“Love: The Sweetest Thing”
1 Corinthians 13
Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church
Mindy Douglas Adams
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 31, 2010
Love. Love. Love.
Just the word and a million images are conjured up in our minds. Especially this time of year - hearts,
chocolates, embraces, roses, red, passion, pink, Hallmark cards, teddy bears,
cupids, romance, fireplaces, I could go on and on. Love.
Just the word and we feel warm inside.
Love. An ideal,
eternal-floating-blissfully-in-the-clouds-with-not-a-care-in-the-world-except-your-beloved. Love.
Puh-lease!
Now don't get me wrong.
I am as much a romantic as many of you are. But I am also enough of a realist to know
that the kind of love they sell us on Valentine's Day is the kind of love that
will last about two days, if it makes it past the first two hours. You can only stare googly-eyed at one person
for so long. You can only be stared at
googly-eyed by one person for so long.
Then you go crazy. Seriously.
The kind of love they sell us at Valentine's is like the
roses that will sell like hotcakes in the next week - beautiful and passionate
and flowery and romantic and expressive - for about eight to ten days. Then the roses are done. And so will be the kind of love they sell on
Valentine's Day.
But we cannot deny the allure of this kind of love. People want it. It just seems right and perfect and happy to
so many. If only we could sustain those
lovey-dovey feelings throughout the year.
But we can't. Because like chocolate
m and m's, this kind of love will not sustain us. Like one-inch ice - it looks thick, but it
won't hold us up.
It is unfortunate in the English language that the word
love is used in so many different ways to mean so many different things. We love our houses, our cars, our favorite
chairs. We love to play golf or bridge
or basketball. We love to travel. We love our favorite sports teams. We love our dogs, cats, or hamsters. We love chicken soup, or chocolate, or a
juicy red steak. We love Mozart or
Monet, Shakespeare or Hemingway. We love
a blue sky, a full moon, and fair weather.
Some of us even love snow, or we did before we got too much of it!
In these cases, love means "we feel good about" or "we are
inclined to enjoy highly." In almost
every case, we "love" the way these things make us feel - happy, or smart, or
athletic, or thoughtful, or comfortable, or engaged, or delighted, or
challenged, or awed. We use the word
love to describe our positive feelings toward any kind of experience.
We also use the word to describe our heartfelt, tender feelings
towards family members, friends, or a significant other. The same word is used to describe very
different relationships. The way I love
my parents and my sisters is different from the way I love my close
friends. The way I love my son is different
from the way I love my husband.
The Greek language uses several different words where we
translate only "love." C.S. Lewis, in
his book The Four Loves, takes a look
at four different Greek words that are all translated "love" in English. The first is "storge," which is an
affectionate love - the kind of love we have for our pets and for our favorite
chair, or our favorite seat in our favorite café. Another word is "filia" - the kind of love we
have for friends. A third word is
"eros." This word refers to the state of
two people "being in love." The fourth
word is "agape," which is the Greek word Paul uses in our text for today. This word transcends our normal
understandings of love and moves into an understanding of love in the way God loves us, and in the way we are
called as Christians to love one another.
C.S. Lewis, in writing his book, first wants to acknowledge
that love is not easy. Love requires a
great deal of us and opens us up to risk rejection, pain, and sacrifice. He writes,
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love
anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you
want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not
even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your
selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will
change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable,
irredeemable. . . .The only place
outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and
perturbations of love is Hell.1
I can't help but think of J.D. Salinger, the author of the
classic novel, The Catcher in the Rye,
who died just over a week ago. Disgusted
with his fame and following, he became a recluse and for over fifty years lived
alone on a 90-acre compound in New Hampshire, with as little human interaction
as possible. Even his groceries were
delivered to his garage where he would leave an envelope of money to pay for
them. As Lewis wrote, "If you want to
make sure of keeping it intact, give your heart to no one." Though I don't know for sure, it seems that
this was Salinger's goal. If we don't
ever give our heart away, then we don't have to worry about it getting broken.
And that's fine for him.
But it's not fine for us. Because
we are followers of Jesus and Jesus' message, if anything, was a message of
love - and love can't happen apart from our relationships with God and with one
another. Jesus teaches about love first
as the love that showers down upon us from on high - God's love for
us all - unconditional love, the love of a creator for the created, a love
that is beyond comprehension, a love that cannot be defined in human
terms. God's love for us is the kind of
love that, once understood and accepted, creates such love upwelling in us, so
that our love overflows in abundance to all who are near. The love Jesus shared and the love Paul
preached about to the Corinthians is a love modeled upon the love God has for
us all - agape love.
