." The important word here is "my". Jesus is not speaking of "the", the traditional, Ten Commandments. These belong to the Hebrew Testament. They are still valid, of course, but Jesus goes beyond them. He made this clear in the Sermon on the Mount. He says categorically that he has not come to do away with the Jewish law or the teaching of the prophets but rather to fulfill their inner potential.
Jesus' "commandments" are on a different level. It is HIS commandments we are to keep. What are these commandments of his? Really, there is only one and that is the commandment to love: to love God with all our heart and soul, and to love others as we love ourselves, to love others as Jesus loves us, as he loves the sinner, as he love his enemies.
They include commands to recognize Jesus in the most needy, in the poor, in the sick, in the marginalised, even in the criminal ("I was in prison..."). They include commandments to be agents of healing and reconciliation in a broken and divided world.
There is nothing explicitly about any of this in the Ten Commandments. A good Christian is not just a law-abiding person taking care of oneself. He/she is a loving, caring person reaching out to others in love and service.
Now, Jesus speaks of love as his commandments. Can love really be commanded? In answering this question, we have to believe that “God has loved us first and he continues to do so; we, too, then, can respond with love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has ‘loved us first,’ love can also grow as a response within us.”
In order to be able to love, one must also receive love. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as our Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34). We need to abide in the love of Christ. May we, with the gift of Holy Spirit Jesus promises, will be able to love unceasingly.
Never give up in loving!
Don't give up your goodness.
Even if people around you sting.
