There was a website called “twenty-twowords.”  The original idea was an on-going challenge of expressing yourself on some topic in 22 words or less. There were different categories, like “my life so far” or “which Star Wars character are you and why.” You have to answer each one with only 22 words. One of my favorites, in the category of “describe your greatest experience,” was, “I am in a hospital. A nurse hands me a screaming baby and I sat there, looking down, and said, ‘Hello son.”

Today’s gospel carries a message of the greatest challenge. Jesus’ response runs 33 words in English, but the effect is the same. For in these 33 words he leaves his disciples and us with as clear a summary of the Christian life as one could possibly want.: “love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In his book Surprised By Joy, CS Lewis describes being at a very proper English tea, standing there with an overly filled cup, when, quite by accident, someone bumped into him, causing the jostled cup to spill some of its content out.  Later, when reflecting on that most ordinary of things, he noted that life is that a lot like that.  If we want to know that with which we have filled our life, we only need to be jostled by life to see what spills out. Would that I could tell you that every bump in the road reveals an outpouring of love from the teacup of my life.

As a church we have lots of good advice we routinely pass on: resist temptation, read your Bible, pray daily, come to Church on Sunday, examine your conscience, and more. As I said, all good advice and I hope you do those things. But in his farewell address to his disciples, Jesus had 33 words all focused on love.

This is the Christian life, distilled down and held up as Jesus’ last words to the gathered disciples: “love one another.” This new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, and yet it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly we comprehend it and put it into practice. 

It is the eve of the crucifixion, and Jesus knows he will be leaving his disciples shortly. In that context, he offers them departing instructions and words of farewell – four chapters and more, in fact, of departing instructions and words of farewell! Yet all of them can be boiled down to these first thirty-three words he himself has just embodied and modeled by washing their feet, by serving them, by calling them friends.

When you think about it, these few words articulate the simplest and most difficult command Jesus could have given. Simple because on any given day, at almost any given moment, we usually know, deep down, what the most loving thing to do for those around us is. Yet doing it is another matter. 

A spiritual writer, Debbie Thomas offers her perspective: “When I look at my own life, it’s not too hard to name why I perpetually fail to obey Jesus’s dying wish.  Love is vulnerable-making, and I’d rather not be vulnerable.  Love requires trust, and I’m naturally suspicious. Love spills over margins and boundaries, and I feel safer and holier policing my borders.  Love takes time, effort, discipline, and transformation, and I am just so darned busy.” 

So many things get in the way – we are too busy, or tired, or focused on a goal, or impatient, or angry, or…. Yet Jesus is adamant. To be a disciple is to love one another. Not only that, but others will recognize the disciples – then and now – by whether we love one another.

So what do we do?

The French theologian Maurice Blondel offered some sage advice when he counseled believers to just do it, because the love operative in our hands reaching out in the love of Christ to others, has a way, in time, to work its way back from our hands, up our arms, into our hearts, and let us experience “As I have loved you.” Then we truly move towards the place where we love one another.  And then all will know that you are His disciples.

Jesus lived 33 years and left us 33 words for life and eternal life. Words to live by.

Amen

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Christ’s Final Address to the Apostles | Bona Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1380 | from the Maesta Altar | Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo