Robert Barron - The Love That Jesus Commands
Peace be with you. Friends, on this fifth Sunday of Easter, we have an extraordinary Gospel. Again, like last week, it’s very short and punchy, but it is at the heart of the Christian message. It marks the beginning of Jesus' Last Supper discourse, which is the longest discourse by Jesus in the New Testament. It’s this lengthy, spiritually rich monologue he gives the night before he dies. This truly is the beginning of it. Here’s a little of what he says: «My children, I’ll be with you only a little while longer.» And that is true. It’s the night before he dies, so it’s like a last will and testament, if you will. It’s Jesus speaking to us at the end of his life: «As I have loved you, so you should also love one another.»
This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Okay. I know you might think, «Yeah, I’ve heard that a hundred times before; it seems almost banal.» No, to understand Jesus here, we have to grasp what a strange thing love is. In the way the word is used here, I think of Dostoevsky’s great line that authentic love is a harsh and dreadful thing. If you take this in some sentimentalized way or simply as a psychological banality, you have not read it correctly nor understood it. Not far from my house, there’s a Unitarian church, and I pass by it often because I walk or drive nearby. Outside, there’s a big sign that says, «Love your neighbor.» Next to «neighbor» is a little asterisk that draws your attention down, stating, «your Black neighbor, your brown neighbor, your gay neighbor, your transgender neighbor, your bisexual neighbor,» and it continues in this list.
I see that sign all the time and think, «Okay, I get it, but what precisely do you mean by love? Love your neighbor, right?» They mention all those people, but tell me exactly what you mean by love because I suspect it might differ from what Jesus is talking about here. This is a well-worn path, but the English language is very rich—truly incomparable—and the vocabulary of English is extraordinary. Nevertheless, there is a genuine poverty in English regarding this little word «love,» as we use it to cover such a variety of things, leading to considerable ambiguity when English speakers discuss love. For instance, we use the same word to say, «I love popcorn. I love my grandmother. I love God. I love going to the Cubs game.» All of these statements concern entirely different things, and the texture of the experience in each is so different yet we use the same word, love. So, Jesus says, «Love one another.»
All right. Well, what do you mean by that? Well, see, the Greek of the New Testament is actually far richer here because the Greek of the New Testament includes a variety of words, all of which are translated as love in English, but mean very different things. I want to review this with you because I think it’s very clarifying when it comes to this central command of Jesus. Here are the three words I’m discussing in Greek: Eros, philia, and agape. Eros, philia, and agape. All of these are translated as love, but they have very different meanings. Okay. What does Eros mean? Well, since our word erotic is derived from that, I would say something like this: it means a passionate, intense desire for something or someone. And so you see the obvious sexual overtone of erotic desire. It’s a desire to have or to possess. It’s intense. It drives you toward the possession of a thing or a person.
Now, mind you, I’m not badmouthing the erotic. I mean, let’s face it, none of us would be here unless there were something like erotic desire. None of us would be alive unless we had something like this for food and drink. It’s an intense, passionate drive. Um, I mentioned that I love popcorn, right? We’ll say that in English. The other night, I love popcorn, and I might have it as a midnight snack, but what I usually do is take a small bowl to make sure I only take a limited amount of popcorn. Well, the other night, the bag was nearly empty. I thought, oh, there’s just a little bit left. I’ll take the bag down with me.
So, I’m watching TV and, I don’t know, I must have been exceptionally hungry, and I just devoured this popcorn. I finished it, and then I got up to go to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I had curls of popcorn on my face. I had bits of it on my shirt. I thought, you’re like a heroin addict. This is like you’re addicted to this thing. And it’s true. I have that kind; I just love it. I love popcorn. If it were as dangerous as heroin, I’d be in some serious trouble, you know. Well, that’s what Eros is like. It’s this passionate desire for something or someone. Okay.
Now, the second word, philia. Uh, think of Philadelphia, right? The city of brotherly love. We say, well, philia in Greek has a sense of friendship. It’s the affection between friends. Think when you say, «I like that guy. Yeah, she’s great. I really like her a lot. She’s someone I want to spend time with. That guy, he’s like my buddy. I like spending time with him.» That’s philia. Now, you might say, you know, it’s less self-interested than Eros. Eros has that sense of almost an animal passion for food, for drink, for sex, to possess the other.
