LOVE IS HARD WORK
I Corinthians 13:1-13
I John 4:7-16
Rev. Gary Paterson
February 7, 2010
(Our Annual Celebration of Love and Marriage)
Right near the very end of the Bible, the fourth to last book – the one you’re likely to miss if you are trying to read the whole Bible starting at the beginning –in the fourth chapter of the First Epistle of John…. you will discover one of the wildest claims about the nature of God… God is love. Now, we hear this so often… God is love… that we almost take it for granted, without realizing how outrageous a statement it actually is. There is, frankly, so much evidence to the contrary…an earthquake in Haiti, a bomb in Baghdad, a sex murder in Belleville Ontario, an overdose in the Downtown Eastside, a friend’s cancer diagnosis…. what was it that Shakespeare said in “King Lear’?
God is love… give me a break. And yet… any yet… there it floats in John’s proclamation, over and over… “love is from God,” “God’s love was revealed among us,” “God loved us so much” right through to the grand conclusion of verse 16: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” I want you to pause for a moment, simply to recognize what an amazing, crazy, hope-full, faith-filled statement it is to say, “God is love!”Like flies to wanton boys,So are we to the gods,They kill us for their sport.
Next, I want to jump back to the very beginning of the Bible, to the opening pages of the book of Genesis, in the beginning, where we hear the great stories of creation. And there we discover another wild faith statement -- humankind has been created in the image of God. Yes, mud and water, flesh and blood, a whole lot of carbon, nitrogen, contained in a sea of hydrogen and oxygen atoms wrapped together… and then, something else. Spirit, consciousness, conscience, creativity, freedom… many different ways of interpreting this claim that we are made in the image of God. But what happens if we take the first statement we named – “God is love”, and join it with the second, “Humans are made in the image of God” – wouldn’t the end result be that you and I, everyone one of us is created in love, by love, for love? Would it not be true to say that the very essence of our being is to love and to be loved? Now that’s a faith claim that gives me the shivers.
A memory flash… last August… in the city of Prague, the evening is beautiful and warm, and I find myself, with my spouse, in a restaurant overlooking the Vltava River, in the heart of the city. Across from us we can see the National Theatre, a grand 19th century edifice, all wonderfully lit up, while above, caught in the light, are hundreds of terns whirling around, their white bellies flashing. There are candles on the table; the food is amazing; I’m in love… thirty years, and romance can still surround us. All of a sudden, a jazz trio starts up… soft drums, guitar, and a gorgeous woman with an even more gorgeous voice starts singing. In Czech, of course… but then suddenly, she starts moving around, and it’s English that she’s singing; and I know the tune, start humming along; she notices, she comes to our table, and smiles…
“Nature Boy” – that’s the name of the tune; and if you want a treat later today, go google the tune and Nat King Cole… he’s the one who made it famous back in 1948; or try Celine Dion’s version… trust me, you’ll start to believe that it’s really true, that the greatest thing any of us will ever learn is to love and be loved in return. It is our deepest calling. For we are made in the image of God, and God is love.There was a boy…A very strange enchanted boy.They say he wandered very far, very farOver land and sea,A little shy and sad of eyeBut very wise was he.And then one day,One magic day, he passed my way.And while we spoke of many things,Fools and kings,This he said tome,“The greatest thing you’ll ever learnIs just to love and be loved in return.”And then one day,One magic day, he passed my way.And while we spoke of many things,Fools and kings,This he said to me,“The greatest thing you’ll ever learnIs just to love and be loved in return.”
Now, before I become too gushy and romantic… you think I’m already there?...hey, you ain’t seen nothing… just ask Tim, or my kids…. But a while back I came across an article that defined love in very different terms, that talked about the biology of it all. Which was fascinating … and convincing. Three stages, that’s what was presented: lust, attraction and finally, attachment, and each stage with all the appropriate hormones and chemicals. Lust is where it begins, with a flood of testosterone and estrogen; it comes and goes, can be situation specific, but there’s always enough to drive you crazy and ensure the continuation of the species. I suspect I don’t need to say much more about this. No, I’m seeing too many smiles.
