…Jesus said: Now has the Son of man been glorified, and in him God has been glorified. If God has been glorified in him, God will in turn glorify him in himself, and will glorify him very soon. Little children, I shall be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and, as I told the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples.

(John 13:31-35 NJB)

Meditation for The Fourth Sunday After Easter
 

ack in my pre-teen years in Chicago there were two major completing Top 40 radio stations. The number one station was the venerable WLS, which some years ago became another all-talk radio station, and then there was WCFL, the number two station, and the chosen favorite in my household. The reason for choosing the number two station was simple. My oldest brother, Russ, was the left-handed electric bass player in a garage band, known as “The Young Cannibals”. Somehow they came to the attention of a man named Ron Britain, a DJ at WCFL and he got them a gig to make up a long list of station promo ads that played for many more years than the band stayed together.

So, WCFL became our station and it was from Ron Britain, along with Chicago radio icons Dick Biondi, Jerry G. Bishop, and Barney Pip that I learned everything that I thought that I needed to know about the subject of love. They were the high priests of Aphrodite, Diana, and Eros all rolled into one. They played the records that I listened to and which, during the middle of the Viet Nam War, taught me that we should, “smile on your brother, everybody get together try to love one another right now”. It was the dawning of the age of “Aquarius” and via their tutoring I learned that “You can’t Hurry Love. No, you just have to wait.” They explained that my passions were OK and from them I discovered that “Mrs. Robinson” was my soul mate. They called to me and I responded that “I’m a Believer”. They were the Delphic Oracles whose ecstatic utterances revealed to me and my generation that “All You Need is Love.” How exquisitely simple and simplistic those days were!

But these same DJ’s also were heralds of the coming of a radical transformation. Somehow the sweet innocence of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was replaced by “Revolution”. The “Eve of Destruction” became the anthem of my generation. What happened? Numerous sociologists and psychologists have attempted to blame this phenomenon on various different people and events; the war itself, political assassinations, cynical politicians, mass media, widespread access to artificial birth control, widespread use of legal and / or illegal drugs. All of these probably deserve a bit of culpability for this sea change, but the real story is that as a generation, as a society, we began to grow up in the 1960’s. We discovered and admitted to ourselves and to our children that the world is not always a nice place and that horrific events don’t only take place in graveyards under the full moon, or in the mad scientist’s laboratory. They can take place in my city, on my block, right next door, even on live TV right in our own living rooms. We no longer had the luxury of being able to not see what was happening. Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley laid them out for us in living and dying color.

Unfortunately, our understanding of Jesus, the Gospel message and the idea of what it means to really love one another didn’t similarly grow up and mature. Despite the call of Vatican II and the examples of such heroic people as St Charles of Brazil, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Dorothy Day we insist on holding to an immature and saccharine concept of our calling as Christians. For some reason, we find it difficult, perhaps even painful, to rid ourselves of the mental picture of “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”. You know the one I mean. It is the blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus standing with a baby lamb slung over His shoulder, looking like Jeffrey Hunter right out of the movie poster for “The King of Kings”.

The problem with holding fast to this picture of Jesus is that it shares very little with the reality of the Jesus we find in the Gospels. The Jesus we find there doesn’t suggest that we paint syrupy sweet smiles on our faces and go about saying, “Have a nice day.” No, the Jesus of the Gospels gives us a command to love one another just as He has loved us. Interestingly, prophetically, He gives us this command on the very night in which He is betrayed, arrested, and enters into His Passion and Death. He commands us to willingly lay down our lives for one another. He commands us to abandon the ancient and original sin of self and begin to truly live as people of the covenant; embracing justice, mercy, truth, and love, while turning away from allowing deceit, slander, hatred and vengeance any part in our lives.

The Gentle Jesus is easy to take for granted and He’s easy to ignore. He’s comforting and comfortable, much like an old bathrobe, or a pair of slippers, or a favorite song played once more on an Oldies station. He doesn’t place any demands upon us, and He doesn’t expect anything more of us than that we will wrap ourselves in Him when it’s convenient. The Jesus of the Gospels though, the real Jesus, expects us to be His disciples and more than that, to even be known to the world as such; even if that means that we too must give our lives for the life and redemption of the world.

 

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

All Meditations ©2004-2007 Randolph A. Brown (IP not subject to Fair Use Clause). Permission will not be given for reprint†. Previous Meditations 2nd Sunday After Easter (April 22, 2007) Thomas / Low Sunday (April 15, 2007) Easter, The Feast of Feasts (April 8, 2007) Good Friday (April 6, 2007) Palm Sunday (April 1, 2007) 5th Sunday in Lent (March 25, 2007) 4th Sunday in Lent (March 18, 2007) 3rd Sunday in Lent (March 11, 2007) 2nd Sunday in Lent (March 4, 2007) 1st sunday in lent (February 25, 2007) Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (February 21, 2007) Last Sunday After the Epiphany / Quinquagesima (February 18, 2007) 6th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February 11, 2007) 5th Sunday After the Epiphany / Septugesima (February 4, 2007) 4th Sunday After the Epiphany (January 28, 2007)   †Regarding the copyright, Bp. Brown would like us to mention that it is not his intention to be stingy. It's only that he has future plans for the writings which do not facilitate their being shared at this time.   Personal Blog of Abp. Brown: