First Love, True Love

A Sermon by Nada Sellers

October 30, 2005

1 John 4:7-21

First love...  Bet I know what you're thinking!  Can you remember what he or she looked like?  Her name?  Where his desk was in third grade?  How she wore her hair and the color of her lunch box?  Those crushes many of us experienced back in our days as youngsters sure made an impression upon us, didn't they!?

Unfortunately, “love” has become one of the most maudlin and meaningless words in our vocabulary.  According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the definition of love has to do with sex and sports: an “intense affection and warm feeling for another person; strong sexual desire for another person; a strong fondness or enthusiasm; or a zero score in tennis.¹

"Ah Spring, when a young [person's] fancies turn to love..."  "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day; thou art fairer than...." "Come my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened, and the pomegranates are in bloom.  There I will give you my love..." (S. of Songs 7:11-12)  "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are of fire, a raging flame.  Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."  (S. of S. 8:6-7a)

As you have already guessed, my topic for the morning is the sublime subject of love, at least some aspects of this enormously important and popular subject.  St Augustine once said of love:

Love is a delightful word, but the thing itself is even more delightful.  I can't be speaking of it all the time.  I have much to do, and my various activities distract me so that I'm not always at leisure to speak of love, even though there is nothing better I could do.  But even if I can't always be speaking of it, I can always keep it in myself.²

Love is a delightful thing, a many splendored thing, but what exactly is love all about? 

According to the songs on the radio and scenarios that are played out for us on the television screen or in the movies, love is lust.  We get the message loud and clear: "Get all you can get."  "If it feels good, do it." "Pleasure counts!"  Ads up on billboards, in magazines and during our favorite TV programs try to get us to believe that if we wear a particular cologne, drink certain fruit juices, flash their special credit card, drive their soigné and over-priced car, and so on, that we will be desirable, eminently loveable people.

Love, from this world's perspective, becomes conditional and guilt inducing.  "If you love me you'd.... (you can finish the sentence any number of ways.)"  "Honey, if you love me, please buy me this, please do that."  By popular culture’s standards, if you have a beautiful face and a fantastic figure, and you are dressed in the latest fashion you have definitely got it made.  If you lack one of the above, you may still have a chance.  Lack two and you're pushing it; lack all three and you may as well throw in the towel.  Who cares that your personality, and character far outshine those of the person who has looks to kill, but the disposition of a snake?!  So what if you have integrity, honesty and a caring heart; this world values outward commodities over inner quality.

Love, on a this-worldly plane, is manipulative and self-centered.  People will treat you right as long as you can give them what they want.  When they are finished with you, they will toss you aside with little or no thanks.  Love, as given out by the world around us, leaves one feeling used, abused, worthless, and helpless.  With this being what so many, many people experience of love, it's no wonder they soon become cynical about the value of true love.  They begin to feel as does the writer of the familiar folk song "Lemon Tree."  In it a father advises his son: 'Don't put your faith in love, my boy...I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree...very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet; but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.'  "In short," remarks my seminary professor, Marianne Meye Thompson, "dream about love, sing about it, write about it - but avoid it, for it does not bring hope and joy, only hopelessness and bitterness."³

The truth is, people like you and I desire a love that leaves them feeling whole and affirmed.  One that builds them up and looks out for their best interests.  A love that challenges and encourages them to be their best for their own sake.  All of us long for a love that will claim us as we are and set us free to become the persons we were intended to be.   Some of you may have noticed the story that hit the newsstands this past Thursday about the basketball superstar, Sheryl Swoopes, the Houston Comets forward.  Swoopes has accomplished nearly everything in women’s basketball: 3 Olympic gold medals, 3 WNBS MVP awards, 4 WNBA titles and an NCAA title. She is truly a remarkable athlete, and her story became even more remarkable when she chose to tell the public this week that she is a lesbian, raising her 8-year-old son, Jordan, in a committed relationship with Alisa Scott.  “It’s one thing to be able to show your affection and to show who you love out in public as opposed to having to hide it…I just feel like I’m able to be free.”⁴  Nothing in her whole career, according to Swoopes, prepared her for the attention she received when she made her announcement.  Personal integrity and the support of her teammates, the league’s officials, and her family have all encouraged Swoopes to reveal the love she shares for another…

Where do we find such love?  Is there a Shakespeare sonnet we could consult?  A "Dr. Ruth" in the house, who can advise us on the subject?   Maybe there’s one of the recent self-improvement gurus who could enlighten us?   Believe it or not, the answer to any search for true love, is found in this morning's text, in three simple words, "God is love."  Love is not a what, love is a who. 

God is love.  In the Guinness Book of World Records there is listed the shortest sermon ever preached.  It was given by John Albrecht, an Episcopal priest in Michigan. He stood in his pulpit to preach, paused, and said "Love!" Then he sat down. Some of Albrecht's members said it was the best sermon he ever preached!!⁵  God does not aspire to love, God is love!  Love is not just one of God's activities or pursuits, but rather, all of God's activity is loving activity.⁶  To know what love is like - what true love is all about - is to know what God, the source of all love, is like.  And what do we know of God?  "This is the how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him." (The Message) 

The Christian affirmation that God is love is not given credence by ignoring the difficult and ghastly suffering of the cross.  The Christian affirmation that God is love sets the cross first in the line of proof that God loves us.  In fact, all of Christ's life, up to and including the cross and then the empty tomb and resurrection, is a love story shared with us, the beloved, by our supreme Lover, God.  You see, God's love is that self-less, true love that gave of itself in order to break down the barrier of sin that kept us from God.  This abundant love means for us mortals, the difference between life and death.  God loves us this much: he took the initiative to set the relationship right again.