Next though, and here’s where it get’s more interesting, is the attraction stage, when a person begins to focus with a more individualized and romantic desire for a specific person. The article described it as finding a suitable candidate for mating, but I would prefer to think of it as “falling in love.” And this stage too comes with a chemical shower -- pheromones, dopamine and serotonin – all of which zap your brain’s pleasure centre – they say it’s a bit like being hit with a big shot of amphetamine. Same biology. And it brings with it a host of physiological changes… increased heartbeat, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, sleeplessness… hello Romeo and Juliet. It’s a great feeling… trouble is, it usually only lasts from one to three years.
That’s when you begin moving into stage three, attachment. (Or not, as the case may be… some people decide they can’t live without the high of stage two, and so they’re falling in and out of love all the time…. you know anybody like that? Hanging out with any teenagers these days?) Attachment is what leads to long term relationship, and often includes marriage, children, mutual friendship, shared interests… and a lovely flow of oxytocin and vasopressin. It may not provide quite the zap of falling in love, but it’s good; it can be very, very good.
Lust, attraction and attachment. I know what they’re talking about. Been there; done that; still doing it. But somehow I wonder if it misses the poetry of it all; and, as well, the theology of it all. You know what, though… you’ve come to the right place; where better than a sermon to get your poetry and theology fix…
Isn’t that lovely? -- now that’s attachment, that still includes a whole lot of attraction, with maybe even room for a little lust. Who knows?My love is like a red, red rose….Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I will pledge with mine….Let me not to the marriage to true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove….How do I love thee, let me count the ways….Or one of my recent favourites, by e.e. cummings:i carry your heart with me (i carry it inmy heart) i am never without it ….
And then there’s the theology of it all… which is a tricky way to take you back to the opening of this sermon, God is love. I want to invite you to be creative with this phrase, where we don’t think of love as a noun, something to try and define, but rather let it stand as a verb, so that love is then best understood as an action, movement, something you do. Then stretch the thought a little more, if God is love, and love is a verb, then perhaps we can think of God as a verb. Not something to define, but something or someone who is best understood as an action, a movement. What we experience is not so much God per se, but rather God’s actions, God’s presence in the moment, creating, doing, influencing, shaping … loving. Indeed, in his letter, (remember that first Biblical reading) John is quite clear that he is able to make the statement that God is love, precisely because he has already experienced that love; it’s rooted in his lived reality of Jesus Christ: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his Son….” It is in the flesh and blood story of Jesus that we discover God’s love, in the doing, the teaching, the dying and the rising; and thus we are able to interpret and name the events in our own daily lives as experiences of love, the same kind of love that was revealed in Jesus Christ.
Now, move it one more step… when we claim that our life’s purpose is to love and to be loved, we’re talking verbs, not nouns; we’re talking about actions, the doing of love. The biblical understanding of love is all about doing, not feeling. Feelings come and go; but love is expressed and experienced in “conscious, conscientious and concrete” (Marge Piercey’s phrase) actions. It is a discipline of mind and will, not just heart. Surely that’s what Paul was talking about in his letter to the church at Corinth. Have you ever listened to that middle section of chapter thirteen, I mean really listened? These verses probably get read at sixty per cent of the weddings I do, but I suspect that the air is so full of chemistry, hormones, joy and stress that no one catches on:
Love is patient… kind… not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude… doesn’t insist on its own way… not resentful… bears all things….Paul is talking about nitty gritty stuff here; everyday virtues. Sure, go for the flowers and chocolate of Valentines Day – that’s romantic; but wrap it up in patience, kindness, forgiveness and forbearance. That’s attachment; that’s the real poetry.
The other day, I heard how my four year old granddaughter Abby marched over to her mother to announce – “When I grow up, I am going to marry Zachary!” “Well, that’s sweet, honey,” replied her mum, “but you can’t marry your brother.” “Yes, I can!” – Abby is an unstoppable force at times. “What about your friend Nicholas, he’s nice.” “No, I’m marrying Zach.” “Well, maybe Aaron… you really like him, don’t you?” “I want to marry Zach.” My daughter decided then to celebrate what was happening, for you see, it had taken Abby a long time to learn to love her brother. When he arrived in the family two years ago, marriage was the last thing in Abby’s mind; murder was a more probable outcome. It had taken a lot of time and tears, a great deal of parental attention and reassurance, a discovery of how love gets stretched, shared, so there’s enough for everyone, before Abby decided that Zach was a plus, not a minus in her life, in the family. Emily bent down and gave her daughter a big hug; and then Abby said – and I’m not making this up, honest—she said, “You know, Mum, loving someone is hard work.”
