Beyond the Patio

THAT WORD AGAIN
John 17:20-26

I was listening to some conversation of some clergy recently in which they almost annoyed that the subject of love appeared in the common lectionary so often. “That word again”, they seemed to be saying. “How often are we to preach on love?”, they seemed to be asking. There was a definite air of frustration.

However these people may feel about it, the whole Gospel of Christ is a Gospel of Love. 

Love is at the heart of the Christian faith. Love is the answer to the world’s needs. It is true that to be commanded to love is like being commanded to march ten miles when we have a broken leg, or to get well when we are sick but as Joseph Donders commented on the command to love in John’s Gospel, the word “command” is to be understood to be more like a prescription than an order, more like a recipe than a demand. It would be like a doctor writing a prescription and saying “take this medication in order to be healthy”, or a cook who says this ingredient is necessary for a good soup. It could even mean something like “it is necessary to have peas in pea soup – it is not pea soup without peas”. So Jesus says to his disciples that love is necessary for a truly human life. The Christian community is not a Christian community without love. That’s how important it is. That is why we never tire of speaking of it.

(Joseph G. Donders Praying and Preaching the Sunday GospelOrbis Books NY 1989 p.116)

 

      This kind of Love is a prescription for the human life

*

There is also a power in Love that connects us with the Power of Gods Love Let me give a quotation of Paul Tillich  He writes in The Power of Love of a Swedish woman who aided prisoners and orphans during the first World War. She ended up in a concentration camp herself because she gave aid and comfort to others:

She became a nurse and began visiting the prison camps. There she saw unspeakable horrors and she, a girl of twenty-four, began, almost alone, the fight of love against cruelty, and she prevailed. She had to fight against the resistance and suspicion of the authorities and she prevailed.  She had to fight against the brutality and lawlessness of the prison guards and she prevailed– She had to fight against cold, hunger, dirt and illness, against the conditions of an undeveloped country and a destructive war, and she prevailed. Love gave her wisdom with innocence, and daring with foresight. And whenever she appeared despair was conquered and sorrow healed. She visited the hungry and gave them food. She saw the thirsty and gave them to drink. She welcomed the strangers, clothed the naked and strengthened the sick. She herself fell ill and was imprisoned— but God was abiding in her. The irresistible power of love was with her—–

It is a rare gift to meet a human being in whom love, this means God – is so overwhelmingly manifest. It undercuts theological arrogance as well as pious isolation. It is more than justice and greater than faith or hope. It is the very presence of God in the form of a human being. For God is love. In every moment of genuine love we are dwelling in God and God in us.”

(Paul Tillich,  The New Being, The Scribner Library, New York, 1955, The Power of Love  p. 29)

 

We also know the opposite of that when people cry out that nobody loves them and they feel that there life is worthless. Most of the social problems that we have in our society is related to that kind of feeling. When I think of the proliferation of the incidents of violence and shootings that have occurred in our schools in recent years, I wonder how many are related to the lack of love in the perpetrator’s lives. Maybe there has been love but they didn’t feel loved. Maybe they confused their hunger for love with a desire for power and control. “Ah!” you might say, “The problems in our society are really due to psychological disorders or even neurological disorders that weren’t recognized and treated in time” I agree, but even the treatment of these disorders have to include an exceptional amount of love for them to be successful.

When a man, who had left the community of faith and became an atheist, returned to the Church, he was greeted by his Pastor with the words, “So, you have finally seen the truth.” The man replied, “No, but I have seen the lies of a world without love.”

Yes Love is the prescription the fullness of life.

*

There is a little cartoon in the Desperate Preachers site  that portrays a person showing scars on his arms. He is related how he received each of the scars. The caption is. “This one I received in the 1960s when I introduced guitars into the sanctuary.” The message is clear: “we may talk a lot about love in the church but don’t mess around with my preconceived notions of how things should be”.

The love that we have in the church needs to be always fed by the highest form of love.  It is the love referred to in todays Gospel when Jesus talks about the God of Love being in him and well as in us:

“…I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John  17:23-26)

  

The love that Christ talks about, the love that he exhibited to the world, the greater love that he was referring to when he said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” ( John 15:13) That’s the recipe.

