A Four-Letter Word
This is one of those passages of scripture where you could just say, “Amen” and sit down, for the Apostle Paul has pretty much covered the subject of love in these thirteen verses in his letter to the church at Corinth. We are all pretty familiar with the words, for we have read them… or heard them read to us… many, many, many times. The only insight that I might bring to this reading today is, perhaps, a deeper understanding of that four-letter word “love” means from an examination of the original language that the Apostle Paul used in his writing.
Why is it that we who have many different words for the verb “write”… like inscribe… record… compose… jot… dash… create… engrave… note… mark… have only one word for “love”? Ancient Greek had at least three words for love: philios, eros, and agape. Philios is a love that is bound by duty and responsibility, as well as loyalty and affinity. It is the love that we refer to when we say that “blood is thicker than water.” Those who are related to one another are bound together by blood. This is the same bond that is shared by blood brothers, who commingle their blood when they take a loyalty oath to protect and defend each other and to retain what belongs to them. It is the love upon which clans and fraternities are built… the love of brother for brother and the loyalty demanded by that relationship. This was the love of the early church written about in the Acts of the Apostles, where Christians came together to see that no individual among them suffered want. They cared for each other out of a sense of loyalty to the church… a sense of duty and Christian responsibility… as members of a family. It is the same loyalty that brings families together in times of crisis… to protect the family and the members of it.
Eros is sensual love… erotic love… physical passion. It is the sexual attraction of one individual for another… an attraction rooted in physical desire. It is the love of a man and a woman… the love of lover and beloved. It is a love that finds pleasure in the shape of another’s body… a woman’s eyes… a man’s biceps… a woman’s bosom… a man’s chest… a woman’s lips… a man’s thighs. It is a sensual love… aroused by smell… touch… sound… anything that calls to mind the physical pleasure of being with another. It is a passionate love… a love that is driven by instinct and need… a love that is primal and without reason. It is the love of poets and musicians… a love that can be destructive in its self-serving and other-seeking passion.
Agape, the word that is used by the Apostle Paul throughout this chapter in his letter to the church at Corinth, is a love that transcends the bounds of both passion and duty. Some call it a moral love, but that description does not begin to touch the vastness of agape love. This is not a love born of physical attraction to another. This is not a love born of loyalty or a sense of responsibility. This love encompasses all of that and much, much more. This is the love of the Creator for those he created… like the self-sacrificing, all-encompassing love of a parent for a child… or a husband for a wife… but exploded to several orders of magnitude… to the infinite reaches of our imagination. It is a love born of awe and profound wonder… a love born of surpassing joy and infinite tenderness… a love born of limitless inclusiveness and boundless forgiveness. It is a love born of a endless desire for an intimacy with another that far surpasses the physical… the desire to be one with the other… the desire for a relationship that knows no bounds. This is the love of John 3:16… “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This is a love that seeks no cause…no end…no reward beyond itself. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once said, "I love because I love; I love that I may love." This is the love of John 15:13, where Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This is the love of God for his people … the love of the Shepherd for the lost sheep… the love of Jesus for his disciples… the love of our Savior for us.
From time to time in this world, we hear stories of such a love. In his book, All Rivers Run To The Sea, Eli Wiesel, the renowned Jewish theologian, tells of his family, living in Hungry during the dark days of the WWII. His family was waiting for their time to come, for the Nazis to arrive at their door and take them to labor camp. He tells about a peasant woman by the name of Maria. Maria was almost like a member of the family. She was a Christian woman. During the early years of the war, Maria visited them, but eventually non-Jews were no longer allowed entrance to the ghettos. Undeterred, Maria found her way through the barbed wire and came anyway, bringing the Wiesels fruits… vegetables… and cheese.
One day, she came knocking at their door. She told them of a cabin that she had up in the hills. She wanted to take the children… of which Eli was one… and hide them there before the Storm Troopers came. After much debate, the Wiesels decided to stay together as a family, although they were deeply moved at her offer. Eli later wrote: “If other Christians had acted like Maria, the trains rolling toward the unknown would have been less crowded. If priests and pastors had raised their voices, if the Vatican had broken its silence, the enemy's hand would not have been so free. But most thought only of themselves.” “I think of Maria often, with affection and gratitude,” he continued, “and with wonder as well. This simple, uneducated woman stood taller that the city's intellectuals, dignitaries and clergy. My father had many acquaintances and even friends in the Christian community. Not one of them showed the strength of character of this peasant woman. Of what value was their faith… their education … their social position, if it did not arouse their love?”
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and a faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give everything I have to the poor, but have not love, I am nothing.” I am currently reading another book by Eli Wiesel entitled Night. In it, there are countless stories of love… of a Jewish mother who gave her children to total strangers to save them from certain death… of a Jewish son who gave his father his own food portion in prison camp in hopes of preserving his life, even though he was later executed… of a German woman who risked her life to bring food to the prisoners.
Ralph W. Sockman once noted that Toyohiko Kagawa, the Japanese Christian leader, distinguished three levels of love… slightly different from the ones identified by the three Greek words philios, eros, and agape. The first of these is physical love which, he said, holds people together in families. "Above this level,” he said, “is a plane which Kagawa calls psychic love. Psychic love includes our association in friendships, in professional and social groups, and in all those relationships which rest on community of mental tastes." Kagawa then designates a still higher level of love based upon conscience. "If one is walking along the road with an enemy on his right hand, and a sinner on his left, and if he can walk with them without accusing them, or if he can halt his progress to help them, then he has risen to the plane of conscientious love. Such was the love which Jesus manifested, and to which He summoned his followers, bidding them to do good to those who hated them. What stories have you heard of such a love?
(Responses from the congregation)
Agape is the word that Luke used when he quoted Jesus, in chapter 10, verse 27, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Luke then shares Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, in verses 30 to 37, to illustrate who our neighbor is. It is not a love that is earned… but it is the love of unmerited grace… the boundless love of God described in Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 5, verse 8, where he says, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” “While we were yet sinners…” Think, for a moment, about the people in your own life. Are there individuals in your life who have said something… or done something… for which you cannot forgive them? What would it take for you to love them the way that God loves you… even though you have often offended God? To love them not out of Christian duty or family responsibility… not out of physical attraction or sensual desire… but out of a love born of wonder… awe… joy… a love born of a desire to be one with the one loved?
Jesus spoke of the love that God has for us in his Sermon on the Mount. In it, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, beginning in verse 9, he asks, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.” “In everything, do to others… not as they do to you, but as you would have them do to you.”
We can not… and we should not… escape the obligation to love, because when we cease loving, we cease being human… we cease being the creature created in the image of God. So, the next time you feel anger overwhelm you at an irresponsible driver on the road… or a store clerk who is slow in responding to your needs… or a waitress who gets your order wrong… or your spouse when he or she makes a mistake… or another member of this congregation who has offended you… I want you to see that four-letter word “love”… L…O…V…E… that “agape“ love in your mind and remember that God loved you before the world began… loved you with a deep, unreasoning and irrational love that knows no bounds… and calls you to love others with that same “agape” love today. Amen.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30