The High Ethic of Love

The liturgy this Sunday begins with a reflection upon Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. As Matthew’s account of the ministry of Jesus heads to a close, his healings, teaching, compassion, forgiveness, and inclusion of the least of those in society has gained a massive following. Crowds seek him out. Throngs of followers are proclaiming him the Son of David who comes in the name of the Lord. Yet the palms and hosannas of this public parade, which began on the Mount of Olives and descended into Jerusalem, will soon disperse. This Sunday’s Gospel of the Passion will provide our first glance at the tragedy that followed, one that will take place on yet a different mount, Calvary.

Nestled among the liturgical readings of Palm Sunday lies a text that is key to understanding not only Jesus’ life, but also the familiar story that unfolds during this Holy Week. In the christological hymn preserved in Phil 2:6-11 we hear: “Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness…” (Phil 2:6-7a). He emptied himself to become like us. He emptied himself to take up the position of service.  

Self-emptying is a hard concept for many to understand. It is not self-promoting, not self-assuring, not self-satisfying. Rather, self-emptying is about making space in one’s person to experience in ourselves the experience of another — whether that be their success, pain, loss, brokenness, hopes or even waywardness. Self-emptying frees us from our obsessions with the past and our concerns about the future. It emancipates us from worry and from anything that society dictates as fair or appropriate. Self-emptying conditions us for empathy. It makes us radically present to those who are present in our lives. Such a disposition fosters a communion, or kinship of feeling with another. Grounded in empathy, this disposition enabled Jesus to expend his life on behalf of others. Self-emptied, he was open and available to be filled with pathos for another. Thus, Jesus becomes the medium disclosing the magnificence of a widow who deposits her coin in the temple treasury. He serves as a channel for the healing of a man with a withered hand or for restoring sight to a blind man. He becomes the proponent for Mary Magdalene’s central role in the early church. Even in the final moments of his life, Jesus negotiates forgiveness on behalf of those who put him to death. Such a dynamic and intimate communion with others begins with, and is grounded in, self-emptying, propelled by the high ethic of love. 

As we follow Jesus, waving our palms and singing our “hosannas,” let us recognize that, indeed, he enters Jerusalem as the new authority. Unlike kings and heads of state from the past or even those of the present, however, Jesus authors a novel kind of governance, one that can instigate comprehensive change, even social transformation.  But to do so, Jesus summons us to share in this governance, to do as he has done. 

This may require that we dismantle those well-forged defenses and excuses that perhaps we hold firmly to avoid being fully present to others. It may also demand that we dismantle tendencies to be self-promoting or self-satisfied or even entail rupturing a need to be so self-assured. Yet what Jesus invites us to is exactly what we are made for, a participation in his high ethic of love. He invites us to a self-emptying that occasions establishing deep connectedness with others. He invites us to act out of love, on others’ behalf and, in the process, to discover that anything is possible. We need only ask him to gift us with an openness that will gradually enable us to be like him, a servant to those present before us, whether it be feeding five thousand hungry people, or offering forgiveness to those who may harm us, or even understanding that, despite the finality of crucifixion, one can rise from the dead.