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John 15: 9-17 presents us with a powerful summary of Jesus’ economy of love. Here’s a summary of the promises that Jesus makes about his love for us:

• 9. Jesus loves us as the Father loves him
• 11. Jesus’ joy is in us > our joy is complete
• 12. Jesus loves us
• 13. Jesus lays down his life for us
• 14. We are Jesus’ friends
• 15. We are Jesus’ friends (not his servants)
• 16. Jesus chooses us (not us him)
• 16. Jesus appoints us
• 16. Jesus enables us to be fruitful
• 16. God gives us whatever we ask in Jesus’ name

Part of what is beautiful about this passage is the generous and unconditional outpouring of love, care and enabling of us by Christ.

However, there are some aspects of this passage that are conditional – there are some IFs

• 11. We remain in Jesus’ love IF we keep his commands
• 14. We are Jesus’ friends IF we do what he commands

It is true that Jesus’ love has conditions – it is not utterly unconditional. He has expectations and makes demands of us. It is not a free-for-all. But before we get worked up about being held hostage to God’s expectations, let’s look at what those conditions are:

• 12. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you
• 17. This is my command: love each other

That’s it. Just two commands. Actually, just ONE command, because they are the same command: Love each other. That’s the only condition that Jesus places on us: Leave each other.

And let’s look at the ratio of unconditional and conditional promises in this passage:

That’s a pretty good economy! 83% of Jesus’ promises in today’s reading are unconditional. And the 17% that are conditional are conditional on something that is surely good for everyone – us and everyone else! To love one another.

Loving one another surely in our own interests – if we love others and all the others are loving us, that’s a good deal!

Hence John writes in his first letter (1 John 5:3), “God’s commands are not burdensome”. I’m not sure I fully agree with John here, because loving others is sometimes not easy. We have to love difficult people, people who don’t love or respect us, people who do bad things, and so on. It is not always easy to love others. But we are talking about just ONE command, not 613 commands, not 10 commands, not even 2 commands: JUST ONE!

Love each other.

Surely this is something we can do?

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