Giving Ourselves Away

 Giving Ourselves Away

John 13:31-35[1]

We have a strange relationship with the word “love.” We can love our families, our friends, our children and our grandchildren. But we can also “love” a movie, or a book, or a favorite outfit. We can love God, but we can also love pulled pork, or chocolate, or cherry pie, or sports. I find the many ways we use the word “love” almost comical, to be quite honest with you. At times, it seems like love means everything to us, and at times it seems like love means nothing to us.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus told the Apostles that the defining mark of their life as his disciples was to be their love for one another. Because of our widely varied use of the word, I’m not sure we have a clear idea of what that love really entails. Our definitions of love often fall far short of the kind of love Jesus had in mind. He told them, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34). When he said that, I believe he had in mind a very specific kind of love. In fact, he demonstrated that love for them earlier when he washed their feet. It was a kind of love that was so different from what they expected that Peter insisted, “You will never wash my feet” (Jn 13:8).

I think we can all appreciate the difficulty Peter must have had with the idea of Jesus washing his feet. In the first place, it’s a very personal thing to have someone wash your feet! But more to the point, in that time and place, washing feet was a task that you normally did for yourself, or one that a slave did for you. It certainly was not something you would expect from your teacher, your mentor, and the one you believed to be the Messiah! That kind of thing went way beyond the bounds of what Jesus’ disciples would have considered an appropriate expression of love.  

Even at this, we might still be able to get over the menial nature of washing someone’s feet—or the modern-day equivalent. But so that we can see the true quality of love that Jesus expected us to show one another, we have to remember the situation. He had just washed the feet of 12 men, one of whom was about to betray him. Another of them, Peter, would publicly deny even knowing Jesus. And the rest of them would abandon him and run for their lives when the crucial moment came. 

Jesus knew all of this ahead of time, and yet there Jesus was, washing their feet, doing for them all what none of them would even consider doing for each other. In fact, when Peter objected, Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me” (Jn 13:8). Peter misunderstood this as well. I think what Jesus was trying to impress on him and on the rest of the disciples is that this quality of humble, self-sacrificing love is what defines God’s very character. It is the quality of love that God shared with Jesus. It is the quality of love that Jesus had shared with his disciples. And it is the quality of love that Jesus commands us all to share with one another.

This self-sacrificing love is what Jesus said would be the defining mark of those who claim to follow him. It’s not just a warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we sing familiar songs together, like “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” It’s the willingness to humble ourselves to do for one another what we would not normally do. It’s the decision to give ourselves away for the sake of one another. It’s the commitment that our lives are to be lived not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of others. 

I can tell you by experience that this kind of love is incredibly difficult to put into practice. It’s a matter of serving others, whether we feel like it or not. It’s a matter of giving ourselves away —and perhaps what we hold dear in this life—for the sake of others. It’s the ultimate “tough love.” The love that Jesus modeled for us is a love that is willing to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of others. It’s a love that leads us to make sacrifices for others, even when it is unconventional, or inconvenient, or even uncomfortable.

This is a day when we’re supposed to be telling graduates to go out and “reach for the stars.” And we all want them to do that. But I believe one of the most important ways we can make a difference in our world is by practicing this kind of love. Our world is divided by race, divided by class, divided by politics, divided by whole outlooks on life. All these divisions contradict what Jesus said should define our lives, that we love one another (Jn 13:35). Because we come from different perspectives and backgrounds, the kind of love Jesus commanded us to show one another is always going to be difficult. It takes all that we have to give. But in a world that feels increasingly lacking in love, it seems to me that giving ourselves away for one another is one of the most important ways we can make a difference in this world.

[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm Ph.D. on 5/15/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.