John 3:16 might be one of the most well-known texts in all of the Holy Scriptures. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” Preachers, athletes, sports fans, and people of all sorts have used and abused these verses to speak about God’s great love for the world. But there is one thing that I find to be challenging about this well-known text: though it proclaims the good news of God’s love, it does not say much about how we are to love and live with one another. For that reason, if there was one verse in all of the scriptures that I wish all people would know, this verse would be John 15:12, “This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you.” I find these to be some of the most beautiful words uttered by Jesus in the gospels: “love each other just as I have loved you.” These words of Jesus raise the standards of love for all who dare to follow him. These words not only proclaim Christ’s great love for us, but they also give us a concrete example of how we are to love others. In these few words, Jesus tells us: love one another, not as you please, not as you desired to be loved, not as you think it is best, not as you imagine they deserve, but as I have loved you. This commandment of Jesus brings the reality of love very close to us and gives us a new standard of measurement for how we are to love others.

Loving others can be a difficult business. You may know that I am the third child in a family of five. Between 1979 and 1985 all five of us graced the world and in the ‘90’s my parents were blessed with five teenagers under one roof. Despite the healthy doses of faith and scripture that were inserted into our everyday living, it seemed that the challenges of raising kids manifested themselves fairly often in our house. Arguments and fights were not uncommon among us siblings. One faithful afternoon as my brother and I argued over something trivial—as kids tend to do—my mother, being tired of referring arguments—as parents tend to be—decided to teach us a lesson. Using, I am sure, the scriptures as her guide my mother ordered my brother and me to stand in an embrace until we felt that we understood what it meant to love one another. Imagine a 10-year-old and 8-year-old standing, much against their will, hugging each other for several minutes. To this day, I am still not positive that this is what Jesus meant when he said “love each other just as I have loved you.” But this awkward encounter put flesh on the idea of loving others.

Love, as meant by Jesus it is not a sentiment that falls prey to changes in mood. Love as Jesus meant in these verses is an action—a really difficult action, an action that many people believe to be radical, outrageous, and unreasonable. But Jesus calls us toward the path of love because love is at the center of the character of the Divine—and we have been created in the image of the divine.[1] Love. John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.” Love. 1 John 4:10, “This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” Love is God’s radical answer to the brokenness of humanity. But this is a type of answer that makes many of us uncomfortable because a love that sacrifices itself for the sake of others may be wonderful to receive but it is much more difficult to give. This type of love calls us to live beyond the limitations of our self-interests and move with haste towards the needs of others.

You may have heard of the African Philosophy called Ubuntu. This term is commonly translated as “I am because we are,”[2] but its meaning is much more complex and encompassing. Ubuntu represents an ethic of living where my humanity cannot be unless I can see the humanity of others. Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes a ubuntu way of life by saying, “A