Chapter 2

Love

“This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.”

Philippians 1:9–11

“All you need is love,” wrote songwriter John Lennon. “Love changes everything,” wrote two other songwriters, Charles Hart and Don Black, for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Aspects of Love.

So, what is ‘love?’ Have you ever really thought about what love is? Have you wondered about what it means for someone to love you, or for you to love them? How does love make that relationship different to all the other relationships you have?

What does it mean to love God? What does the parable Jesus told about a good Samaritan tell us about our neighbours and what it means to love them?

What is it that we feel when we love someone or something? How does our love change or influence the way we act, what we say, and the words we use?

When we are genuinely loved, we are wanted, welcomed and upheld. That is true, even in those times when we are not nice people to be with, when we are angry, cross, shouting, argumentative, and wanting our own way. Love affirms us, holds us and keeps us; love brings us back into reality, helping us grasp what is truly important and what is trivial. Love provides for all that sustains us in mind, body, soul, and spirit. Love cares for us when we are hurting, sad or anxious. Love protects and wants the best for us.

Love is loyal and powerful. Bishop Michael Curry spoke a lot about love at the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markel in Westminster Abbey in May 2018. He said, “There’s power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There’s power in love to show us the way to live.”

That is the kind of love that most of us, hopefully (although sadly not all) receive from our families, as children, as husbands or wives, and as parents. Whatever our tantrums, tears, or temper, whatever we have crumpled, cracked, or crushed, we are still wanted and cared for.

Love is what you have for your two-year-old son when you have finally smoothed out the bubbles in the last piece of embossed white wallpaper you have been hanging to redecorate the dining room. As you stand back to admire your work, suddenly, he takes a black wax crayon and starts scribbling all over the most complicated piece to cut around a door frame, and there isn’t enough on the roll to strip it off and start again, and so you have to patch it! Yes, that really happened!

Love is what God poured out on Israel when he poetically described to Ezekiel[1] that he, God himself, would be the shepherd of the flock. God would lead them to green pastures and still waters, places of tranquillity and peace, but also places of sustenance and plenty and all that is essential for life.

Love is what God has given us through Jesus, sending him to take human form, revealing himself to be love embodied in flesh and blood, born into the world, to live our life, enjoy our pleasures, experience our challenges, anguish and sorrows. In his love for us, Jesus identifies himself with us. In his love for us, he died upon a cross, making the final and perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.[2] Jesus gave up his life for the well-being of others. As we stand and gaze at the cross, it is impossible not to see the lengths to which God’s love has gone for us and sense the power and possibilities that love extends to us. We see in Jesus that love is sacrificial, redemptive, rescuing, releasing, restoring, reinstating and renewing. John puts it like this in his first letter, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”[3]

Love is transformative. Love has changed the world and will continue to change the world.

Love is what the Apostle Paul wrote about in Chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians, emphasising that love is patient and kind.

We may not always be patient and kind, even with those we love, but impatience and unkindness are not characteristics of love. There is a reason that love is patient and kind, that it holds you even in your nastiest moment, and that reason is its source - God is love.

Am I patient? Am I kind to those I say I love? How marvellous that God is kind and patient with me.

Paul also highlights what love is not.

When we love someone, we are pleased for their successes and celebrate their achievements. Jealousy and envy are not characteristics of love; neither does love brag about what it has. Love is concerned more about others rather than self. Indeed, true love is sacrificial; we give up self - our wants, our needs, our desires - for the sake of those we truly love.

Love that puts the other first is a love that is not jealous, proud or boasting. When we genuinely love someone, we put ourselves out for them. We take our sons to football or the Boys Brigade and help them with their homework. We visit our parents on a Sunday afternoon, even though we would rather be watching golf on the TV. When we truly love someone, we want to live our lives with them; we want to share experiences with them, go on holiday with them, see that film together, cry together when the dog dies, and even be with them when they get that bad news from the doctor.

If we really love someone, we do things we know will please them; take the bins out without being asked; give them flowers, for no reason at all; do those little things we are asked to do, even when sometimes (or often) we do not really want to.

Love does not guarantee smooth or happy relationships, nor relationships free from differences and disputes. Those who love one another can differ, there can be arguments, and there can certainly be times of sadness, challenge and difficulty. In these times, remember that love is patient and kind; it holds no grudge, nor keeps a record of wrongs, seeking to raise it again later in order to score points so as to win one over on others.

Love is not pleased about and does not celebrate others’ misfortunes, nor delight in wrongdoing. Love prefers to celebrate the truth.

Love puts up with others’ foibles, always protecting and trying to see and seek the best in others. We all fail one another from time to time. We do things deliberately or without thought which can harm, infuriate, frustrate or even provoke. We face competing claims on our time, energy, money, and other resources. We may need to take our daughter to a dance class, but that might prevent us from seeing our parents. Demanding work responsibilities may cause us to stay late, missing that anniversary meal with our loved one, yet true love is always willing to forgive and to be forgiven.

Love trusts, and when loving is difficult and demanding, it perseveres, struggling on without giving up. Love’s characteristic of perseverance is what is expressed in the wedding service when couples promise to love each other for richer or poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as they both shall live.

The language we use when we love someone is different to the language we use when we don’t. This isn’t a question of romance but one of dignity and respect. Paul urges us to ensure that our “conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.”[4]

It is one of the Ten Commandments to use God’s name with dignity and respect.[5] How can we love God if we degrade his name to profanity? Jesus tells us that blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is the only sin that will not be forgiven.[6]

James observes that although the tongue is a very small part of our bodies, it can have a huge impact. He says that the tongue is like a rudder of a ship, a small part that can turn a huge ship around, or like a tiny spark that can set a whole forest on fire.[7] Consequently, we need to speak carefully and considerately. James drives the point home, saying that fresh water and salt water cannot flow from the same spring, and so similarly, it is not possible for us to use our voices to praise God and then to curse people who are made in God’s image.^[8]

The Apostle Paul encourages us to get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander.^[9] He encapsulates the language we should use in order to demonstrate our love of neighbour. Writing to the Ephesians, he says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”[10]

Points for reflection

1. What does it mean when someone says, “I love you?”

2. Is it easier to love than to hate?

3. Does loving someone imply granting their every whim?

Prayer

Loving God, you are the source of love. I thank you that you have given us the emotion and feelings of love. I thank you that you love me, and I thank you for the love I receive from others. Help me to love you and to love those you have made in your image - both those I know personally and people I will never meet. Amen.

[1] Ezekiel 34

[2] Hebrews 10:1–18

[3] 1 John 4:10

[4] Colossians 4:8

[5] Exodus 20:7

[6] Matthew 12:31–32

[7] James 3:3–6

[8] James 3:9–11

[9] Ephesians 4:31

[10] Ephesians 4:29