The Meaning of Love





1 Corinthians 13:4-7



4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.





Someday, after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energy of love,
and for the second time in the history of the world humankind will have discovered fire.

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


"You know it's love when all you want is for that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness." 


Respect is a very important part of love.



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Rabbi Jesus was a teacher in the pharasaic rabbinical school of Hillel,
   who was very nearly an elder contemporary of Jesus.

It's actually possible that they met at some point.

I'm enough of an agnostic about such things that I'm not even willing
  to say anything with a degree of confidence
    about the Jesus of history,

but I'm also willing to suspend my disbelief
  in order to say meaningful things about Him
    as if He really were a well documented
      historical figure.

With that in mind,
  His teachings clearly placed him within the party of Hillel.

One of their goals
  was to find a way to summarize the Law, the Torah,
    in the simplest way possible.

Hillel and Jesus both phrased the Golden Rule in one way or another:
   Do not do to others what you find hateful if it is done to you.

- or -

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And so on.

Likewise, the rabbis of the Hillel school
  sought to summarize the 613 Commandments of the Law
    with the most important one or two or ten.

That's where we get the idea of Ten Commandments.

Jesus and Hillel also spoke of the Two Great Commandments:

(1) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
       and with all our soul
            and with all your mind. (!)
               (Take that, Ken Ham!!)

(2) You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

If I may, I want to lay aside the First of the Two for now
  (apart from my rude remarks about the debate
     of Creationism vs. Evolution)

Just considering the Second Great Commandment,
   we immediately come up against the question:
        How on earth can you command anyone to LOVE??

And that question brings me directly to the heart of today's message.

Basically we all try to remember that there are many different kinds of love.

Some languages have more than one word that we would translate as love.

Ancient Greek and the Greek of the New Testament
     had three or four words for love.

I feel sure that contemporary Greek also has and uses all of these words.

I'm not nearly as well versed in the contemporary language as I am
  in the Greek of the New Testament, called koine or keenee
    as it is actually prounounced.

The use of the Greek language to study the New Testament
  and even the Old Testament in its very important Greek translation
    is an interesting commentary on the way religious ideas develop.

In the first place, the pronunciation of Greek words
  in seminaries and among many Bible scholars
    bears no resemblance whatsover
     to the way the Greek language is spoken
       in real life in the world today.

If only I (and many others) had been taught to use
  contemporary Greek pronunciations,
    we would be able to understand a lot of spoken Greek even now
      and it would be relatively easy for us to learn.

As matters stand, we still have to say, "It's Greek to me!"

In addition,
  it was widely believed that the New Testament was written
    in a special kind of Greek
      that was just used for theological discussions.

Just how silly that idea is
   can be seen in the fact that the word "Koine" or keenee
     to use the modern Greek pronunciation
       has been discovered to mean "common!"

When grocery lists and receipts for business transactions
  were found to be written in this supposedly
    theological form of Greek,
      scholars had to admit that the language
         of the New Testament
             was actually

   the language of ordinary, every day life!

What a testimony to the tendency
   to try to make religion into something apart from
       the struggles of ordinary people
          in the real world.

One of the things we struggle with -
   and the insights of New Testament Greek can help us with -
      is the application of the principles
        even the Law
           of LOVE

    to our lives as we live them every day.

C.S. Lewis wrote one of his great treatises in book form,
    including the word, storge, or affection, as one of the four loves.

Affection is the feeling of being accustomed to someone.

It may be the most familiar and comfortable kind of love.

The other three Greek words for love are the ones I usually use:

   philia - brotherly love, as in the City of brotherly love,
          Philadelphia

   eros - erotic love, as in libido,
          which Mike Huckabee
               seems to want to talk about
                  much too much lately!

            AND

   agape - caring, as in altruism
         or putting the needs of another
           above one's own needs.

The best example of the last of these three (or four) loves
   is the love a parent for his or her offspring.

The world of nature reflects this love in many ways.

One of the clearest examples
  is the way a baby's developing bones
    WILL get the calcium he or she needs
      while in utero
         even if the calcium is taken
           right from a mother's teeth.

This love, caring for each other,
  is a choice people can make
    so it makes sense to think
      that it could be commanded.

The form of the commandment in the New Testament
   is very important to our understanding of love
     as a source of ethics.

The commandment says,
   "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

To me that says clearly that self love
  is not only not forbidden,
    it is COMMANDED.

In other words,
  putting others above oneself may be noble and altruistic,
    but that will always be exceptional.

It cannot be part of our everyday lives
  because no one could do it on a regular basis!

