LOVE. RIGHT NOW!

In Sunday's lection from John 21, Jesus and Simon Peter exchange "I love you!" three times. In the Greek Jesus asks Peter if he loves him with an agape kind of love. Peter responds with a filial kind of love. Again, Jesus asks with agape. Peter responds with filial. On the third go, Jesus adjusts. He asks for filial love. Peter responds with filial.

God asks us to love unconditionally, to love the unlovable, to love those who can never love us back. Agape. But like Peter, most of us can only offer what we can offer right now. Mutuality. Reciprocity. Solidarity. The love most of us know. Filial.

So many among us who confess to be followers of Jesus promise to offer what we do not have yet. We will volunteer our services when we get a vacation. We will give more support when we get a raise. We will serve the church and its ministries when our situation changes for the better. The future is in God’s hands. Not ours.

Only in John do we find the source of the five barley loaves and two fish that led to the feeding of the 5000. It was from a child. A poor child. One among the hungry multitude. The child offered what he had. Right there and then.

In the narrative, Jesus adjusts. He asks Peter for the very best but when Peter could not, Jesus accepts what Peter could offer right there and then.

My friends, what we can offer right now is better than the very best we can offer in the future: especially for a world that needs to be fed, to be given drink, to be welcomed, to be cared for, to be clothed, to be set free, and to experience peace based on justice. Right now.

#IAmWithJesus
#JusticeForNewBataan5
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine
#NoToMarcosDuterte2022
#StopTheKillingsPH

*art, "Miraculous Catch," JESUS MAFA (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).