love from john 21

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this gospel, especially after chapter 20 has ...

John 21:11 tells us that the disciples caught 153 fish. Why 153? According to John Wesley, the number doesn’t matter.   Along the same lines, Karoline Lewis writes, Abundant fish. Don’t meta...

The Latin term for confrontation means “to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.” It merely indicates that you are turning toward the relationship and the person. You are face-to-face, so to sp...

Context This passage comes right at the end of the Gospel of John (save for just a few concluding verses excluded from the lectionary pericope). John 21 reads as a rather strange epilogue to this go...

The strong bond that unites the vine and the branches has to do with the sap that flows through them. Jesus does not here use the word “sap,” but nonetheless gives a lengthy excursus on love in a way ...

A Valentine’s Day Tradition What better way to say, “I love you,” than passing your beloved some sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, and glycerin wrapped in a chalkly Necco wafer heart? Maybe some of you re...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...

Prayer of Adoration Father: You know us and love us from eternity. Jesus: You love us enough to die for us and be rise again to give us eternal life. Spirit: You pour out love to us every day, in...

In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation...

God loves you just as you are but too much to leave you that way.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is th...

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

We live a long time in order to become lovers. God is like a good parent, refusing to do our homework for us. We must learn through trial and error. We have to do our homework ourselves, the homework ...

And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is bett...

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.