1 John is a book of the Bible that I keep coming back to - it continues to draw me in and challenge me. It represents the faith-based ethic and moral compass that I ascribe to. It reminds me, over and over again, that all things with God and all things with this world are grounded in love. It speaks to the power of love to create and renew life. This is an epistle that summarizes the end goal of a life of faith, and serves as a challenge to any counter-narratives that claim faith as something individualistic of self-serving. Since I return to this letter so often, I thought it might be nice to journey through it in an intentional way, and to let myself be overheard as I do it.
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1 John 2:3-11
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
So the reason that this little letter is called 1 John is because of the way that the author of the letter pulls language and imagery from the gospel of John, and expounds on themes begun in the gospel. We've already seen the light/dark imagery from John picked up in this letter, and now we pick up on the theme of relationship with God being revealed through adherence to God's commandments, and even language of old and new commandments. Jesus talks a lot about commandments in his farewell discourse in John chapter 14 and following. And on Maundy Thursday each year, we hear Jesus say, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you," referring to the way that he shows love by stooping to serve.
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1 John 2:3-11
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
So the reason that this little letter is called 1 John is because of the way that the author of the letter pulls language and imagery from the gospel of John, and expounds on themes begun in the gospel. We've already seen the light/dark imagery from John picked up in this letter, and now we pick up on the theme of relationship with God being revealed through adherence to God's commandments, and even language of old and new commandments. Jesus talks a lot about commandments in his farewell discourse in John chapter 14 and following. And on Maundy Thursday each year, we hear Jesus say, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you," referring to the way that he shows love by stooping to serve.
It's interesting to me that here in 1 John, the author says, "I"m writing you no new commandment, but an old one that you have heard," and then half a sentence later, says, "Yet I am writing you a new commandment," so it sounds a little like he doesn't have his story quite straight. But what I think is really going on here is that we are supposed to hear the phrase "new commandment," and connect it immediately to the imperative to LOVE ONE ANOTHER. (Which, if we're going to get technical here, was not actually a new commandment when Jesus gave it, either!)
Loving one another. It is the oldest expectation (this is why the story of Cain and Abel is so shocking, so early in the biblical narrative). But it is also the most pressing. It is new everyday, because every day we need to make that choice, again and again, to live for love and not for malice. It is a "new" commandment because it unsettles the status quo. It is a "new" commandment because it is the only commandment, really. That, and loving God with all your heart. And if you are doing that, if you are obeying, living out, following that commandment to love, then all other commandments flow from it. Or, maybe, a better way of saying it is that all other commandments are normed by it. Or, maybe, yet another way of saying it is that if you obey this one commandment - LOVE - and let it be your guiding value in all things, then you don't really need any other commandments, do you?
1 John in this letter will do a lot of compare/contrast. "Whoever says...but does not..." is going to be a bit of a refrain. Like in the last verses of today's reading. He sets up what will be a continued theme in his letter: that if you say you love your neighbor and you say you love God, but don't take care of your neighbor's needs, then you aren't actually "in the light." Saying that you love means nothing if you don't do the loving thing. And you can't claim to love God while ignoring your neighbor.
There'll be lots more in this direction to come. 1 John is a really really interesting letter to read during a pandemic, during a time of political division, and during a time of rampant racial injustice.
What would it look like if we lived out the new-old commandment to love one another? What is keeping us from living that way? How do we get others to choose to live that way alongside us?
More questions for more days.