What is Love? Rev. Michael Blackwood United Church of Broomfield April 22, 2018 1 John 3:16 24 The Message (MSG) 16 17 This is how we ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. 18 20 My dear children, let s not just talk about love; let s practice real love. This is the only way we ll know we re living truly, living in God s reality. It s also the way to shut down debilitating self criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. 21 24 And friends, once that s taken care of and we re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we re bold and free before God! We re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us. Psalm 23 (Common English Bible) 1 The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. 2 He lets me rest in grassy meadows; he leads me to restful waters; 3 he keeps my soul alive. He guides me in proper paths for the sake of his good name. 4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me. Your rod and your staff they protect me.
5 You set a table for me right in front of my enemies. You bathe my head in oil; my cup is so full it spills over! 6 Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will return in the Lord s house as long as I live. **** It s strange the things that one remembers. I distinctly remember a small, 2 x 3, pink framed comic strip that my step mother hung in the guest bathroom of our home, which incidentally was the men s bathroom. She s got the master bathroom to herself and me, my brother and my father all had to share the other bathroom in the house, which was also the guest bathroom. Yes, we had a comic strip, framed and hung in that bathroom. Based on that fact alone, if you knew my step mother, it would seem very odd. She was born in the 1920 s and had a very, elegant, yet comforting style when it came to decorating the home; lots of soft colors, floral prints and certainly nothing as ostentatious as pop art or a comic strip. But when you know WHICH comic strip it was, it was perfectly her. It was the Love is comic, created by Kim Casali. Back in the 1960 s, New Zealander, Kim Casali began to draw little pictures as love notes for her husband to be, Roberto. The drawings were first printed in small booklets, but soon began running in newspapers and were syndicated in the 1970 s to newspapers worldwide. Kim Casali passed away in 1997, but since then her son Sefano and artist Bill Asprey have continued the comic strip in honor of his mother. The comic is still published daily in newspapers around the world. I don t know about you, but I always wondered why the couple were naked. Isn t it strange? Is there a reason the creator felt that to best way to convey messages about love would be to draw a naked man and woman who were anatomically neutral? I mean if it weren t for the hair.? It could be symbolic, I suppose. An expression that love, in its truest and purest form, isn t disguised or covered up. LOVE is out there, naked and vulnerable for everyone to see. Anyway, I digress. But it really is a cute comic and a really great piece of art that evokes emotions, thoughts, memories and discussions. That s what I ve learned to appreciate about this comic. It addresses the reality of love; it s so simple, but it s also so complex. So, what is love?
**** There are many attempts at defining love. I m not going to put any of you on the spot, like I ve done in the past, but I m sure if I asked anyone here to tell me what love is, they d have an immediate response. They d start to answer, but then.they might start back tracking or second guessing themselves. Well, what exactly do you mean? What are you really asking? Are you talking about love as in a noun or as in the verb? And what type of love are you talking about? <> We ve all heard that there are over a hundred different Eskimo words for snow, right? Aput = snow on the ground Qana = falling snow Akilokoq = softly falling snow Piqsirpoq = drifting snow Qimuqsuq = a snow drift Piegnartoq = the snow that is good for driving a sled There s a little bit of a misunderstanding to this cliché; there really aren t over a hundred words, but there are about 50. Which still highlights the fact that a simple word like SNOW can be simply snow, but really mean more than just, SNOW. SNOW is such an important part of Eskimo life that they found it necessary, vital even, to create words to different all of the important types of snow. So, then what about LOVE? How important is love? Important enough to have over 50 distinct words describing its various forms and connotations? Am I wrong to think that LOVE is perhaps more important than SNOW? So important that perhaps there d be a plethora of word choices? Sanskrit reportedly has 96 different words for LOVE. Anyone here speak Sanskrit? No? I didn t think so. Searching on the internet, estimates for people who speak Sanskrit on a daily basis around the world ranges from 0 to maybe 50,000 (primarily in India). Ancient Persian 80. Again, anyone here speak? Right, moving on. On the internet I found that approximately 110 million people worldwide speak modern Persian languages and dialects, like Farsi, but ancient Perisan languages.the numbers are unknown. Ancient Persian and it forms aren t spoken on a regular basis.