The whole idea of enlightened self interest
   has been much abused by Ayn Rand and her disciples,
      but it is a good concept
        when it is not taken to an extreme.

The enlightenment of self interest
   could be simply
      the recognition that other people are also selves
        who also have interests,
          and they have as much right to pursue their interests
            as we have.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence enshrines that right
  as universal
    with the words
      pursuit of happiness.

If we are willing to pursue the fulfillment of our own needs and wants
  at the same time that we give equal weight to the rights of others
    to do the same,
      we are living lives of love
        for ourselves and for our neighbors.

In the case of this kind of civic virtue,
  love is not just an emotion.

Certainly it carries emotional weight.

The emotions around all kind of love
   are among love's most attractive
      and most frustrating
         features.

Yet often the emotions of love
   are the results of choices we have made.

Emotions are neither right or wrong,
   and no one can tell another person how to feel.

Yet love that means caring is a choice that we make.

It may result in feelings of sympathy
  or even empathy
    when we witnes the suffering of another person.

In modern urban settings,
  we cannot allow those feelings to dominate us all the time
    or we would be unable to function.

This is probably why we read about callous people walking by
   when someone is in obvious danger or pain.

At the same time,
  allowing ourselves to make the choice to care
    can result in a much more liveable city and world.

Maybe even more important,
  caring enough to advocate for policies
     that provide for the meeting of people's needs -
       especially the most basic needs like food, shelter
          and human kindness -

    can be a most important expression of love.

This very congregation lives out an example of that kind of love
   in more than a symbolic fashion:

Like many religious communities of various stripes,
  the free will portion of Sunday offerings in this fellowship
     are given to various community groups whose work
       supports the values of this congregation.

Those values are based on love - as caring -
   whether it is described that way or not.

The needs of people who for some reason cannot meet their own needs
   are addressed by community organizations
      that actually provide care and resources
         in ways that individuals
             or even a gathering like this one
                   could not do on our own.

The same sharing of a portion of each Sunday's offering
   is observed in the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse
              in Moscow
        to which Beth and I belong.

In our local customs of giving we see a fine example of caring
  for the self as well as for others.

The whole offering is not given away,
   only that portion that is not designated for pledges
      or local support.

If the whole were given away, there would not long be
    a gathered community here.

The commandment of love
   calls for us to love our neighbors AS ourselves
      not instead of ourselves
         and not more than ourselves

Among religious people and groups
   there is a tendency to venerate the self giving
      that reaches the point of self sacrifice.

This can be a noble example,
  but it cannot be
    and I believe it is not meant to be
       a way of life every day.

Martyrdom is not voluntary,
  to put it mildly.

Treating it as voluntary has led to many corruptions
   of the whole idea of altruism,
       not least of which

   is the act of suicide bombings
     undertaken by desperate people

        to terrorize those they believe are oppressing them.

Such actions are not based in love,
   even for the community on whose behalf they are done,
      but they are often portrayed that way
         by those whose actions are based in hate
             and not love.

That brings me to my final thoughts for today's message:

True love, especially the caring love called agape,
   is not the opposite of hate.

Both love and hate are forms of caring.

Love seeks the good and well being of the one who is loved.

Hate seeks the harm and destruction of the one who is hated.

If we think in terms of caring,
   the opposite of love is actually apathy,
      not caring at all.

To seek the good for the one who is loved
    implies a need to define that good.

I would define the good of the beloved in terms of freedom.

Anything that enhances the freedom of someone we care about
   is the good we are called to seek for her or him.

Obviously that does not always characterize the feelings of love:
  if freedom could allow the beloved to choose against me,
    I would not want to enhance that freedom!

Yet true, caring love
  is characterized by exactly that kind of freedom.

If I am not what is best for a person I love,
  in the sense of caring,
    then I do not want to be that person's choice.

This kind of altruistic love is beautifully represented
   in a quote I recently saw on Facebook:

"You know it's love when all you want is for that person to be happy,
    even if you're not part of their happiness." 

This kind of altruistic love is beyond me -
   and most of us -
      most of the time.

Yet it is the goal of true loving
  both as a personal and as a civic virtue.

It enables us to care about -
     - and receive care from -
          people we cannot like.

It enables us to live in life-enhancing relationships
    with people who are very different from ourselves.

It might even allow people of very different values and ideologies
  to work together for the common good in our society
    and in the society of all of our world.

In the words of the great Christian theologian and paleontologist,
  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,

Someday, after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energy of love,
and for the second time in the history of the world humankind will have discovered fire.

Amen

So mote it be

Blessed be!