Love

(Given at Upavon on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 8th. September 2002)

Lessons. Ex.12.1-14 Rom.13.8-14 Matt.18.15-20

St. Paul tells us to love one another, and goes on to remind us to love our neighbour as ourself. What, then, is this 'love' all about ? It is not easy to define. For example, I may say: "I'd love a cup of tea", I love my wife or my husband, I love my children, I love to be beside the seaside, I love Mahler's eighth symphony. I'd love to get hold of a copy of that book - and so on. All with different slants on love. Most of the pop music, when we CAN make out the words, is about 'love'- used as a euphemism for something else. I could go on.

This confusion is due partly to the English language having only one word for 'love'. The Greek language in which our New Testament was written has several.

The is 'eros' for sexual attraction, 'storge' for family affection, 'philia' for friendship, 'philanthropia' for humanitarian concern, and most frequently in the New Testament - 'agape'. That word, 'agape' is used for God's love toward mankind, AND for the ideal of mankind's love toward God, AND for the spiritual love people ought to have have for each other.

'Agape' represents that sort of love which has nothing to do with the satisfaction of biological instincts. It has little to do with the expression of taste or preference, little even to do with the our obtaining satisfaction from company, comfort, nourishment or entertainment. Rather is it the recognition of mutual and communal needs and surrendering to them - the abandonment of self-seeking.

You will be familiar with St. Paul's attempt to define 'love', or 'charity' as the King James Bible calls it, and which is summarised in our offertory hymn today. "Love is kind and suffers long, love is meek and thinks no wrong, love than death itself more strong" - and so on.

We see this 'love' in the life and attitudes of Jesus. One of the great differences brought into the world by Jesus was his telling his disciples to love their enemies.

The Old Testament had sanctioned vengeance - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

"O God, to whom vengeance belongeth" begins Psalm 94, and several of the Psalms refer to God's wrath against the heathen.

Jesus said "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." He himself prayed for those who brought him to the Cross, and THAT is strong evidence of his divinity.

We can see much evidence of Old Testament vengeance in the middle east today. Can we see enough evidence of the advice of Jesus being taken in the so-called Christian world?

In many of our common uses of the word 'love', there is implied the receiving of satisfaction.

When I was a teenager, too old to be cuddled by my mother and too young to have a girl friend, I remember shocking my mother by suggesting that the only reason to love anyone is so that we can receive affection.

Well, that is one reason. We all need affection. But if that is the ONLY reason, then our love is self-based and self-seeking. In the end it is likely to lead to the quarrel, the alienation, the divorce-court or the "not-on- speaking-terms" syndrome.

For Jesus, love asked for no reward other than the satisfaction that its action was God-like. "Love your enemies", he said, "and expect nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be sons of the most high." (Lk.6.35)

The Christian life is the working out of the principle of love in all social attitudes and relationships. It is trying to do the best for all, all the time, simply because we know that in doing so we are thereby imitating Christ.

And Christian love is something that goes on - and on - and on, whatever the change in the situation may be, however often that love may be rejected.

In the Song of Solomon we read that "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

The Lady Julian of Norwich, of her mystical visions says, "I saw that God is to us everything that is good and for our comforting. He is our clothing, which, for love, enwraps us, embraces us, encloses us, and for tender love, that he may never leave us."

That is how God loves us. It is with that persistent unending love that we are called by Jesus to develop towards each other.

Last Sunday might I was listening to Radio 2. It's not a programme I follow closely. Its usual contents are not my thing. But I like listening on Sunday nights to Alan Keith's selection of popular classical music. Last Sunday his last offering was that wonderful Hymn, "O Love that wilt not let me go". It was beautifully sung by the Glasgow Phoenix Choir. We shall be singing it as our last hymn today.

Then there was an astonishing coincidence.

The programme finished. Before I could stir myself to switch off, it changed to a programme of dance music and 'Big Bands' such as were popular in my youth. Henry Hall, Geraldo, Albert Sandler, Victor Sylvester, Glen Miller and so on. The first item last Sunday was Jack Payne's Orchestra, with a vocalist singing in foxtrot time. The words went like this:

You can throw a brick through my window,
You can put tacks in my shoe
You can put soot in my porridge
But you can't stop me loving you.

Different words, different music, a different level of expression, but the same message. Need I say more ?