Redefining Love

Reverend Debbie Cato

John 15:9-17

Peace Presbyterian Church

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 10, 2015

Redefining Love

Back in the 1960’s, there was a great Beatles song – “All You Need is Love.”

                           All you need is love, love; Love is all you need.

The 60’s were a turbulent time and the answer – at least from the young people, was that the answer to the world’s problems was an enthusiastic embrace of love – love would make all the problems go away. All we had to do was love one another. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

This idea of easy love is not supported in today’s Gospel lesson. Yes, Jesus certainly praises love. In fact, He commands us to love. He tells us that love is a gift from God, an excellence of character. Jesus says that love is not something we do or something we feel. Love is a way of life. But nothing Jesus says justifies love as some naïve ideal; some simple idea of “let’s just all get along.” In fact, Jesus gives us the opposite impression; He gives us the impression that loving one another is hard. When Jesus commands us to love, he says we are to “love one another as I have loved you.” Love one another as I have loved you.

You see, he doesn’t just say “love one another,” does he? He complicates things tremendously when He tells us; when He commands us, to “love one another as I has loved you.” Love one another as Jesus has loved you.

When I work with a young couple through pre-marital counseling, it's interesting to learn what they think is essentials for a good marriage. They are still at the stage in their relationship where they are goo-goo eyed; flooded with love for one another. Often, they imagine their marriage as a perfect replication of their dating; a passionate love not yet tested with the realities of day to day life. They believe that their love is so strong that nothing will change it. Part of my role as a pre-marital counselor is to help them see some reality and develop the tools to maneuver the ups and downs of life together.

When it' time to plan their wedding ceremony it's not unusual for couples to want to use 1 Corinthians 13 – the “love passage.”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

This is a beautiful passage because it reads like a poem. It's romantic. But I always tell couples that as lovely as it is; as beautiful as the words are; it is a hard passage to live out.

The kind of love Paul is talking about is not the kind of love that is about you. It is not self-serving. Jesus' kind of love is concerned about the good of the other person rather than your own good; your own comfort; your own needs. It puts the other person's interests before your own. Jesus' idea of love does not attempt to control or manipulate or dominate or possess the other person.

You see, the problem us English speaking people have is that we have one word for love and so it’s hard for us to really understand what this passage teaches. We say that we love God, we love our spouse, our children, our families, and our friends. We say that we love chocolate or coffee or lemon meringue pie. We love a joke, a certain restaurant, or our job. But I do not love a joke in the same way that I love chocolate or in the same way I love my daughters. And the way that I love God is different than all of those. Yet the word love is the only word we have that communicates that we really, really like something or that something is really, really important to us!

In Greek, the language that this passage was originally written in, there are multiple words for love that convey a different intensity or depth of feeling. There is one word for the kind of love that you have for friends and there is another word for love that expresses the romantic love or physical attraction that is felt between a couple. And then there’s agape – the Greek word for love that is used to describe the way that Christ loves us. It is this word – agape – that is used in this scripture passage describing the kind of love that a husband is to have for his wife and the kind of love a wife is to have for her husband. It is the kind of love we are to have for one another.

When we remember that Christ loved us so much that he died on the cross for the sins of the world, we begin to understand that the love of Christ is complete sacrificial love. It’s a love that isn’t based on what we do or who we are – after all Christ died on the cross to save a bunch of sinners.

And it’s this kind of love – agape love that’s used in our passage from John this morning to describe the kind of love we are to have for one another. The kind of love Christ has for us. It is more than just a feeling of euphoria, it’s a deep disciplined habit of care and concern for one another that is deeply woven into our lives in such a way that we might even find ourselves called to die for it.¹ It is complete sacrificial love.

How can we possibly love in this way? It’s impossible, we say. “We” gets in the way of sacrificial, perfect love. If we truly could love one another as Christ has loved us, there would be no divorce; there would be no broken relationships; there would be no pain and injustice; there would be no hatred; no racism. There would be no war. No murder; no violence. “How is this kind of love possible?” we ask. Sacrificial love does not come easily.

And of course the answer is; it’s not possible. At least not on our own. It is only possible through Christ. It’s only possible because Christ loves us in this way. And through the love of Christ; out of this huge well of divine love, we can draw in the love we need as we move out with our much tinier containers into a love-starved world. We do not have the resources of love we need within ourselves. But in our spirit-filled hearts and minds and souls, we can constantly draw from this deep well of Christ’s love in us.²  A love that never ends.

Jesus is commanding us to pass on the same undeserved love you have experienced and continue to experience each and every day from Jesus to the (perhaps) undeserving but hurting people around you. Jesus gave up his life for his friends – in fact, for the whole hurting world – including his enemies. Jesus now asks us to give up our lives for our friends, and for the hurting and sometimes enemy world around us.

In his commentary on today’s text, Dale Bruner said, “The inhaling of an undeserved divine love for ourselves and the exhaling of our all-too-human

but still well-intended love for others, is the breathing exercise that all disciples must try to practice every day.”³ I like that. We breathe in the undeserved love from God for ourselves each and every minutes of each and every day. As disciples, we are called to breathe out that same undeserved love on others. Breathe in the love of God for us. Breathe out the love of God from us to others. God in. God out. Breathe in. Breathe out. God in. God out.

And how is this love expressed? How does the world see our love for Christ? The same way that Christ shows his love to us – a high bar indeed.  We must transform the love of Christ into a joyous existence; bearing good fruits and dwelling in a loving, accepting, united community. Love will become a transforming power more than a superficial and emotional expression. We begin “loving our enemies; doing good to those who hate us; blessing those who curse us; praying for those who abuse us.”⁴ We feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort those who struggle and those in pain. We fight for justice for the oppressed. We do the things that Jesus was about.

In our gospel lesson this week, Jesus speaks of his extreme love for us. He calls us His friends. He says that He makes known to us everything that He hears from God. How does thinking of Christ as your friend and lover – or your Lord and Master – affect your daily living? How does it affect our priorities? How does it affect our interactions with one another?

We will have to draw from the deep well of God’s love for us in order to love

one another and to love our neighbors well enough to transform our little corner of God's Kingdom. I think this is what Jesus is talking about when he commands his disciples – when he commands you and me - to “love one another as he has loved us” and to “go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

Let’s be prayerful about how we can live out of the depths of God’s undeserving love. Amen.

1 Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2. P498.

2 Bruner, Frederick Dale. The Gospel of John, A Commentary. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids. P888. Paraphrased.

3 Ibid. P889.

4 Luke 6:27-28