What Does Love Do?

The last few Sunday’s it’s been nice seeing more and more of our people returning from Florida and Arizona and other warmer climates. If you’ve recently returned from a place like Florida, and even if we haven’t, we understand a basic truth: the climate controls the crops – you don’t see the same plants and trees in Florida or Arizona that you see on Cape Cod. Orange trees and cactus probably wouldn’t do so well here in February. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of corn in Iowa and orange groves in Florida. The difference in climate and soil conditions leads to different crops.

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April 26, 2015
Romans 13:8-10, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, 1 Peter 1:22, What Does Love Do?
Pastor Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church

The same thing is true in churches. On Friday and Saturday Jill and I and Marilyn Raatz attended the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts Annual Gathering in Leominster. We had the chance to talk with folks from all over the state, attend workshops, listen to speakers, and to hear some really great music. It was very worthwhile. As I sat through four different workshops and listened to presenters and people it underscored a couple of my core beliefs about the purpose of the church. Our task is to love God and to love people – if a church isn’t doing those two things – it really doesn’t matter what else it’s doing. As author Herb Miller points out, church climate controls the crops and one of the climate characteristics most essential to a vital congregation is love.

Not only is love important in churches, it’s critical in all of our relationships. There have probably been more songs written about love than anything else, but when I talk about love in our relationships, I’m not talking about romantic love (what the NT calls “eros,”), nor am I talking about our love for our brothers or sisters, (what the NT calls “philia”). We’re talking about what Jesus calls “agape” the kind of love that seeks to serve the other, that first seeks the good of the other. The Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” We might say, “All you need is agape.” Listen to a few key scriptures about love.

Romans 13:8-10, “⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, “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. 8 Love never ends.”

1 Peter 1:22, “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.”

Victor Hugo, best known for writing the novel Les Miserables stated, “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.” What is love? Love is “will to good.” When we love someone we seek what is good or best for that person. Love’s opposite is malice, and love’s absence is indifference. Love is not the same thing as desire; I can desire something without wishing it well, much less willing its good. On the way back from Leominster yesterday, Jill and I stopped at Kimball Farms which is one of the best ice cream places in New England. I desired a black raspberry frappe. But I did not wish it well; I wanted to drink it. This illustrates the difference between desire which tends to be much more about satisfying our own needs and wants, and love.

What characterizes the deepest essence of God is love – that is, will to good. It’s not hard for God to love, but it’s impossible, given the divine nature, for God not to love. In 1 John 4:19, we’re told, “We love because God first loved us.” The supreme message of the Bible is that God loves us and in our relationships and in church we have the opportunity to share love with others and to receive love in return. When we know and believe that God loves us in an incredibly sacrificial way, then we’ll be able to love others in a deeper and more Christ-like manner. Romans 5:5 says, “and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” God’s love is amazing, steady and unchanging, and God’s love sets us free from sin and shame and brokenness.

1 John 3:16 teaches us, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Fourteen times in the New Testament we’re told to “love one another.” Loving one another is shown every day in the little things, in how we treat people. Loving one another is connected to being kind, forgiving, listening, praying for, serving, caring, confessing, bearing burdens, strengthening, and having fellowship. Do we keep our word – are we trustworthy; do we honor others and our commitments to them – do we show them respect? There are many ways to demonstrate love in our relationships and in church including while we’re at BBC going out of our way to greet and talk with newcomers or guests.

Loving one another in the same way Jesus loves us is an element of healthy relationships and a primary value of following Christ. We don’t want the Good News of God’s love for us in Jesus, which the scriptures tell us to share, to become the Good Rules we are trying to enforce. What Jonathan Swift wrote many years ago is still sadly true today, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

We all need God’s help to love. In his book Life After God, Douglas Coupland writes: “My secret is that I need God – that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.” We all need God to help us love because without God’s love in our hearts we’ll prove ourselves incapable of loving others as Jesus does. And the cost of failing to express love, whether verbally or non-verbally, can be devastating. Perhaps that’s why a poet wrote:

“If ever you are ever going to love me,
Love me now, while I can know
The sweet and tender feelings
Which from true affection flow.

Love me now while I am living.
Do not wait until I am gone
And then have it chiseled in marble,
Sweet words on ice-cold stone.

If you have tender thoughts of me,
Please tell me now.
If you wait until I am sleeping, never to awaken,
There will be death between us,
And I won’t hear you then.

So if you love me, even a little bit,
Let me know it while I am living
So I can treasure it.”

There are many tangible ways to express love and as author Gary Chapman shares, we each have love languages that mean more to us than others. Chapman suggests that Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Gifts, and Physical Touch are five love languages we can use to express love to others. Which of those means the most to you? Do you know which of those is most important to those closest to you? It’s worth finding out. As we seek to love others, 1 John 4:12 reminds us, “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” A mother and daughter were having lunch after some shopping. Sitting near them was an older woman who ate silently and appeared to be extremely unhappy. As they got up to leave, the mother walked over to the woman and said, “Excuse me, but you remind me so much of my mother. Would you mind if I give you a hug?” The older woman beamed and gratefully accepted the hug. It obviously made her feel much better. “That was really sweet, Mom,” the daughter said when they got outside, “but I didn’t think she looked at all like Grandma.” “Neither did I,” said the mother cheerfully. Even if there’s a person we wish we could express love to who’s now gone, there are many more people desperate for a touch of love.

