“Love Actually”

Karen Sloan 09/09/2023

Readings - Romans 13:8-12

13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

13:9 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 neighbour as yourself."

13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

13:11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;

13:12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light;

Matthew 18:15-22

‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’

Forgiveness

Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

This week has been crazy, a funeral of our beloved Glad, and then preparation for a wedding for one of my best friend’s daughters next Friday.  It seems my week began and ended with love.  So I thought that maybe we should concentrate on that just a little bit. 

The readings surprising fit into this thinking.  Paul is suggesting the way we have a civil society is through love.  While I stopped short of reading about drunkenness and sexual immorality, Bill Loader feels Paul is contrasting the love system with the non-love system.  Paul knows that a spirituality seeped in Jesus bears fruit which shows itself in lives of compassion, caring and generosity, because that is how God is. 

Matthew is saying much the same, without love we are quick to judge and slow to forgive. Rather when we come into conflict, we should never write people off, but be open to seeking restoration and reconciliation.  It’s interesting that the additional 2 verses I added, which come after the reading from today, has Jesus telling his disciples that we are to forgive not just seven times, but seventy seven times! The writer of Matthew is suggesting  that when we come into conflict, which inevitably we will from time to time, we should not operate from hate but from love, because that will make the difference.

Anyway, enough of the readings…

Let’s take a journey into love.

Love, it’s what we talks about, sing about, dream about, but what actually is it and where does it come from. Paul has given us a clue…

I have a friend, who was a catholic and is now an agnostic.  He says the only reason he is not an atheist is because of love.  Love, that great mystery that drives us to be better than we are, that drives us to connect with one another, that drives us to look after one another.

When I prepare for a funeral or a wedding, of course we talk about love.  But let’s focus on a wedding, because there is so much hope in that.    What about the love that comes when two people want to spend the rest of their lives with one another.  As I say in the ceremony, the sudden rise in heartbeat, and sweaty palms type of love.  And of course we need that type of love.  But what happens when life does not go according to plan, when we get older, slower, dimmer, and maybe can’t hear one another. And our life is not what we had hoped for.

There is a great quote from the novel , “The Brothers Karamazov, a classic, written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I have used this quote before, but it is one of my favourite and so I am going to use it again today.

“Love in your dreams is such a marvellous and glorious thing.  Yet love in reality is active, labour and fortitude.” 

When I use that quote at a wedding, what I and  the couple are really saying is that here is not the love of a romance novel or a dream, but the mystery of love in real life. A love that requires commitment, fortitude and sometimes labour. 

Because the love that is being affirmed is not just a condition of the heart, that comes and goes, but an act of the will.  And the promise it makes is to will the others good, even sometimes at the expense of our own. Even through the inevitable ups and downs of our messy, chaotic, joyful and sometimes sorrow filled lives. 

In fact, the couple, young and not so young, are committing a life of relationship. A life guided by love but also by forgiveness, compassion, understanding and loyalty. They are committing to each other for the long term, when they have sweaty palms and when they don’t!

It is a huge promise, but a beautiful, exciting promise, as it always is at a wedding.  But it is a promise that speaks to all of us as well. Of what human life at its most human and its most alive and most holy must be.

Of what human life at its most human and most alive and most holy must be.  While I wish I had said that it actually another quote from Frederick Buechner. …

Richard Rohr had similar thoughts as these when he wrote about Revolutionary love in a blog post. Not just about marriage but about life.  He says,

“Love is more than a feeling.  Love is a form of sweet labour, fierce, bloody, imperfect and life giving, a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labour, love can be taught, modelled and practised.  This labour engages all our emotions. Joy  is the gift of love, grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved.  And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love…

Revolutionary love is the choice to enter into wonder and labour for others, for our opponents and for ourselves in order to transform the world around us. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political and rooted in joy. 

Revolutionary love can only be practised in community.

As Rohr says, we birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community.

When we become the beloved community….”

Our friend, Frederick Buechner, puts it pretty well as well…..

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.  To see reality not as we expect it to be but as it is, is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily, that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”

So love guides us every day.

But what does this mean in real life, in the real life of people. In our messy, chaotic, joyful and sometimes sorrow filled lives. 

Well,  I have seen it first-hand this week and this month and this year, and I am sure you have too. We saw an example of it in nature in the video shown for the kids, but what about us humans.

I have seen it in one of my workmates, who is the mother of 2 autistic sons, who loves them deeply and who fights for them at school and protects them at home so that they have the best chance of a fulfilling life.  And who risks alienation from those who say she is too fierce, too stubborn, too intervening.