Then there is Greek. Depending upon who you talk to and whether you distinguish between ancient and modern Greek, there are between four and eight words for love: 1 2 I know that Greg and I are familiar with Greek because it was part of our course work in seminary and while I don t think anyone here speaks Greek, I believe most of us are probably familiar with some of their LOVE WORDS. EROS Erotic Love. o The body procreation, passion, lust. AGAPE Selfless Love. o Spirit the highest, most radical type of love; unconditional; bigger than yourself; boundless compassion for others. Love that is felt for that which we intuitively know as the divine truth: the love that accepts, forgives and believes in our greater good. PHILIA Affectionate Love. o The mind friendship, loyalty, camaraderie. STORGE Familiar Love. o Causal kinship, family (actual and otherwise), pets. LUDUS Playful Love. o Emotional affection between young lovers, flirting, fluttering heart, euphoria MANIA Obsessive Love. o Survival instinct a co dependent, unhealthy type of love when EROS and LUDUS are out of balance. MANIA love comes from poor self esteem. PRAGMA Enduring Love. o Unconscious beyond the physical, transcended causal; found in long happy marriages or decades long friendships. It is a practiced, intentional, patient and tolerant type of love. PHILAUTIA Self Love. o Soul if you re going to love others, you must love yourself. It s not narcissism or vanity, but healthy self care. How many words are there in the English language for love? If you check a thesaurus like I did, depending on whether it s a noun or a verb, it offers words like Affection, devotion, emotion, lust, partiality, friendship, a crush, idolatry, treasure, admiration, fancy, caress, lover We re all over the board. I guess that s not necessarily a bad thing. But do these words say LOVE in your opinion? I worry that we run right into that back tracking, second guessing type of situation of what are you really asking? So, back to the question, What is Love? There have been many attempts, by many people, over many, many years 1 https://lonerwolf.com/different types of love/ 2 https://foundinantiquity.com/2013/08/17/greek words for love in context/
Love is a serious mental disease Plato, Greek Philosopher, 3 rd century BC Love means never having to say you re sorry. Line from the 1970 movie, Love Story Love is our mother; We are born of Love. Rumi, 13 th century Persian Poet and Sufi mystic Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes. Friedrich Nietzsche, 19 th century German philosopher Love makes the world go round. Song from the 1961 musical, Carnival Love doesn t make the world go round. Love is what make the ride worthwhile Franklin P. Jones, 20 th century American journalist & humorist Love is a smoke made with a fume of sighs Shakespeare, 16 th century playwright Love is a many splendored thing. Title of 1955 Movie directed by Henry King Love is a battlefield 1983 Song title by Pat Benatar Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand. Mother Theresa [But] love is really more of an interactive process. It s about what we do, not just what we feel. It s a verb, not a noun. bell hooks Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time. Maya Angelou Defining love doesn t seem to be easy does it? And then the word love gets thrown around a lot, very quickly and too often without much consideration. Have you heard someone say, I love my kids and in the same sentence also say, I love pizza? Wait.you love your kids and you love pizza. Does that mean you equate your kids and pizza? Maybe it would be a good idea to have more words for LOVE so there would be better understanding and less confusion. **** When we look to the Bible there is a lot of talk of LOVE; what it means as a noun, as a verb; what LOVE is and what love is NOT.
1 Corinthians 13; love is patient, kind; love is not envious, boastful; love rejoices in truth; love bears all, believes all, hopes all and endures all. Love is a living thing. John 3:16 How much did God love the world? Enough to sacrifice Her only Son. Proverbs 17:17 Friends love through all kinds of weather and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Songs of Solomon 8:7 Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops at nothing it sweeps everything before it. Flood waters can t drown love, torrents of rain can t put it out. Love can t be bought, love can t be sold it s not to be found in the marketplace. From the Gospels, Jesus instructs us on the two greatest commandments; that we should love God with all our heart, our being, our mind and our strength AND that we love our neighbors as ourselves. These are only but a few examples. The Bible tells us what love is, yet humanity continues to try to re define it. Today, we re have a reading from 1 John 3:16 24, which is very direct and explicit in providing us a simple answer to what love is. THIS is how you understand love, experience love, know love There is no doubt in what the author of 1 John is saying, in fact there is great certainty o Christ / laid down his life / for us. o TWO FACTORS The how (action) SACRIFICE The who OTHERS o Love is not about you. Let me restate and clarify Love is YOU understanding, experiencing and knowing that LOVE is not about yourself. Hammering the point home [because God knows what humans are like] o LESS TALK, MORE ACTION Thank you thoughts & prayers, now what are you going to do? o PRACTICE I so appreciate the encouragement to PRACTICE love REPETITION IN ORDER TO IMPROVE THE SKILL
THROUGH ACTIVE, SACRIFICIAL LOVE o We live the KOG o We stop being self critical, we stop having worried hearts Remember that we ve been talking about WHAT LOVE IS How it s difficult to define, are there enough words for the complexity of love, what are we really talking about, etc. etc. etc. We have made LOVE confusing, complicated and undefinable. NO! When we focus on LOVE AS SACRIFICIAL, LOVE AS SELFLESSNESS, LOVE AS CARING FOR OTHERS Love is no longer complex. Love is simple. JUST LOVE EACH OTHER. o This scripture goes on to explain that once we ve embodied this SACRIFICIAL LOVE, we are free. We are free of worries, burdens, concerns and become free to receive from GOD. Believe in the name Jesus Christ and Love each other. Repeating the Gospel message Love God, Love each other. o IF you believe in the name Jesus Christ = YOU will love each other. THIS is how you understand love, experience love, know love o YOU being able to say, Love is not about me. Love is about him, her, it, them. Because if you love them, they love you, but more importantly GOD loves you. Which leads me to our other scripture today; Psalm 23. I know that we are all very familiar with this passage. It s comforting and reassuring. It s so often used in times of death and fear, but it s ideal for praising and thanking God for God s sacrifices given and from which we benefit on a daily basis. It exemplifies the SACRIFICIAL LOVE that our 1 John 3 reading details. In Psalm 23, as the good shepherd the Lord sacrifices and I want for nothing the Lord lets me rest the Lord leads me to water the Lord restores my soul the Lord takes away my fears the Lord protects me the Lord feeds me the Lord anoints me the Lord blesses me abundantly and because of the Lord s SACRIFICING LOVE, goodness and mercy will not only be mine but they will pursue me. and after being out in the scary world, failing and practicing and failing and practicing at SACRIFICIAL LOVE, I get to return to the Lord s house and I get eternal life What is Love? God and Jesus sacrificing for me and me sacrificing for you
What is Love? Love is less talk, more action. What is love? Wanting for nothing because of my Lord, the shepherd. What is love? God is love. AMEN