This highest form of Love is often referred to by it’s Greek name, AGAPE. Sometimes when we think that we are acting in love in the Church we are really acting by some of the other forms of love.

C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves points out that all the other loves known to humans such as Affection, Friendship, and Eros need to be nourished by AGAPE, the higher form of love, for their true realization and happiness. If they are not subject to this higher love, they become distorted and often burdensome and difficult, producing in the end more problems than satisfaction. Our joy is not complete as Christ say it would be if we remain in him and keep his commands. (John 15:9-11)

Lewis points out some interesting things about Affection and Friendship when left on their own. It is interesting to me because it is Affection and Friendship that are the forms of love that are most often promoted in the Church. When left on their own without the higher love they can be a problem.

He talks about Mrs. Fidget who had a great deal of affection for her family. She wanted always to be there for them so she would wait up for them no matter how long they were out at night so that even if they came in during the early hours of the morning, she would be there sitting up waiting for them. They soon felt that they couldn’t go out very often. She wanted always to give them hot lunches even though they protested continuously that they only wanted cold lunches. She protected her children to the extent that she didn’t allow them to make decisions on their own or face life in all it’s reality. Her affection, not being fed by the higher love in which justice, well-being and the dignity of all, are met, turned into meeting her own need to be needed.

When she died the Vicar said, “Mrs Fidget is now at rest. Let us hope she is. What’s quite certain is that her family are.”
(C.S. Lewis The Four Loves Harper Collins London 1998, original 1960, p. 48 – 50)

The same fate can be suffered by Friendship, trying to exist without AGAPE. Groups of friends can become cliques. They can become ‘mutual admiration societies”. Therefore people who run into this kind of friendship can often feel left on the outside. I have experienced this kind of thing in some small churches. There was such a strong friendship among the members that it was difficult for a newcomer to break into. They would try for awhile and then eventually fall away. AGAPE on the other hand is all embracing and inclusive. It takes in everyone, even those who do not have common interests.

There was something I read in Chicken Soup for the Soul some time ago. It was called “I love You More” and written by Christie Hansen and found in the book Chicken Soup celebrates Mother’s.

It was about a conversation that one mother had with her four year old daughter, Amanda. The mother was amazed at how much her child knew at four years old, but was convinced that as a mother who was a couple of decades older that her daughter, she would always know more than her child. The conversation shifted to how much each one loved the other. It was one of those conversations that turned into a competition.  The mother said, “I love you more.  The child, “I love you most”.  The mother, “My love for you is bigger than a volcano”.  The daughter replied, “I love you from here to China”, a country that she was learning about from neighbours. It went on: “I love you more than peanut butter”,” I love you more than TV” , ” I love you more than bubble gum”.  The mother thought she had the last word when you said, “Too bad chickadee. I love you bigger than the universe!”  What could Amanda possible say to that?  But Amanda did have the final word and the mother was taken back when the child said to her, “I love you more than myself”.

 (Christie A. Hansen (c) 2000 from Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Mothers by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Sharon J. Wohlmuth, through the e-mail service.  For daily inspiration visit:  http://www.chickensoup.com )

This was an astounding statement by a four year old because it catches the essence of true love – the highest form of love.  It is a Love beyond self.  It is the love that God has for us.  It is the Love that is referred to in the statement, “Greater love has no one than to lay down their lives for another.” It is the Love that Jesus showed his disciples.  It is the kind of Love that Jesus urged his followers to show for one another. It is the kind of Love that real families and true communities are dependent on. It is the kind of love that we must have if we are to influence the world in any positive way.

*

Jesus’ recipe for our world and our common life in the church today is AGAPE. It’s the main ingredient. We can’t be human without it. We can’t have a true Christian Community without it. You can’t be the church without AGAPE.

The way that we can be certain of it is when we live together through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, allowing ourselves to be led by the Spirit of Christ. That’s the way we keep on listening and that’s the way we keep on loving in the right way.

It’s the way we keep “That Word”.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________