Weekly Seeds: “Looking for Love”

Sunday, May 18, 2025
Fifth Sunday in Easter | Year C

Focus Theme:
“Looking for Love”

Focus Prayer:
Glorious God, help us to love one another. Amen.

Focus Scripture:
John 13:31-35
³¹ When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³² If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³ Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

All readings for this Sunday:
Acts 11:1-18 • Psalm 148 • Revelation 21:1-6 • John 13:31-35

Focus Questions:
What does it mean to love?
In what tangible ways do we demonstrate our love?
What are impediments to love?
How do we overcome the challenges to loving one another?
How does love, as public witness, contribute to the kindom of God?

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

Who does not want to find love? Love, in all its forms, fulfills human needs and desires. Love brings community and kinship, friendship and romance, compassion and servitude. Love acts and emotes through our interactions and dispositions. Love makes commitments and fulfills them. Through love, circumstances, communities, and the world change. The power and reach of love are barely measurable. Love is everything. God is love.

So, why is loving so challenging? Whether in word, thought, emotion, or deed, there are some people, places, things, or ideas that we may find impossible to embrace with the gift of love. Jesus makes it look easy. The gospel narrative is located during the last Supper after Jesus has washed the feet of the disciples. We know the 12 were present, and some scholars suggest that additional children, women, and men may have also been in attendance. The house was full, and one often unconsidered detail is that this was not Jesus’ house. As an itinerant minister, Jesus traveled from place to place without a permanent location, relying on the hospitality of others.

A common form of hospitality was footwashing. With all the walking on dusty roads, guests, when entering a home would be offered an opportunity to wash their feet. The host offering to wash the feet of their guests was a loving, gracious, and generous act of hospitality that made guests comfortable and welcomed. It was a gift given by Jesus to the disciples, including the betrayer who Jesus reveals to the disciples following this act of love. Judas departs before the discourse shared in this periscope.

Whereas in the Synoptics (Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:13–20) Jesus’ final meal with the disciples is a Passover seder—the ritual Passover meal that, in the period when the temple was standing, was convened for the eating of the Passover sacrifice—and is marked by the institution of the Eucharist, the Last Supper in John is not a Passover seder but takes place the day before the Passover begins, and it features not the Eucharist but a ritual foot washing…..The Gospel returns to the outline of the story shared by all four Gospels, in which Jesus prophesies that Peter will deny him three times (13:38). Before that point, however, he introduces the commandment to “love one another” (13:34). The love commandment sounds expansive, uplifting, and generous, and in this regard it echoes a saying that the rabbinic tractate The Sayings of the Fathers attributes to the Pharisaic teacher Hillel: “Be of the followers of Aaron, loving peace, pursuing peace, loving your fellow human beings and bringing them to Torah” (Abot 1.12). Nevertheless, the fact that the commandment is given only to the disciples implies that the love is meant only for those who are within the community (Meier, 559).
Adele Reinhartz

Whether Jesus waited to share the new commandment until after Judas left or Judas’ leaving prompted his words is unclear. What we know is that Judas missed the message and the entire point of discipleship. It’s not for personal gain but for mutual benefit. Following Jesus means belonging to the kindom of God and declaring allegiance to the reign of God and solidarity with siblings in Christ.

Note that the message was not exclusive; rather, the commandment is purposeful. This does not preclude love of neighbor or enemies outside of the community. Jesus emphasizes love of other disciples as a demonstration of the transformative community he initiated to build a new world.

As soon as Judas is gone, Jesus goes on to speak to the disciples openly of three things: his glorification (vv. 31–32), his imminent departure from the world (v. 33; compare vv. 1, 3), and mutual love (vv. 34–35; see vv. 1, 14). Nothing more is heard of the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” but these three programmatic themes will reappear in the next four chapters: first, and at considerable length, his departure (13:36–14:31); then all three in reverse order—mutual love (15:1–17) with its corollary of being hated by the world (15:18–16:4a), the departure again (16:4b–33), and, finally, Jesus’ glorification (17:1–26).
J. Ramsey Michaels

Jesus, during his last interaction with the disciples prior to the beginning of his passion, uses the opportunity to frame his death in terms of love and glory. This chapter marks the beginning of the book of glory in the Johannine account. Can death be glorious? More pointedly, can state-sanctioned murder reflect the Holy One’s glory? How can that be possible?

