14 May 26 | You Did Not Choose Me
The love Jesus commands is calibrated to the cross, the friendship is grounded in total disclosure, and the choosing that makes all of it possible was never the disciples' idea to begin with.
The Gospel: John 15:9-17
⁹ "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. ¹² This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. ¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶ It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. ¹⁷ This I command you: love one another.
Today’s Focus
The Shema commanded love of God with all heart, soul, and strength. In that framework love was covenantal commitment expressed through faithfulness and obedience. Jesus applies the same structure to his relationship with the disciples and grounds it in the deepest possible source, the eternal love of the Trinity extended outward. The standard he sets for loving one another reaches past Leviticus 19 and past Hillel’s summary to the cross itself. First century Judaism had a developed martyrdom theology from the Maccabean period. The Maccabean martyrs died for the Torah. The love Jesus describes lays down life for persons. Then he places the disciples in the company of Abraham and Moses by calling them friends, grounded in total disclosure of what he heard from the Father. And then the complete reversal. In rabbinic tradition the disciple chose the teacher. Jesus inverts the entire structure. He found them beside fishing boats and at tax tables. A first century Jewish listener would have heard a claim that transcends any human teacher-student dynamic entirely.
In the Margins
The Shema, Israel’s most fundamental prayer, commanded love of God with all heart, soul, and strength. In this framework love was not primarily emotion but covenantal commitment expressed through faithfulness and obedience. When Jesus says if you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, He is speaking the exact covenant language His listeners had lived in from childhood. Love connected to commandment-keeping was the backbone of Israel’s covenant relationship with God. Deuteronomy 7:9 describes the God who keeps covenant love with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Jesus applies the same structure to His relationship with the disciples and grounds it in the deepest possible source.
As the Father loves me, so I also love you. The word kathōs, just as, measures the love Jesus has for the disciples against the eternal love of the Trinity itself. Not a version adapted for human recipients but the same love extended outward. John 17:26 makes the goal explicit in the high priestly prayer. He asks that the love with which the Father loved the Son may come to dwell in the disciples. What John 15:9 announces as already given, John 17:26 asks to remain.
The standard He then sets for the commandment to love one another raises the measure far beyond what the tradition had previously required. Leviticus 19:18 commanded love of neighbor as oneself. Hillel’s famous summary was stated negatively: what is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. Jesus sets the measure as His own love, calibrated to the cross. First century Judaism had a developed theology of martyrdom shaped by the Maccabean period, the mother and seven sons of 2 Maccabees 7, Eleazar the scribe of 2 Maccabees 6, celebrated as the highest form of covenant faithfulness. The willingness to lay down life for what one believed was the supreme expression of devotion. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus reaches for this tradition and then shifts the object. The Maccabean martyrs died for the Torah. The love Jesus describes lays down life for persons.
The designation He then gives the disciples would have carried immediate and significant weight in a first century Jewish context. Friend of God, philos tou theou, was one of the most honored descriptions in the tradition. Abraham held it preeminently, named so in Isaiah 41:8 and in 2 Chronicles 20:7. Moses spoke with God as a man speaks with a friend, as Exodus 33:11 describes. These were the towering figures of Israel’s covenant history. Jesus calling Galilean fishermen friends places them in the company of Israel’s greatest figures, not by their achievement but by His disclosure. The ground of the friendship is that He has told them everything He heard from the Father. They are brought into the confidence of the divine purpose.
Then He reverses the entire structure of the first century teacher-student relationship. In rabbinic tradition the disciple chose the teacher. You sought out the rabbi whose interpretation you wanted to learn. The initiative was entirely with the student. Jesus inverts this completely. It was not you who chose me but I who chose you. He found them beside fishing boats and at tax tables. A first century Jewish listener would have heard in this inversion a claim that transcends any human teacher-student dynamic. This is not the pattern of a rabbi and his students. It is the pattern of God calling His people before they knew to come.
The choosing Jesus describes did not stop in the upper room. Every person who has come to faith in Jesus arrived the same way the disciples did, found rather than finding, chosen before the choosing was understood. The friendship Jesus extended to those Galilean fishermen on the basis of total disclosure is the same friendship extended to every believer who has received what He has told them about the Father. And the love He commands, calibrated to the cross and modeled on the Father’s love for the Son, is not something the community can produce on its own. It is what overflows when the abiding is real, when the love already given has been received and is being lived within. The question the passage puts to us is not whether we are trying hard enough to love one another. It is whether we are staying close enough to the source of the love that makes it possible at all.
Reflection Question
If the love Jesus commands is only possible from within the abiding, where in your life are you trying to produce it on your own?