Paul’s familiar yet powerful words about love from 1 Corinthians 13 that we’re so used to hearing at weddings were not originally directed to a love struck bride and groom. They were delivered to a congregation where members felt they were rich in spiritual gifts and knowledge and felt like they were lacking in nothing. But they couldn’t see how they were deceiving themselves about their spiritual maturity and love, which they lacked in their relationships. Their focus on one aspect of church life or a particular leader in the church they claimed to be following was producing quarrelling, discord and division. What Paul says love is and does – patient, kind, rejoicing in the truth, bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things – is what the people of the church were missing and failing to do with each other. What Paul says love is not – envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, insisting on its own way, irritable, resentful, and rejoicing in the wrong – is how the members of the church were behaving with one another. We need to get it right.

Love never ends. Love is the gift that lives on because the power of love is so transforming and we may never know the impact of sharing love with someone else. Teddy Stallard certainly qualified as “one of the least”: disinterested in school; musty, wrinkled clothes; hair never combed; one of those kids with an expressionless, glassy, unfocused stare. When Miss Thompson spoke to Teddy in her 5th grade class, he always gave one-syllable answers. Unmotivated, and distant, he was just plain hard to like. Even though his teacher said she loved everyone in her class the same, down inside she wasn’t being completely truthful. Whenever she marked Teddy’s papers, she got a certain perverse pleasure out of putting Xs next to the wrong answers, and when she put the Fs at the top of the papers, she always did it with flair. She should have known better; she had Teddy’s records and she knew more about him than she wanted to admit. The records read:

First grade: Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but poor home situation. Second grade: Teddy could do better. Mother is seriously ill. He receives little help at home. Third grade: Teddy is a good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year. Fourth grade: Teddy is very slow, but well behaved. His father shows no interest.

Christmas came, and the boys and girls in Miss Thompson’s class brought her Christmas presents. They piled their presents on her desk and crowded around to watch her open them. Among the presents there was one from Teddy Stallard. She was surprised that he had brought her a gift, but he had. Teddy’s gift was wrapped in brown paper and was held together with Scotch tape. On the paper were written the simple words, “For Miss Thompson from Teddy.”

When she opened Teddy’s present, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume. The other boys and girls began to giggle and smirk over Teddy’s gifts, but Miss Thompson had enough sense to silence them by immediately putting on the bracelet and putting some of the perfume on her wrist. Holding her wrist up for the other children to smell, she said, “Doesn’t it smell lovely?” And children, taking their cues from their teacher, readily agreed with “oohs” and “aahs.”

At the end of the day when school was over and the other children had left, Teddy lingered behind. He slowly came over to her desk and said, “Miss Thompson…Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother…and her bracelet looks real pretty on you, too. I’m glad you liked my presents.” When Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her.

The next day when the children came to school, a new teacher welcomed them. Miss Thompson had become a different person. She was no longer just a teacher; she had become an agent of God. She was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. She helped all the children but especially the slow ones, and especially Teddy Stallard. By the end of that school year Teddy showed dramatic improvement. He had caught up with most of the students and was even ahead of some.

Miss Thompson didn’t hear from Teddy for a long time after he finished fifth grade. Then one day she received a note that read: “Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know: I will be graduating second in my class. Love Teddy Stallard.” Four years later, another note came:

“Dear Miss Thompson, They just told me I will be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stallard.”

And a few years later… “Dear Miss Thompson, As of today I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I wanted you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now: Dad died last year. Love, Teddy Stallard.”

Miss Thompson went to that wedding and sat where Teddy’s mother would have sat. She deserved to sit there; she had loved Teddy in way he could never forget.”

The love of Jesus Christ is what can truly transform the human heart. This is the love that God pours into our hearts and we in turn love God and Jesus, and others as well. “God’s love conquers sin, wipes out shame, heals wounds, reconciles enemies, patches broken dreams and ultimately changes the world, one life at a time.” In Act 1, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Helena says, “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” When we let God love us, we will have love to share with others that will impact all our relationships.

Examine your life this week, asking yourself, “How much love is demonstrated in my life?” *List what you need to change about your attitudes and actions toward those around you. In what small or significant ways can you demonstrate the gift and fruit of love this week? John Wesley wrote, “We should always remember that love is the highest gift of God. All our revelations and gifts are little things compared to love. There is nothing higher in religion. If you are looking for anything else, you are looking wide of the mark. Settle in your heart that from this moment on you will aim at nothing more than that love described in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. You can go no higher than this.”^[1]

Blessing: “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 John 3:18, 1Corinthians 16:14

Questions for Discussion or Reflection

1. Love is “will to good.” We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake. Why do you think the Bible speaks so much about the importance and priority of love?
2. Why does Paul say in Romans 13 that love is the fulfilling of the law?
3. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a describes what love is and does (patient, kind, etc.) as well as what is love is not and does not. If you evaluate yourself, how well are doing at living out what love is and does? Are there aspects of love that are easier or more difficult for you, for example, do you find it easier to be kind than patient?
4. Why does 1 Peter 1:22 tells us that it’s after we’ve purified our souls by our obedience to the truth that we have “genuine mutual love?” How do we love one another deeply from the heart?
5. Victor Hugo wrote the supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. One of the characteristics most essential to a vital congregation is love and acceptance – why is this true?
6. Examine your life this week, asking, “How much love is demonstrated in my life?” List what you need to change about your attitudes and actions toward those around you. In what small or significant ways can you demonstrate the gift and fruit of love this week?

 

[1] Richard Foster & James Bryan Smith, Editors, Devotional Classics, Harper San Francisco, 1990, 282.