John

They called me the disciple Jesus loved,
but I don’t think You loved me
more than You loved the others.
How could absolute, all-embracing love
be greater for one than for another?
When we’ve seen You, we’ve seen the Father —
You showed us that.
And if God is love, You are love.
They called me the disciple Jesus loved,
but I don’t think You loved me more than the others.
You loved Peter enough to straighten him out
whenever he took a wrong turn.
You loved Levi enough to take him on
when the rest of our people despised
the miserable, greedy tax collector.
You loved Simon the Canaanean, even though
he had a shady, subversive background.
You loved Thaddeus and Bartholomew,
though we never hear much about them any more.
You loved me and my brother James,
even when our mother came with that ridiculous request
to seat us on two thrones.
She didn’t understand what You were about,
and I guess we didn’t either, at the time —
You did call us the “sons of thunder!”
They called me the disciple Jesus loved,
but I don’t think You loved me more than the others.
I think You even loved the one who turned You in.
You never whined about it — after all, poor guy,
he was only doing what he was destined to do
according to Your Father’s plan.
They called me the disciple Jesus loved,
but I don’t think You loved me more than the others.
Maybe it was because I thought a lot
about how much You loved me,
and how much God loves all His people;
I did write a good deal about that, later on.
We know that we can love other people
only because You first loved us,
and we can’t claim to love You, or Your Father,
if we don’t love our brother, too.
They called me the disciple Jesus loved,
but I don’t really think You loved me
any more than the others.
For God so loved the world.

Published in The Promise by Shirley A. Leonard
©2007,2011 Laudemont Press