"If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20)

But that is precisely the problem with the brother. We have seen him.

How can you love God whom you have not seen? Well, I don't find that all that difficult. We have not seen God, not yet, and while we have had much, so much, enough surely revealed about him to us in Church and Bible and supremely in Jesus, we have not actually seen God. And so to some extent, some but still a real extent, we can imagine God in faith and love and devotion, and we can imagine him or presume him to something of what we want and need and feel is right, But it all remains, until our death and resurrection, still what we believe.

We do not have that option with our brother. He is not so easily or agreeably fashioned and refashioned according to what we want or need or believe is right and good. So often our brother simply presents himself as he is, and not always as we might hope he would be. That is the very nature of the difficulty in loving our brothers and sisters. We know them. The brother, sister, spouse, lover, parent, child, friend, colleague whom we fantasize, imagine, long for, will probably be more lovable than the real ones we actually encounter.

The source of this problem is suggested in the Gospel: "You did not choose me, but I chose you. There is sufficient hurt, risk, and fear in loving the ones we have chosen to love, it is far worse when we get round to loving those whom we have not, and never would have, chosen to love, but were chosen for us by God, in a choice we might not like. The people we have chosen to love may easily, from time to time, be quite a problem, the ones whom we have not chosen to love almost always are.

Through some wonderful mystery, we meet people in this life whom we love, and despite the risk and the fear and the bad memories and the uncertainty, and the doubt, we go forward into that love. Not reckoning the risk, not probably fully knowing it beforehand. And that love will have its own peculiar pain and glory.

From the most exalted commitment to the most frugal little friendship, relationships with people whom we have chosen are generally preferable to relationships with people whom we have not chosen, who have been chosen for us.

In our own personal lives, we get to choose those whom we will love, and the only initial problem is whether or not they will, in return, choose to love us as well. In families, and in that family which is the Church of God, we do not get to choose. The brothers and sisters, whom we are to love, are not selected by us. They are simply there, given to us to love.

Quite apart and aside from the hurt and the fear and the risk in loving another person, there is a peculiar kind of annoyance involved in loving people whom you never chose to love, but were instead chosen for you. Whom you were, and are, chosen to love, called to love, summoned to love, commanded to love. Love. Not tolerate or endure or suffer and accept. To love.

In our everyday lives, we may well be lucky enough to be loved by someone, and if and when that happens, we count ourselves blessed indeed, fortunate beyond our fondest, most fervent hope.

But in the redeemed community, in the fellowship of the holy Church, this love is not left to chance. In the Body of Christ we are entitled to be loved, intended to be loved, destined to be loved, by God's eternal purpose and our Lord's commandment.

This is the nature and characteristic of our life together as Christians - authentic, dependable, enduring, love.

And not because of our own personal characteristics. Not because of anything we are. But because we are baptized. In, and through, and by that, we are entitled, intended, supposed to be loved by our fellows. In and through and by our Baptism we are committed to take the risk of loving others, and acknowledging that we were created to love, made to love.

And we are asked to admit that this love must be like his. That is, real, genuine, not theoretical, not abstract, not some lofty, distant unrealizable goal or ideal.

Our Lord isn't talking Theory, he almost never was.

He is talking about demonstrable love, obvious love, effective love. Love that transforms and changes and saves and redeems. Like his.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

It is, I agree, hard. Love on command. A tricky business, with not much chance of success. Am I going to love someone, really love them, just because God expects it? Will I really be able to love everyone, just because our Lord commanded me to do so?

If I am really devout, I may want to, may want to keep his commandment, but am I going to? Can I?

It's God intention that I love everyone. I don't know if that is possible, but let's not kid ourselves, that is the expectation, that is the request, that what our Lord is talking about here.

We now have this commandment, and we have got to do something with it, there is no use trying to get it so say something it doesn't say, contrary to what it says.

But one thing even greater, always greater than a commandment in our Lord's teaching - we have also and above the gift of grace, grace to be aided by God in even our most faltering and fitful and failing attempts, helped, aided, supported, in the effort, and when we do not make it forgiven. And given the chance to start all over again. In this, God so clearly, oh so clearly, first loved us.