Tag: Love one another

Love one another.

A Reflection on “Love one another” (The Gospel of John 13: 34-35) from Malcolm Green

I recently  came across this story which, coming as it does from a reliable source, I believe to be true.

This all took place in a small village in France in 1943.  The village was occupied by the Germans, but the local people felt sorry for these enemy soldiers.  They were young men, far from home, on short rations, and quite probably conscripts, so we could say that like some many others of the time: they were reluctant participants in a gruesome and horrific war. 
In an attempt to try and help these young men, each day the local priest would go from door to door with two large baskets asking for food for them.  The villagers responded with sharing what they could – a few eggs, perhaps, or some bread and vegetables. 
Then one day the local resistance movement blew up a strategic bridge.  The commander of the occupying forces demanded reprisals and ordered that every man in the village between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five be taken to the village square. 
There, in front of family and friends – wives, mothers, girlfriends, sisters and their own children, they were shot.
Besides themselves with grief, anger and torment, the villagers turned on the priest: “If you come again asking for food for these murderers, we shall kill you.” 

On the day of the funerals the little church was overflowing, because every family in the village had lost someone.  The old priest stood up and read from John’s Gospel , “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” 
Later that day the priest  stood in the village square – totally amazed and with tears in his eyes – as he watched the local people filling the baskets he had placed at his feet, with food to feed the enemy soldiers.

Now when I read that story of an event that took place in 1943, I couldn’t help but think of the atrocities happening in the small town of Bucha, and elsewhere in Ukraine today. 
We read the stories, and we see the pictures, but I don’t think any of us have an idea of what it’s like witnessing the realities of these kind of situations. 
If I’m totally  honest, I can’t even begin to imagine how I would be able to start knowing how to love someone who had caused me such indescribable pain and hurt.
And for me it doesn’t even have to go to such extremes for me to be tested.  People can say things, do things – or not do things – and they can grate.  It’s not easy to love someone who rubs you up the wrong way!

“Love one another as I have loved you”
This most simple-sounding commandment is probably the most difficult to carry out. 
Yes, it’s easy to just nod your head and agree it’s a very good commandment.  It’s fairly easy to recognise the wisdom of it. 
However, it requires a great deal of courage to put it into practice, and let’s not forget, it cost Christ his life.

Jesus died because he continued to remain true to this fundamental precept – this fundamental way of being – the very essence of what God is all about – to love each and every one of us, whoever we are, and no matter what we might or might not have done – regardless of how, or even if, we respond to him.
Jesus was hated and treated unjustly by his enemies and yet he still loved them. 
Not an emotional or sentimental love, but a love that understands them.  A love that is prepared to absorb the fear which made them react against him.  He loved them out of his concern for their well-being, in spite of their actions.
He loved them by recognising the basic humanity of each one which makes them precious in God’s eyes.
And loving one another as Jesus loves us is the calling of the Christian.  By the time the Apostles had begun the work of carrying on Jesus’ mission they had come  to understand that Jesus is for everyone – not just a select few who believed they were the chosen ones.

It’s interesting that we tend to think of the Inclusive Church organisation as a fairly recent initiative.  In fact, the early Church were inclusive from the very beginning!
Like those early Christians, we believe in a church that celebrates and affirms every person, and does not discriminate.
The enthusiasm of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the generosity of those followers who dedicated their lives to spreading this universal message of love and forgiveness.
And if we have any concerns about not being good  because we find it difficult to love everyone equally, no matter our best intentions and how much we try, we can be reassured in that Jesus did not say it would be easy.
Jesus simply set out how important and necessary it is for us to keep at the front of our minds the commandment to love, and to use our very best endeavours to try and achieve that.   We should be praying for those we find it hardest to love, and we should be asking for God’s blessing on them as well as on us.

In loving each other in the same way that Jesus loves us, it is the only way in which the world can come to reflect the kingdom of God – and after all – isn’t that something we often pray for – thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven?

We may think that what we might consider to be our meagre efforts in showing Jesus’ inclusive love will make no difference, that it will pass by unnoticed.
But it is in the struggle to love that we draw closest to Jesus and, together with him, we may affect our world more than we think possible.  Let’s not underestimate God!

Our present society would often have us believe that it is easy to love.  But that is a different “brand” of love from Jesus’.
To love like Jesus is to surrender our own needs and desires to make space for, and to ensure that, the needs and desires of others are met, regardless of whether or not they are considered “worthy” by our own standards. 
Remembering always that we too, despite our own failings, are precious to God, is a gift worth giving.  For, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that we should have eternal life’. 
As children of the same God, should we not also surrender ourselves in love to the needs of others?

