love,love,love,love

from my message on 5/6/12 from I John 4:7-21

Love, Love, Love, Love.  I don't much about love, but what little I know is this:  it take more than one word to describe what love is.  Our English language is so limited because we have just this one word for love.  Thank goodness that years ago, I ran across  a little book by C.S. Lewis, called the Four Loves, which talks about the 4 Greek words used for love.  As I have taught about this in the past, some youth especially found it helpful to have words for what they were feeling.  I hope it helps you today to see where you are in relationship with others and with God.

Storge is the first word, which might be known as affection in English.  It is the humblest and most modest form of love.  It is the love that exists between parents and children.  It is natural, built-in.  Even animals practice this kind of love.  You can have a whole flock of sheep, and the ewe and its lamb will find each other out of the crowd.  For whom do you have affection?  Who has affection for you?  Is this where you with Christ?  Remember how he said that he is the good shepherd and that he knows his sheep and they know him?  Do you feel that affection for Christ?

Philia or friendship is the second form of love.  You have heard this in the American city, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.  It is often ignored, maybe because so few experience it. It is the least natural, instinctive, or necessary form of love.  We cannot choose our family, but we do choose our friends.  What a gift it is to find someone else who says, "What, you too?"  You find that you have a commonality.  Here's what I have found:  that you if you have 2 to 3 good friends over a lifetime, you are rich indeed.  Who are your friends?  Who is the person you could call at 3 a.m. for help?  Is this where you are in your relationship with Jesus?  Remember how he said, "I no longer call you slaves/servants; I call you friends." 

Eros is romantic love or being in love, the third word for love.  Here all rational calculations are thrown out the window.  They are irrelevant when it comes to being in love.  Maybe you have been in love?  Isn't it a bit crazy?  People try to talk you out of it.  Edwin Friedman, the rabbi/psychotherapist who taught me family systems,  said that he thought he never did any good when it came to pre-maritial counseling.  The couple was moving at each other at the speed of light.  They only had eyes for the other.  Nothing could penetrate that.  Have you been in love?  Maybe even now?  Have you ever been in love with Christ?  I have read a little book called The Dark Night of the Soul.  We think it is about being depressed or struggling in our faith, but that's not the impression I got when I read it.  The Dark Night of the Soul was about longing to be with the Beloved, about having a lover's tryst with Jesus.  Is this where you are?  Are you in love with Christ?

Agape is the fourth expression of love.  The best illustration of this love is Jesus on the cross.  It is the self-sacrificing, self-giving love.  It is the love that calculates the cost and yet still loves.  This kind of love makes one vulnerable.  To love like this means you will be hurt.  Lewis says, "the only  place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell."  Twenty-nine times in this passage the word used for love is agape.  It is God's love for us.  But we can also love like this.  "We love, because he first loved us."  Once we have experienced this love, we can love others the same way.

Chuck Colson, one of Nixon's hatchetmen, was caught, convicted, sent to prison. He had a conversion experience and became a Christian.  He started a prison ministry.  He was talking with his son, Chris, about evidence for God.  The grandson, Charlie, then 4, interrupted.  "But grandpa, there is a God."  Chuck nodded, agreeing with him. "See, if there wasn't a God, people couldn't love each other." 

Is this where you are?  Have you experience the love of Christ to the point that you can love others, even the unloveable, knowing you probably will be hurt?

The General Conference of the UMC has just wrapped up.  This meeting of some 1,000 delegates from around the world comes together every 4 years to see how we can share Christ's love in the world.  It can be difficult as Robert's Rules of Order, 1000's of petitions, motions and seconds, and substitute motions get tossed about.  I was reading the blog of our lead clergy delegate from the SWTx Conf, Laura.  She shared a bright moment that came from a testimony from a clergy in our area, a woman named Lorenza Andrade Smith.  Lorenza's ministry is with street people.  She was trying to get into a homeless shelter in San Antonio to spend the night.  She was trying to bring her paten (plate for communion bread) and chalice (cup for the grape juice) into the shelter with her.  The shelter wouldn't allow for that, as her paten and chalice could be used as weapons.  So Lorenza went to sleep on a bench outside of the Alamo.  There she was arrested for vagrancy and taken to jail.  The punishment for her crime was to do community service...wait for it.. at the homeless shelter she was trying to enter!  These (holding up the paten and chalice from our communion table) are our weapons in the world, to share the love that Christ has for us with others!  That is the good news I have to share today.