The Table

Tuesday of Holy Week

Jesus knows Judas is going to betray him, and the next thing he says to his disciples is to give them “a new commandment: to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.”

Interesting timing of giving this commandment. Judas has just left to betray Jesus and Jesus tells his disciples to love one another. He does not say, “love some people”, he does not say, “truly I tell you divide people into who’s “in” or who’s “out””….. he does not say, “make sure Judas gets what’s coming to him”…. He says, “Love one another”, and Jesus had just fed the person he knew would betray him, interesting and compassionate move, Jesus! It is almost as if Jesus knew that people’s ego’s long to have a common enemy, a place to put all of our fear and pain, instead of learning to heal and transform within our own hearts. “Love one another”.

The context of this love at this moment is not on the cross, but has been modeled by Jesus with inclusion, Grace, tenderness, mercy and seeking out the outcast and lonely, which is what Judas is about to become.

My heart aches for everyone in this story: for Jesus, who is to know such incredible pain and sorrow, for his friends who can do nothing but watch and weep in confusion, for Peter who will deny his friend, so filled with understandable fear, for Judas so lost and confused …. My heart aches for everyone involved.

My heart aches for our current world too: for the Ukrainian refugees who have lost so much this spring and for those who have graciously opened their homes for these people but simply cannot make it better, for those fighting against the injustices in Ukraine and for those who are kept in ignorance of the injustices in Ukraine, for those who have lost loved ones to COVID and for those who still believe COVID is a hoax, for those who are struggling to find a new balance between work and family and community after realizing during the pandemic that these are not separate “selves” and for those who demand that workers get back to a normal that no longer exists, for those who are experiencing violence and hatred simply because of the color of their skin or the origins of their families and for those who have been taught to hate, for those who have been betrayed or deeply wounded by their faith communities and for those who cannot see how their blind dogma harms rather than heals.

In my heartache and powerlessness in life, what can I do? What can we do to change all this hurt and hatred and confusion and fear?

We can love. Love one another as Jesus commanded. We can love without having answers. We can love without knowing how to fix things. We can love -one embrace, one caring act, one kind word at a time- and the world is slowly changed. While the love I share may change those with whom I share it, the real change comes in how my heart and my view of the world shifts each time I choose love.