This is the challenge of the Gospel, both simple and profound.  It is as fresh a call today as it was when it came from the lips of Jesus: “Love one another… just as I have loved you.” 

And let us not be concerned or fearful of the reaction we may receive, for remember – he’s always walking alongside us, to the end of the age.

The Revd Malcolm Green is a member of the Ministry Team at St. Mary-at-Latton, Harlow

VJ Day – 75th Anniversary 15 August 2020

The testimony of Bishop Leonard Wilson

Bishop Leonard Wilson

Leonard Wilson, who was born in Gateshead in County Durham, responded to the Call of God and was trained for the Anglican ministry at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford.  On the eve of his ordination he is supposed to have prayed to God a prayer of (slightly conditional) commitment.
‘Lord, I will serve you anywhere – except the Equator, the North Pole and Birmingham!’
Whether true or not, part of his ministry was in Singapore, not far from the equator, and later he was ordained Bishop of Birmingham and is reported to have said, ‘as an old man of 70, I am waiting for my call to the Arctic!’  Whatever conditions he gave to the Almighty, he became, in fact a dedicated priest and ultimately bishop.

In 1941, during the Second World War, he was ordained Bishop of Singapore.  Along with others he was arrested and interned in Changi gaol.  In October 1943, the Japanese ‘Gestapo’ raided the prison and took 57 prisoners, including Leonard Wilson.  He was accused of being a spy and endured days of torture.  Bound to a table he was beaten with knotted ropes by relays of soldiers. 

His daughter The Revd Canon Susan Cole-King, addressing the Lambeth Conference in 1998, spoke of this:
‘Often he had to be carried back to the crowded, dark and filthy cell, almost unconscious from his wounds.  On one occasion, when seven men were taking it in turns to flog him, they asked him why he didn’t curse them.  He told them it was because he was a follower of Jesus who taught us to love one another.
He asked himself then how he could possibly love these men with their hard, cruel faces, who were obviously enjoying the torture they were inflicting.  As he prayed he had a picture of them as they might have been as little children, and it’s hard to hate little children.’

When asked by his torturers how he could still believe in God, he replied,
‘God does not save me by freeing me from pain or punishment. But he saves me by giving me the Spirit to bear it.’’

Part of that strengthening came to him, as he was being beaten.  He called to mind the words of the hymn:

‘Look Father, look on his anointed face,
   and only look on us as found in him.’

His daughter said: ‘In that moment he was given a vision of those men not as they were then, but as they were capable of becoming, transformed by the love of Christ.  He said he saw them completely changed, their cruelty becoming kindness, their sadistic instincts changed to gentleness.’

Even in the face of his own suffering he ministered to his fellow prisoners and, in his biography, he spoke movingly of celebrating the Eucharist for his camp-mates.  They had no consecrated bread so he used grains of rice and water instead of wine.  He used a tin mug for chalice, on which he scratched a cross.  Jesus did the rest.  It was this that sustained Christian faith in the camp.

After the war he returned to Singapore as Bishop and had the great joy of confirming one of his torturers.  This is how he described the moment:

‘One of these men who was allowed to march up from the prison to the cathedral, as a prisoner, to come for baptism, was one of those who had stood with a rope in his hand, threatening and sadistic. I have seldom seen so great a change in a man. He looked gentle and peaceful. His face was completely changed by the power of Christ.’

That change by Christ Jesus was a direct result of the testimony of Bishop Wilson – a living testimony preached not in words but through love.

The hymn that sustained Leonard Wilson:

And now, O Father, mindful of the love
  that bought us, once for all, on Calvary’s tree,
and having with us him that pleads above,
  we here present, we here spread forth to thee
that only offering perfect in thine eyes,
  the one true, pure, immortal sacrifice.

Look, Father, look on his anointed face,
  and only look on us as found in him;
look not on our misusings of thy grace,
  our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim:
for lo, between our sins and their reward
  we set the Passion of thy Son our Lord.

And then for those, our dearest and our best,
  by this prevailing presence we appeal:
O fold them closer to thy mercy’s breast,
  O do thine utmost for their souls’ true weal;
from tainting mischief keep them white and clear,
  and crown thy gifts with strength to persevere.

And so we come: O draw us to thy feet,
  most patient Saviour, who canst love us still;
and by this food, so aweful and so sweet,
  deliver us from every touch of ill:
in thine own service make us glad and free,
  and grant us never more to part with thee.

Words | William Bright