Recently, in the News
and Observer, I read about a woman from Durham who was in Haiti on a
mission trip when the earth shook and devastation covered the huge city. She ended up on a playing field of some sort,
soccer, I think, and very soon realized that the needs around her were endless
and way beyond her training. People were
injured and bleeding and in pain and she and her friends scrambled to do what
they could for those in need. As she
cared for the injured, she was approached by a woman who was in labor. "Can you deliver my baby?" the Haitian woman
wanted to know. The Durham woman told her
she had no training, that she couldn't possibly be any help. But the Haitian woman begged for her to
try. And so she did. Many would have turned away. Delivering a baby in the ruins of a hospital
building with no medical training is not for sissies. But it is the kind of thing that agape love
would do.
Paul is writing to a people who haven't shared agape love
in awhile. They can't stop fighting and
they have let their differences and their sinfulness keep them from acting
toward one another in unselfish love.
The Corinthians are like the most dysfunctional church you have ever
heard of or seen. Everyone is after
their own interests. Everyone is taking
care of number one. Everyone wants to
look good, have the power, and make the decisions. And Paul has had it up to here. So he lays it on the line:
You think you are all that because you can speak in
tongues? Poppycock! It's nothing but noise if you don't love each
other.
You think you are all that because you are prophetic? Ridiculous!
All your prophecies are empty and hollow without love.
You think you are all that because you give so much money
away? Doesn't mean a thing without
love. Nothing. Nada.
Zilch.
Paul doesn't mess around.
"You people have great gifts for ministry. But they don't mean a thing - not a single thing
- if you can't love each other. Empty,
noisy, pointless, and shallow. Agape
love is the greatest good. It surpasses
all else. And here's what it looks like:
Agape love is patient - even with the person who drives you
batty with all her questions, even with the person who can't seem to
understand, though you have explained it to him a million times.
Agape love is kind.
Kindness implies thoughtfulness and gentleness. Even with those who irritate us at work or in
the grocery line. Even with those who
slow us down with their bad driving.
Even with those whose opinions we think are wrong. Even with those who are not kind to us.
Agape love is also not envious or boastful or arrogant or
rude. If we love with agape love, we
don't desire what the other has, because we don't need what the other has - no matter what our situation in
life. We have God's love and that allows
us freedom from the envy of another. And
we don't have to puff ourselves up with boasting or arrogance. We don't have to prove to ourselves or anyone
else that we are worthy of love. We know
it already in our heart of hearts because we accept God's agape love for
us. And that frees us to love others unselfishly
with the same agape love.
Agape love is not irritable or resentful. These emotions come about when we think we've
gotten a raw deal, when we think we deserve more, or when we think the scales
are unbalanced. But agape love reminds
us that it's not about us! Our lives
point upward to God and the knowledge of God's love for us leaves us free to
love others without keeping score, without irritation or resentment.
Agape love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in
the truth, for truth is of God.
Though we use this passage often at weddings, agape love is
not meant to be confined to life-partners.
Agape love is meant to be the love that the community of Christ has for
one another and for those around them.
Agape love is the kind of love we are called to share with everyone we
meet. It is the kind of love that Christ
shared with us ultimately on the cross and it is the kind of love Christ calls
us to have for one another.
"Agape love is impossible," I hear some of you whispering
in your inner minds. I know you are
whispering that because I am whispering it, too. But it is only impossible if we rely on ourselves for its generation, which is
what we do most of the time and which is why we get it horribly wrong. You see, we are not capable, on our own, of
agape love. We are only capable of agape
love when our eyes are clearly set upon our Lord, when we focus our attention
upon the God of love - the one who creates, redeems and sustains us throughout
all of life.
Friends, this God of agape love meets us at the table today
- in bread and fruit of the vine, as we take into ourselves the Christ who has
given all out of love for us. There is
no greater gift than what God has given us in Jesus Christ - grace, peace,
hope, redemption, and unconditional love and acceptance. Are you prepared to receive this gift here
today? Are you prepared to live in agape
love toward God and all people? Come to
the table. Be filled here that you might
fill others along life's way.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Copyright 2010: Mindy Douglas
Adams
1C.S. Lewis, The Four
Loves.