Well, philia isn’t really like that. Philia is more about, «You’re my friend. I want to be with you.» Not so much, «I want to possess you.» I want to spend time with you. Well, Jesus is not saying to his disciples, «I want you to have Eros for one another.» I hope that’s pretty clear. He’s not urging them, «You must love one another» in that erotic sense. Nor is he saying in the Greek that’s used there, «I want you to have philia for one another.» See, that would mean, «I want you all to be friends.» So, Peter and James and John, and all of you, I want you all to be friends. I think there’s a very good chance that some of the disciples didn’t get along with others. They’re all following Jesus. They’re all chosen by the Lord.
Did it mean they all liked each other? That they all would happily spend time together? Not necessarily. And he’s not commanding that. «I want you all to be friends,» nor is he telling his followers down through the centuries, «You have to be friends with everybody.» No. No. That’s not what he says. The verb that’s used, and now the distinction I hope becomes clear, is not eros, not philia. The noun, rather, is agape. Agape, translated as love, indeed like the others. But what does it mean? You’ve probably heard me talk a lot about Thomas Aquinas’s famous characterization. He would have called it caritas in his Latin: to will the good of the other. To will the good of the other—that’s agape. And that’s the command that Jesus gives to his disciples and to us. That’s how people will know that you’re my follower: that you have agape for one another. You will the good of each other.
Mind you, it’s not a desire to possess—that’s eros—nor is it a desire to spend time with—that’s philia. It’s a desire for the good of the other. Therefore, it’s a self-sacrificing move. Maybe this way: it’s a commitment to the other. That’s agape. We’re very good, we sinners, at getting around these things. What do we end up saying very often? What do we act out very often? I pretend I’m willing your good, but in fact, I’m desiring what’s good for you so that you might then give me something good in return. I’ll be just or kind to you so that you might be just or kind to me. That’s not agape. That’s not willing the good of the other. That’s just using the other for my own good. Agape love, as Jesus commands it, is breaking free of the black hole of one’s own egotism, right fellow sinners, that draws the whole world into me and my preoccupations.
Jesus is saying, «I want you to have this quality that breaks free of that.» That’s love as he’s commanding it. Can I give you a concrete example here? One of the great saints of the 20th century, Maximilian Kolbe, right? The man who famously gave himself in exchange for a man that the Nazis were going to kill. He said, «Take me instead. I’m a Catholic priest. Take me in his place.» And the Nazis did. And they starved him to death. It was one of the worst ways to die. Did Maximilian Kolbe know the man very well? I don’t think so. Was he his friend? Did he have philia toward him? Did he want to spend time with him? I mean, I don’t know is my honest answer. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that. But Kolbe shows, in the most dramatic way possible, agape—self-forgetting, self-sacrificing, willing the good of the other.
That’s what Jesus is talking about. Not eros, not philia. Nothing wrong with those two things, but that’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about this kind of self-surrendering love. You know, a great biblical place to look if you want to follow up from this sermon is 1 Corinthians chapter 13. You’ve probably heard it, perhaps at a wedding at some point in your life. But listen to Paul, because Paul here is not talking about eros; he’s not talking about philia. He’s talking about agape, and it’s rendered as love, of course, in English. But listen to him. Love, agape, is patient.
Why patient? Well, because it’s not interested in its own good; it’s interested in the good of the other. Therefore, it’s going to bear all things. It’s going to put up with everything because it wants the good of the other. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant. Why? Because it’s taking you out of the ego and its preoccupations. It positively wants what’s good for you. Love does not insist on its own way. See, that’s the mark of egotism. You might say it’s the mark of the erotic form of love too: «I want this for me. I want to possess it.»
Love doesn’t. Agape doesn’t do that. It doesn’t insist on its own way. Listen, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. See, if you’re just all about yourself, you might rejoice in wrongdoing because doing the wrong thing might benefit you, right? But real love cares for the good of the other. Therefore, it’s not interested in wrongdoing; it rejoices in the truth. And then beautifully, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That’s not philia; it’s the self-emptying, self-forgetting love of the other. It’s willing the good of the other. And that’s the command that Jesus gives the night before he dies. That’s how people will know that we are his disciples. And God bless you.