6th Sunday of Easter: the command to love

I love Pepsi.  I love chocolate.  I love hiking. I love the SF Giants. I love long walks on the beach at sunset. I love my dog.  I love my mom and dad.
In English we use the word “love” a lot, for a lot of things.  We love to use the word “love”. And the things we equate with love, like dogs and parents...what does that say about us?
I challenge us to pay attention to our words today and ask ourselves how many times we used the word “love” and to what.
Because I think we lose the importance of that word “love”.
Clearly Jesus uses the word, but note the differences, especially in the Gospel for today.

Love, as Jesus experiences and “commands” us to have, is not a feeling.  It is not a preference, or favorite flavor of something or of someone.
The love that Jesus lives, dies for and is raised from the dead in, is that choice, that conscious choice, to see the good in another human person.

Love means to look at another human person, no matter who, and choose to believe and accept that this person is good and is capable of goodness.

Love means to look at your wife or husband, and despite the quirks of personality, despite that he left the toilet seat up once again and she asked you once again, “Does this make me look bigger?” you see goodness,
Love means that child who just made a mess, who screwed up, who is addicted, is still is a good person.
Love means that unborn child will become a good person
Love means that the sick and elderly still have goodness within them.
Love means the poor person on the street, the addicts, the workers...goodness.
Love means the immigrant, the refugee, the so called “enemies” are good.
Love means goodness exists within all human persons, not matter where they are from, what other religion they believe or not believe, not matter what.
The eucharist is love, made real through the work of human hands, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Imagine now, the world, the country, the state, the city, the home we can have, if we loved as Jesus has loved us.

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