If our starting point for love as Christians is “love your enemies”, and if our ending point is “love one another as I have loved you”, and if this is supposed to be what characterizes us as Jesus followers, this love should be the defining feature of our church.

Note: The inside joke at the beginning of this homily is comes from something I have long said to my parishioners. Based what St. Jerome said about St. John the Theologian, I have always said that I want my last sermon on St. John’s to be simply, “Little children, love one another.” So, immediately after saying this at the beginning of my homily today, I turned around and made as though to go back into the altar… then, obviously, continued for a little while longer.

Here is the story about St. John, from St. Jerome’s Commentary on Galatians 6:10 :

The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, “Little children, love one another.” The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, “Teacher, why do you always say this?” He replied with a line worthy of John: “Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.”

If we do love one another as Christ showed us how to love, in this self-sacrificial way which does not compromise the truth, which looks for the best in the other, which believes the best in the other—because as Paul says, love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—and if that characterizes us, then, and only then, are we truly the children of God.

Scripture references cited:

* Luke 6:27-38

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