Out of the mouths of babes, and all that. Reminds of a friend who once said that loving someone, keeping a relationship vibrant and healthy… well, it was a lot like tending a garden. You turn your back on your garden, thinking that planting the seeds and ooohing and aaahing over the first green sprouts was going to bring you an armful of flowers… well, you were in for an unhappy surprise. A good, fruitful garden needs a ton of tender loving care… weeding, mulching, fertilizing, thinning, with an eagle eye on slugs, snails and aphids that seemed to come from nowhere. You needed to get your hands dirty, almost on a daily basis. You want to learn how to love and be loved in return … do the same thing.
Came across another article (yes, I am in inveterate clipper of newspapers and magazines -- if I get to the Saturday “Globe and Mail” before Tim, well let’s just say that our attachment levels take a temporary hit) … so, this article was talking about some research being done by Robert Epstein, former editor of “Psychology Today.” He believes that you can actually help someone fall in love, not just stay in love. And he outlines specific behaviours that a couple can practice together that will at least give a big boost to the whole attraction dynamic. Like synchronized breathing; prolonged gazing; sharing vulnerabilities, touching each other affectionately, seeking adventures together. Well, you probably already knew that. Seems pretty self-evident. Like gardening. Trouble is, we don’t always act on it!
When I was in India, nearly everyone that I met and talked to was in an arranged marriage, or anticipating the same –“Oh yes, my mother and father will arrange a marriage for me.” Almost no one had experienced what they call a “love marriage” – what we usually have in the west. Different culture; different ways. But those arranged marriages… they seem to work. Not always of course, but then, our Canadian love marriages don’t always do that well either. People in India talked about learning to love their spouse; and there has been at least one study that suggests that the level of contentment, of love, can be higher in arranged marriages than in so-called love marriages. I suspect that we aren’t always clear on the work that is needed to move from attraction to attachment; to get our hands dirty in the garden.
While over in India I was reading Salmon Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Listen to this description of an arranged marriage:
[Amina] began to train herself to love [her new husband]. To do this she divided him, mentally, into every one of his component parts, physical as well as behavioural, compartmentalizing him into lips and verbal tics and prejudices and likes… Each day she selected one fragment of Ahmed, and concentrated her entire being upon it until it became wholly familiar; until she felt fondness rising up within her and becoming affection and, finally, love…. “My God,” she told herself, “it seems there are a million different things to love about every man!” But she was undismayed. “Who, after all,” she reasoned privately, “ever truly knows another human being completely?” and continued to learn to love and admire [Ahmed’s] appetite for fried food, his ability to quote Persian poetry, the furrow of anger between his eyebrows… “At this rate,” she thought, “there will always be something fresh about him to love; so our marriage just can’t go stale.”To love and be loved in return. It’s hard work; there’s a lot to learn. It takes practice, with some mistakes and failures along the way. But it brings deep joy and wonder;it’s so worth the doing. We know this – even though we can’t always do it. And there will times when the best thing to do is end a relationship… I know that; been there and done that too. It’s a challenge to do that in the most loving way as well. But it can be done.
The thing is, I believe that we are most able to engage in this holy calling of love when we know deep within ourselves that we are already loved; there is nothing that we must do in order to earn that love. If we’re lucky, we’ve had a taste of that from our parents; and if we’re really blessed, we’ve experienced it with partners, children and friends. But underlying all these human experiences of love, there lies that crazy faith statement that we started with… God is love. And in the Christian story that belief becomes an underlying fundamental of grace: God loves me; God love you; God loves us; God loves everyone -- even the neighbour that I find irritating, the stranger, and my enemy. It’s when we can hold onto that, when we know it in our hearts, and trust in that love… that’s when we will be the lovers that God has dreamed of.
“Namaste!” my friends. Namaste… that Indian greeting, with hands together, at chest level, almost as if in prayer, accompanied by a slight bow. Namaste…meaning, that which is of God in me… or Spirit, or Holiness, or Mystery, or the image of God…. greets that which is of God in you. Namaste… and may the greatest thing we ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.