Some moments in life are forever. One of mine came on a date, my third date with Meg. She had this little boy Bobbie who was 4½ and we decided to take him to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That was a fun movie, we all loved it and were chatting about as I drove them home. We were in Meg’s car which had a bench seat in the front – you never see that anymore – and Bobbie was right between us. We were stopped at a traffic light in Lakeland, Ingram Avenue and Main Street, westbound on Ingram to be precise, when he turned his little blonde head my way, looked up at me and said, “Can I call you daddy?”

Did I mention this was our third date?

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How do you protect what is most valuable to you? Your family and personal security are likely behind a locked door, maybe a security system. If you don’t lock your doors, then you probably live in a remote and secure location. We keep our money and investments behind a phalanx of security protections including physical safes and government rules and regulations. We want cyber-protection and fraud guarantees because we worry now about getting hacked more than anything.

Medieval security was different. They didn’t have banks and had to provide their own security.

A town may seek to have a wall, with a gate. That would generally be sufficient to protect it from a roving band of outlaws, especially in hard times.

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Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) He said it here in chapter 15, and he has said it a dozen times or more either exactly that way or in other words just in these 5 chapters where John recounts what Jesus said the night before he died. And it’s all through all 4 Gospels. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you love me you will keep my commandments.” It undergirds most of his parables and, honestly, most of his healings.

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