+Growing up, my
family didn’t say “I love you.” It wasn’t that my family was cold... I knew I
was loved…but we were the poster-child for WASPs—White Anglo Saxon Protestants. In our Irish family, talking was very
popular, but talking about feelings? Not so much. Our family, more than
anything, avoided being vulnerable…and talking about love made my family of
origin far too vulnerable for our WASP sensibilities.
But love is a
whole lot more complicated than just saying
it. In Greek there are a number of words to describe the various and sundry
things our English word LOVE describes. Love, as expressed by Jesus, is “agape”
literally translated as: a Feast of Love. Perhaps instead of calling our service “Holy Eucharist” we
should call it a Love Feast, for that is exactly what we’re doing, we’re Feasting
on Love. Once fed in this manner we are strengthened to go out into the world,
seeking and serving Christ in all others.
It’s good we’re
strengthened, for when we commit to
living out the message of Christ in the world—being his hands and feet, his
eyes and ears, and his mouth—we are making a significant, difficult and
lifetime commitment. A promise to live according to the Greatest Commandment, the greatest two, actually, upon which
hangs everything else: Loving God with all our might and loving our neighbors
just as God loves us.
In the Jewish
tradition there are roughly 613 commandments, (go ahead and count they are
listed in Deuteronomy and Leviticus) and it was out of those 613 the Pharisee
in today’s Gospel asked the question: which of these is the greatest?
Now of course,
this was a trick. For by asking Jesus to name the greatest, they are backing
him into a corner of blasphemy—for to place any of those commandments above
another was to violate the very law the commandments outlined. However, Jesus,
in his way, outsmarted them, for he didn’t “diss” the other laws, he just said
that the rest of them flow out of the two he mentions. In shorthand Jesus is
saying Love God because by loving God—by actually trying to give God back a
modicum of what God gives us--- we will be filled with such an abundance of
Love that loving our neighbor—loving everyone, no exceptions—will come more
naturally.
In
other words, You gotta give it. You’ve gotta do it. Love isn’t just a noun.
It’s also a verb. As one commentator notes:
Biblical love is not passive and it is not strictly emotional. In the
Old Testament, there are references to many kinds of love, but the love
referred to here by Jesus is… far from passive. It is the active response of
the faithful person to the love of God...To love God with all one's heart, and
soul, and mind, is to choose to respond to [God’s love]. Feelings and emotions
do not enter into the equation.[1]
My parents would
love this quote---especially the part about feelings and emotions------but of
course, we aren’t talking about the love we have for our parents, our children,
our spouses or partners. We’re talking about God’s love for us and our love for
God. The love from which all other love flows. What today’s Gospel commands us
to do is to allow the Love we experience when we are fed at this table to
nourish us in the ways of Agape---in the ways of a Love Feast. And, when we’re
nourished at this feast, we can’t help ourselves, we must share this love with
others, by acting out of Love, in Love and through Love. Clayton Schmit, a
seminary professor puts it this way:
This means that, to those with whom we are intimate, to those we do not
know, to those who may be dirty or repugnant, and even to those who harm us, we
can act according to the law of
love. We can be merciful and
gracious. To love the neighbor as ourselves is to make a conscious choice and act upon it. …
When we love God's people, we are always, and at the same time loving God.[2]
You see, as UCC
minister Kate Huey says:
[The] primary component of biblical love is not affection but
commitment. Warm feelings of gratitude may fill our consciousness as we
consider all that God has done for us, but it is not warm feelings that [the
Greatest Commandment] demands of us but rather stubborn, unwavering
commitment" [3]
Commitment means
giving of ourselves, it means giving this place (GS, ASC) your time, your
talent and your treasure. It means increasing your pledge or pledging for the
first time---not because I ask you to, or our stewardship speakers ask you too,
but because your love for God is so great you feel compelled to return that
love to God…..
And, we return that
Love by taking what we’ve been given—for all things come from God------and give
it back.
Now, some of you
may be thinking, all I have to give God is heartache, bills, poor health, and
unhappiness. You know what? That’s OK, give it to God. Let God have it. If you don’t feel you have any bounty at all, if
you feel as if God hasn’t given you anything good, then give all the bad back
to God. For God can take it. God will take it. God wants to take it. You see,
that’s what this Agape, this God Love is all about-----God loves us so much
that God wants all of us---our heart, our mind, our soul, our anger, our fear,
our sadness….and our abundance, our joy and our bounty. God wants it all.
We fail to live
into the Love commandments when we stop giving it all to God. As long as we
hold onto what we have—good bad and ugly--- as long as we refuse to give any of
it up--- God is left out of our lives. And God, above all else wants to be part
of our lives. That’s why God took on skin and bone, heartache and pain in the
person of Jesus---because God wants the whole of the human experience.
Maybe that’s the
best way to understand this God Love, this Agape----God so loves us, God even wants
us on our worst days.
Love isn’t just a
noun, it’s also a verb.
Biblical Love
isn’t just a feeling….it’s an action. Love isn’t a sentiment as much as it is a
commitment. Feeling Love is one thing, doing Love is something altogether
different.
[1] Clayton Schmit Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church
Oak Brook Associate Professor of Preaching Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena,
CA www.workingpreacher.com accessed 10.21.11
[2] ibid
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