"Jesus commands us to love without limits."
by: The Very Rev. John D. Payne (published June 8, 2019, "Times Record News" --Wichita Falls, TX, and read at Christ Episcopal by Mrs. Jane Barnett October 27, 2019)
One of the first scientific procedures children learn in school is the litmus test. A small strip of paper is dipped in a solution and it turns red if the solution is acidic and blue if it's alkaline. Litmus has also lent its name in a figurative sense to any type of test that uses a single indicator to prompt a decision. For example, high SAT scores are the litmus test to get into the Naval Academy.
What is the litmus test for a follower of Jesus Christ? The Gospel of John puts it this way: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Jesus goes on to qualify the manner in which we should love — "as I have loved you" (John 13:34).
What is even more astounding is that Jesus commands us to love. But love is more than a command. It's a gift coming from the Father through the Son. Jesus is the source of love without limits or conditions.
The day after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded Malaya and advanced down the peninsula. On February 15, 1942, Singapore surrendered, and Bishop John Leonard Wilson was among the civilians interned. He and sixty others were singled out for special treatment, for they were accused of organizing anti-Japanese activity in Malaya.
The sixty-one were brutally tortured by Japanese interrogators to make them confess and some of them died. Bishop Wilson said this about his eight months in Singapore's infamous Changi jail: "After my first beating, I was afraid to pray for courage, lest I should have another opportunity of exercising it. When I muttered, 'God forgive them', I wondered if I really meant it. Their facial expressions were hard and cruel, and some of them evidentially enjoyed flogging my worn and weary body."
In 1947, Bishop John Leonard Wilson returned to Singapore and presided over a Confirmation service in the Anglican cathedral. As the candidates came forward one by one to kneel before the bishop seated in the chancel, a wave of fear suddenly swept over Bishop Wilson. His eyes locked into the eyes of the most ruthless and sadistic of his former torturers five years earlier.
One of his Japanese torturers was actually kneeling in front of him to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit from hands that still bore the marks of torture that he had inflicted. The man knelt before the bishop for the laying on of hands and the ancient prayer of incorporation into the body of Christ.
After the service, Bishop Wilson and his one-time torturer, now a new Christian, strolled in the gardens. The newly confirmed Anglican said to the bishop: "Every time I tortured you, you prayed that I might be forgiven. At first this made me exceedingly angry, then it made me curious, and eventually it brought me to Jesus Christ."
John Leonard Wilson became the Bishop of Birmingham, England in 1953 and died in retirement in 1970. His career was most distinguished, but nothing could be more distinguishing than when he loved the unlovable the way Christ loved.
I should think that Bishop Wilson passed the litmus test of love — agape, the love without limits, the love without conditions, the love that seeks no reciprocity, the love that defies logic and stymies common sense.
(The Very Rev. John D. Payne is the Emeritus Rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Wichita Falls.)
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