"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."  As one ancient writer put it: "I should not have known to love the Lord, if he had not loved me.  For who is able to distinguish love, expect the one that is loved?"⁷ First love ... true love.

God's love exists in us only as we respond to God's love toward us.  And God's love for us defines what love requires.  "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made perfect in us."  No one has ever seen electricity, but we know that it's there because when we flip the switch, the light comes on.  No one has ever seen wind, but we know that it's there when we see the trees bowing down.  No one has ever seen God, but we reveal God's presence when we show love toward each other.... If God is love and we are God's offspring, then we much reflect God's nature.  There should be a family resemblance by which people recognize us as the children of God.

Several years ago, the program "Unsolved Mysteries" covered the stories of children who were illegally adopted from an orphanage in Tennessee.  By the time several of these children reached adulthood, their biological families began looking for them, and eventually found them.  One woman received a phone call from her brothers and the next day she was on a plane to Tennessee.  She didn't wear a red carnation, nor hold up a sign to identify her self.  But as she got off the plane her brothers picked her out immediately.  How did they know? One brother said, "She's the spittin' image of her mother."  Another woman's brother drove to her home to meet her.  As he and his wife pulled into the driveway, they saw her sitting on the front porch.  "Why she looks like your brother Ben!", exclaimed her new sister-in-law.  In both cases it was their family resemblance that gave them away.

As children of God, it isn't how we look or even what clothes we wear or car we drive, but rather how we act toward each other that should give us away.  Jesus told his disciples, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13:34-35)  First God loved us, so we love too.  And we are able to be love-givers, because Jesus loved us fiercely.  The love we share is NOT one that originates in the human heart, maybe the kind that your early crush in grade school was able to evoke in you.  Rather, it is unmerited, creative love, which flows from God to believer and from believer to believer.  This love is about a consuming passion for the well being of others.  It expects the best from us, and the best, as we know, seldom comes without effort.  In fact, this love asks a great deal of us.  One writer puts it this way; I think you'll agree:

Love will make demands on us.  It will question us from within.  It will disturb us.  Sadden us.  Play havoc with our feelings [and assumptions].  Harass us.  Reveal our superficialities.  But at last, it will bring us to the light.⁸

True love like this does make demands on us.  It commands that we don't always insist on our own way; or upon the way it's always been easiest for us to handle.  It charges us to listen to one another, to rejoice together, and to cry together.  It directs us not to take the easy way out and not to let the other do so either.  It insists that when our brothers or sisters fall down, we help them back up.  We are not to leave them wallowing in their shame or despair, and we certainly are never to rub it in their faces.  Sometimes, our love has to be tough enough to confront un-loveliness for the loved one's good.

There is another dimension to love when it is founded in God: it will never run out.  Nor will it somehow corrode or become moth-eaten.  Such love is other-centered, especially toward those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, where they are, and sometimes in spite of where they are.  St Maximus, the Confessor exhorts:

… As memory of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not produce the light of knowledge in the soul.  Whoever entertains in [their] heart any trace of hatred for anyone, regardless of what the offense may have been, is a complete stranger to the love of God.⁹

Those are strong words, and I dare say, hard ones to live up to.  Still, it does challenge us to consider how we love.  Remember that when John calls us to "love one another," he is talking about those in the household of God.  Elsewhere, however, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  That doesn't mean we have to love or even like the wicked behaviors or attitudes involved.  But the persons themselves are to be loved with the love of Christ; and Christ is the only one we can turn to in order to gain the ability to do so. 

What we're saying then, is that the shape and character of human love needs to be patterned after the model of divine love: you can't live in God and be hateful.  Nor is it possible to truly love and not live in God:

... the shape of perfect love is triangular: love comes as a gift from God that enables us to love each other and so return to God the first that is given to us...Where any one leg of the triangle is missing, love remains incomplete and immature.  But where the triangle is whole, love is complete.¹⁰

When we can live and love in the completeness of this three-way pattern, John tells us that "we may have confidence on the day of judgment."  We can live without fear of the coming "day of the Lord."  We have kept the faith, and honored this covenant of love. 

Augustine was right, you see, love itself is a delightful thing.  But we surely need a more in-depth understanding than the fleeting romantic images that usually come rushing into our thoughts. Instead, let’s aspire to be lovers based on our true first love in partnership with God. Remember the inner things, and let go of all those outer trappings. Look for the hope, and the freedom, and the joy that can best be found, when God is the lover we pursue.  I close with a part of a prayer by Kenneth Phiffer:

….If we humans can manifest unselfishness and concern,
is it not because such experiences are of the very nature
of what is most important?
For out of the heart of the Lord Jesus
came evidence of his love
for all kinds of people,
and his refusal to give up on any of us.
I am grateful for that love and for that refusal,
for in him I have hope.
I can even hope,
that I may catch more of his Spirit in my life…Amen.¹¹

Notes