(Accompanies the story “The Hornbill” from The Manger is Empty by Walter Wangerin Jr.)
The story of the Hornbill opens us
to an understanding of love that goes deeper than words and intellectual concepts. Love is word that is used often but I think
misunderstood and often misused.
People usually use love to refer to
an intense feeling. But love as the
Bible describes it is something much deeper.
You may have heard that while we have one word for love in the English
language the Greek language has three: eros, agape, and philia. That is true.
You may have heard people make a big deal about the three. And indeed, it is helpful to be able to
separate out erotic love, or eros, from other understandings of love. Some may a distinction between agape and
philia. Perhaps there is, but for the
sake of the New Testament authors, they use them interchangeably. In today’s gospel reading from John 21 both
are used when Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” It is for stylistic variation and not to make
a subtle point.
What then is love? You can define it many ways. I like to define it as doing whatever is in
your power for the benefit of another person.
Love then can have very little to do with feelings and very little to do
with actually liking someone. It is
quite possible to love someone you strongly dislike. And I think that is the sense of love St.
Paul is using in 1 Corinthians 13, which often wrongfully ends up being used as
a sappy Bible text at weddings.
Love is doing whatever is in your
power for the benefit of another person.
There is no strategy and no selfishness in love. Truly loving is very hard. And I think it is actually impossible for
us.
In
Luke 6:32 we find Jesus saying, “If you love those who love you, what credit is
that to you? For even sinners love those
who love them. If you do good to those
who do good to you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners do the same. If
you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to
you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to
receive as much again. But, love your
enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” (Luke 6:32-35)
That’s
really challenging. But then Jesus goes
on with something very true but something we immediately start to use as a
strategy - and thus mess up love. Jesus
says, “… and lend, expecting nothing in return.
Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High;
for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is
merciful.” (Luke 6:35-37)
Us
being the clever people we are instantly start to strategize. “Ah,” we say to ourselves, “if I love other
people and work to build them up that will please God. If I please God then God will look favorably
upon me and like me. God may make my
life easy and certainly give me eternal life.”
If that is true then loving is just a strategy to please God for the
ultimate purpose of personal gain.
I
don’t care what grades you got in school, you’re smart enough to think you can
exploit God. You’re smart enough to know
that if it’s really about eternal life then better to suffer a little now and
be rewarded later. St. Paul even said in
the text we read from Romans last week, “I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to
us.”
Is
that then even scriptural endorsement of: please God now and be rewarded
later? …love then is a powerful strategy
ultimately employed for personal gain. Seeing
love that way (while one can certainly get there through scripture) is
completely missing the point.
In
the video the adult Sunday school class watched just before worship the
presenter, Luke Johnson, wrapped up his remarks by making a distinction between
“religion” and “magic”. By magic he does
not mean the visual tricks and illusions some people can invent. He is talking about living in a strategic way
that will bring upon your life the power and blessing of a supernatural force;
a deity, or “God” if you like. Indeed,
look at the ancient Greek religions and their stories; although I think Luke
Johnson wouldn’t call them “religions” so much as he’d call them “magic”. Those stories are all about people doing
things to please the gods and get their divine favor for life. But is that really loving? No! Of
course not!
We are going to begin reading through
Mark’s gospel in January. We should be
all the way through it during worship by Easter. Mark’s gospel is among the most tightly and
brilliantly constructed pieces of literature ever written. Details down to the absolutely minute carry
incredible meaning. If you know Mark’s
gospel well, or if you remember from three years ago when we read through it,
there is one and only one time in the entire gospel that a human character
recognizes Jesus as the Son of God. Who
is it and when does that recognition happen?
It
wasn’t the disciples that’s for sure!
It
was the Roman pagan centurion overseeing the crucifixion, and he says it at the
moment of Jesus’ death. For Mark, the
ONLY way to understand Jesus’ identity is as the crucified one. Mark does not have any resurrection
appearances in his original writing.
Other later authors added some to his writing.
From
very early on in the gospel Jesus is predicting his death. Close to half the gospel is focused on Jesus
journey to Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus
starts getting in trouble with the religious leaders all the way back in
Chapter 2!
You
may remember me asking this before. What
is the most important holiday of the year?
It certainly isn’t Christmas!
Easter might come to mind but that’s missing it too. It is Good Friday. Good Friday is about love in its purest and
most powerful form. Good Friday is about
the work of salvation being accomplished.
Mark’s gospel focuses there because he knows that’s what Jesus is all
about.
Theologian
Tom Long points out that Jesus shows what it is to be most fully human, and
ironically most fully alive, when he is innocently executed.
I
don’t say this as a downer at all. I am
pointing out where our scripture takes us, because it shows us the real power
of love.
None
of us loves perfectly – at least I can’t.
I think all of us, to at least some degree, have a bit of strategy in
mind when we love. Fortunately God is
forgiving and does not require perfect love from us before being loving towards
us. However, the truly find the
overwhelming and eternal power of love, one lives by it with no expectation of
return or reward whatsoever.
To
truly love one must first realize that one is good and capable and
powerful. It is to realize that you have
good and important things within yourself that can be a blessing to
others. You have them because God gave
them to you and they cannot be exhausted.
Your ability to love, your God-given value, is a renewable energy source
– not a fossil fuel which will eventually run out. And so you can give of that inexhaustible
goodness from God. In so doing you
discover your truest self.
Ironic,
counterintuitive, maybe even crazy – yep.
But that is love. That is how God
runs the universe and how God is acting to save it.
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