Today’s readings include a dizzying celebration of Jesus and his love and friendship for us.  The first line of the gospel is from Jesus: I love you.  The final words tell us how to follow him: Love one another, something repeated in the epistle from 1 John.  In just those two readings some form of the word love is used 19 times.  How can we go through life wondering if we are worthy of that?

John’s Gospel, whose poetic and symbolic language can be sometimes challenging gives us a clear message: Jesus is our friend, and he loves us.  Although we often make following Jesus more complicated, his words to us are simple.  The opening sentence of the gospel says, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.”

It doesn’t get any clearer.  Jesus loves us.  We don’t have to be perfect, sinless or even devout.  Jesus asks us, “remain in my love.” It’s an invitation to remain in the awareness that as we go through our daily lives, we are loved deeply by Jesus in everything we do. More than that, Jesus tells us “you are my friends.”

Jesus, our redeemer, is not standing back observing us, but offering us a real relationship of love and friendship.  We want to accept, but may be unsure how to do that. Where do we meet Jesus as we do our other friends? Prayer.

We can get caught up in the trappings of prayer and worry about doing it “correctly.”  Our friendship with Jesus is another relationship in our lives with the same movements we have with family members, spouses and friends.  We talk and we listen. Prayer is conversation with our friend, Jesus, talking as we might with our friends and family members. 

It’s astonishing to realize that Jesus selected us to be his friends.  “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  We have been chosen to share our lives with Jesus as he shares his with us.  It’s a connection of joy.  The good news, Jesus says, is joy for both of us.  “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”  But more than that, Jesus says that because he chose us, we are sent “to go and bear great fruit that will remain.” Our role as Christians is to live out the teachings of Jesus. “Love one another.”

It’s easy to find tragedy and conflict everywhere.  What is our part in bringing love to those in pain?  His commandment to us is simple: “Love one another.” He doesn’t tell us how to vote, to earn money, even to pray.  Just love one another, and “remain in me.”

How do we take up this mantle he has given us? How can I shape my life to follow Jesus’ example of loving more closely?  Maybe praying for or working to help the poor and marginalized around us.

Perhaps it just means for us to lighten up in our own lives and remain in his love.  It could be as simple as being kinder to those around us. Stop being crabby and judgmental.  Not assume that my way is the correct way, that my beliefs are true, no matter how ardently I believe them.

We accept the fierce love of Jesus by following his request for us to go and bear fruit that will remain.  His final words to us echo in our lives: Love one another.  We bear fruit every day by sharing the love we have been given and carrying it throughout our days and lives.

Loving Jesus, help me to humbly accept your love for me. Let me feel it deep in my heart and trust in it enough to be bold as I carry it into my daily life.  Soften my heart in my beliefs and let me listen to you and to others around me. Help me to remain in your love.