I have seen it in friends who look after aging parents.  Not out of duty but out of love, who sit with them over lunch, takes them shopping, helps them with their medication and listens patiently to them when they get mixed up with their words or ideas.  It is not easy and sometimes it is labour but it is revolutionary love in real life.

I have seen it in my neighbour who married someone quite a lot older, but who she has loved all her adult life, but now has become his carer due to his ill health.

I have seen it in parents who sacrifice their own lives to rescue their family members, only to die themselves. Which happens more often than we know….

Or at a funeral, when family and friends come together to say goodbye to someone they loved, who travelled with them on the journey and who supported and nurtured them.

All amazing acts of love.

But love is more than family. What about the real life love shown to others, not just our parents and children and relatives or even friends.   Who are part of the wider community, and often are strangers to us.  For as Richard Rohr says, we birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community

I have seen it on the TV and in the newspaper, people who are the first responders to earthquakes, fires, floods and natural disasters, showing bravery and sacrifice beyond measure.

I was watching reports of the inquest into  on the White Island Volcanic eruption in NZ, which occurred a few years ago and was in awe of the 2 young men, who were the first responders, and with no real emergency training, still went out in their helicopters to the island.   Who comforted the injured, stayed with the dying and rescued so many.  And spoke about it as though it was the right and normal response to such a crisis. 

What about the many many nurses and doctors who have died or become very ill caring for those with Covid -19 and other infectious diseases and still are. Who have sacrificed their own health and well-being for the health and well-being, both physical and psychological, of others.

And I see it over and over again in those who give up status and wealth so that they have time to support those marginalised in our society.   There are so many examples, but I mention here those who help at the Mowanjum community up north, or in West Papua, who value relationships over outcomes, and who stand beside and travel with the people of those communities. Or my friend Lisa who works so hard to assist those who are homeless in our city. And I see plenty of people yesterday on our streets, even in Gwelup!.

…..

Love, it is so much more than a feeling, it is a movement and a way of life. A commitment to the other.

Where does it come from, this type of love.  Good question. Well, I am with my friend when he says it’s a mystery, but I believe it comes from the great spirit residing in all of us, whether we name it as God or Allah or Yahweh or even if we don’t name it at all.

God of life, God of love.

Because love gives life.

This is not a God of the classic Christian understanding, a God beyond the world, changing things on a whim or in response to some great prayer train, but an immanent presence that leads to life, a creative, loving, and compassionate life. I believe that at every level this spirit urges for communion and relationship, so that atoms combine with atoms, molecules with molecules, cells with cells, and people to people.  We have this urge to connect with one another, as though it is in our DNA. 

We are interconnected to one another and all of creation in ways that seem so sacred. Which is why the ancients referred to God as love, as a shorthand way of describing this presence.

I like to think that the story of the universe, the story of creation, and the ongoing story of us is also the story of God.  And this story is about love.  And today, this divine urge that comes from deep within, can be transformed into a life giving, and loving way of being in the world. If we let it.

We see it in Jesus and we see it in each other. In so many ways. Jesus spoke about justice and peace, and equity and inclusion.  All words for love.

As Paul reminds us in our reading, Jesus said ….

Love one another, love your neighbour as yourself, by this we will be known as his disciples.  Not by saying it but by doing it, by following my lead.  Not just as a warm and toasty feeling but an action, a life affirming action. Requiring compassion and courage.

It means we are to practise an inclusive love, where everyone, and everything including all of creation is of value, it means we are to practise hospitality, justice and sharing of our resources, it means we are to be open to people with different ideas and traditions, even Catholic ones, and it means welcoming the stranger, the outcast, the lonely and the lost.

It means loving ourselves, for we are children of God, full of the spirit which gives light. 

And it means getting out of the church, which often becomes an insular club and seeing the spirit in all things everywhere, living in the world, and participating in bringing to reality a new heaven and a new earth.  A new heaven and a new earth, in which God will and does dwell  “with the human race.”

Jesus message is so, so challenging, even in its simplicity. But if we embrace the idea that love is at the core of life, that God is at the core of life, maybe we will become better human beings. And the world will become a better, more welcoming place.

As Mary Oliver said in her poem from the beginning of the service which I have adjusted slightly…

“And what do I risk to tell you is this, which is all I know?

Love yourself, love one another, embrace it all.  Then go love the world.”

Amen