At the Tent festival, the authorities were “seeking” Jesus in order to arrest and kill him (see 5:18; 7:1, 19, 25, 30), but their threat against his life will be thwarted, for no one takes his life from him; as he says, “I lay it down on my own” (10:18). As far as they are concerned, Jesus’ departure will vindicate him against them, for he will go “to the One who sent him,” while they will “die in their sins” (see 8:21, 24). Here, by contrast, his disciples “will seek” him simply to be with him again, overcoming the pain of his absence. His imminent departure will not brand them as enemies, but only make them “orphans,” and that temporarily (see 14:18). All this will come out in a series of questions and answers (13:36–14:31), but for the moment the prospect is grim. What kind of “glory” is it that produces only sorrow?
J. Ramsey Michaels

While the powerful agents and co-conspirators of empire sought his death, Jesus came to bring new life, to liberate, to save, and to deliver. That’s love, and that’s the source of his glory. Love brought the Child of God to solidarity and allyship with humanity and all creation. That love shines in the midst of violence, lies, persecution, and despair, and no evil empire, corrupted officials, or betraying friends can overcome it. The glory comes through the commitment to love rather than death itself. The glorious victory emerges as Jesus reveals that even death cannot contain love. Love does not die, it rises and lives again.

Jesus invites his disciples to follow in the way of that love. As the movement will continue following the absence of his physical presence, they will be responsible for leading, inviting, and loving as he did. That relationship has to be nurtured. In the same way that he sent them out to heal and deliver, Jesus will also send them out into the world to love. It begins in their community.

Here, however, it should not be assumed that their status as Jesus’ “disciples” was an assured fixed relationship that they could afford to take for granted, and that only needed to be “made known” to the rest of the world. He has said elsewhere to another group, “If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples” (8:31), and he will say again to this group, “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (15:8). Therefore, the likely meaning here is something like, “By this you will become my disciples—or prove to be my disciples—and everyone will know it.” With this, Jesus drives home the “new command” of love in the same way he drove home the command to wash each other’s feet, with a concluding conditional clause, “if you have love for each other” (compare v. 17 “Now that you understand these things, blessed are you if you do them”). The rest is up to those who call themselves “disciples.” Interestingly, Jesus’ disciples on the scene never respond directly either to the footwashing or the love command. John’s Gospel leaves that to the reader.
J. Ramsey Michaels

What then, reader, is our response? What proof do we offer the world of our discipleship? How do we wash the feet of our companions? How do we extend hospitality? How might we organize our local church for reaching out and creating a more inclusive and engaging community within? How do we show up when the world is looking for love?

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.

“the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Building Up a New World Liturgical Resources
Book Chapter: “Come As You Are: Possibilities for Dreaming Disability Justice in Congregational Contexts”
Scripture: John 13:31-35

Book Quote:
“There will be no tidy checklists of ‘things your congregation can do for disabled folx.’ Our shifting bodies necessitate shifting strategies. Disability justice organizing happens in non-linear time. We wait for each other. We make sure each other’s bodyminds are provided for. We act like we want each other in the room…On the program…In the pulpit…Beyond the pulpit…What we have is this moment. What we have is each other. What we must do is dismantle ableism in our persona lives and public initiatives. And in order to do that, we must be clear on the insidious nature of ableism, learn the context of disability movement-making, and come to embrace the power of community/collective care” (82).
Theme Notes:
As progressive Christians, we lean heavily on what some would call a “love ethic” as the root of all of our work for justice. We are quick to claim our efforts to follow Jesus’ commandment to love one another as the root of why we do what we do in the struggle for justice. But rarely do we speak or think about the real, complex, multifaceted ways that love manifests itself in practice. We don’t often challenge ourselves to wonder about and be accountable to what love means concretely in practice. This week we suggest that one way that loving one another “just as I have loved you” manifests in congregational organizing is in our mutual practices of and commitments to disability justice.
Building Up a New World Liturgical Resources written by Dr. Sharon R. Fennema, who serves as Join the Movement toward Racial Justice Curator with UCC National Ministries.

For Further Reflection
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” ― Anais Nin
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” ― Elie Wiesel
“Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

A preaching commentary on this text (with works cited) is at //ucc.org/SermonSeeds.

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments below this post on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.