The Rev. Canon Bonnie-Marie Yager-Wiggan
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.” John 15:9-10, from The Message.
At home in my love.
Imagine the last supper Jesus had with his disciples: the meal shared, the radical vulnerability of Jesus washing their feet, and these final words he gives in the gospel of John. It almost feels like we are beginning Lent at the end of the story! Perhaps we are. Perhaps we need to be reminded of the “end” to recognize it has been the beginning, middle, and end all along. (As T.S. Eliot says, “And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”)
In some of his final words to the disciples, Jesus tells them at least four times to love their neighbor as themselves, that this is, in fact, the very best way to love. Why? Because it is how Jesus loves us, that while we were still enemies of God, God loved us. The very love of Christ in us transforms us to love our neighbor (and our enemy, who is also our neighbor.)
This is the whole journey: to make ourselves at home in Christ’s love. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your presence: Send forth upon us the spirit of love, that in companionship with one another your abounding grace may increase among us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Canon Bonnie-Marie Yager-Wiggan has served at Trinity Cathedral since 2021. She and her husband,,Jamie, enjoy exploring Pittsburgh with their Scottish terrier, Greyfriar.
