Tonight I went to Holy Thursday Mass, which celebrates the Last Supper. One of the readings, which comes from Jesus’ last meal with the disciples before he is taken away and then crucified, struck me:
John chapter 13, verses 34-5:
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Why this verse? Because a month ago I was asked to speak a conclave of Presbyterian ministers in North Carolina about what their “Christian duty” towards LGBT youth was. In essence, this is what I preached – the words of John 13. Yet a number of ministers came to the microphone in the question and answer period and said that they could not reconcile what I was saying with what the Scriptures told them was their duty.
Seems to me Jesus is pretty crystal clear here: that the myriad invocations of the Old Testament not to do certain things – like not to shave, not to eat shell fish, not to wear garments of mixed raiment and, yes, that “mankind shall not lie with mankind” – are superseded by the commandment to love one another as he loved us. And how did he love us? Jesus embraced the most marginal and devalued members of his society. Then he told us to do the same. So when we side with those with power against the disenfranchised, we break his most fundamental commandment.
The Word of the Lord.