How is "Love one another" a New Commandment?

In John 13:34-35 Jesus says “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Upon reflection I have to ask, “How is this a NEW commandment? Didn’t Jesus talk about and share love all the time? Then what makes this so NEW?”

Yes, Jesus taught about and lived out love in so many different ways so the way this commandment is NEW is the direction of the love.

Notice that Jesus says we are to love one another and that through loving one another we are disciples of Jesus. The direction of the love is toward the other person. More specifically, the direction of the love is NOT toward Jesus.

Perhaps what makes this a NEW commandment is that Jesus is removing himself from the equation of the direction of love and commanding disciples to love the other person. What is new is that Jesus is removing the requirement of direct affection and love of him (the leader) as proof that the disciple follows the leader.

It is much more common for the leader to say, “direct your love toward me and in this way people will know you are my disciples.” Rather Jesus says the opposite.

The more I come to discover about Jesus the more I am amazed at the constant kenosis (self-emptying) of God in Christ. Jesus came down, was obedient to even the point of death, and then when giving his farewell address to his disciples he says - put one another as the direction of your love.

What does it mean for us in the Church to say, “we love you Jesus” and for Jesus to say, “please direct your love to one another”?

Has the Golden Rule Lead to more Violence?

The following was originally posted by mistake on June 17th, 2016. It was scheduled for the incorrect date and this is why it is now being re-posted to the correct post date. Thank you for reading.

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"Love your neighbor as yourself" - AKA the Golden Rule. This commandment is expressed a number of different ways, and in my tradition we first see this commandment in Leviticus 19:18. 

This expression of the Golden Rule makes me wonder if our acceptance of violence on others is a result of the violence we accept on our own selves. 

Many of my people believe that humans are sin sick souls that can do no good and are all hell bound. As a result we do all sorts of spiritual violence to ourselves in order to try to purify our souls. 

Culture shames people for their body and we do all sorts of physical violence to our bodies in order to meet these unreal standards.

Pressures from all places show us how we are all not as smart or as wise as we need to be. We do all sorts of mental violence to our minds in order to try to put on the front that we are not idiots and are worthy.

When there is tragedy we are given a time period to grieve and then move on, but if we are not able to move on in that window then we begin to think there is something wrong with us. We commit all sorts of emotional violence to ourselves in order to try to "move on" and "be better" since it seems "everyone else has."

We beat ourselves up because we are often our own harshest critic. However, doing so much violence to our own selves results in accepting it and then assuming that a certain level of violence on others is also acceptable since we tolerate a certain level of self inflicted violence. 

The point being that as long as we are continuing to tolerate self violence then we will continue to tolerate violence on others. 

Among the last things that Jesus said to his disciples in the gospel of John (13:34) we read: "I (Jesus) give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." 

Jesus loves without violence of any kind and this slight modification of the Golden Rule for me is more significant than just semantics. This modification of the Golden Rule moves the center of the love from the individual to Jesus the Christ. Rather than Love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus frames this rule as Love one another as I have loved you.

I wonder what it would look like if we stopped loving others as we love ourselves and love one another as Jesus the Christ loves.