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Love Is Something You Do
I John - solected; Matthew 5:43-48
June 1, 1969

It sounds a little like a Charlie Brown sampler, or a Sister Corita poster,
put "love is something you do," It is one of those "catch phrases" that adorn
sveatshirts and picket signs, the subtetly of which leaps out of print and strikes
down deeply within us, But that sentence also contains a very sophisticated and
a@ very radical and a very Christian concept of the meaning of the word love,

It is difficult to talk sensibly about love for the very simple reason that
the English language is poor here, and that "love" is an extremely versatile
word, Linguists write volumes on the many meanings of the word and most conclude
that the best thing to happen would be to strike the word from our vocabulary and
begin to use a whole series of words that are more precise,

After all, we do use "love" to describe a whole range of feelings that act~
ually are not even related, We love our country; we love a song; we love a
school or university; we love a dress, or a suit, and automobile, our home, We
use the word to describe everything from sexual relations to the relationship a
father has with his son. We use it in fraternal organizations among men; in the
life-long commitment of marriage; we whisper it to each other as adolescents and
sing about it and now we've even used it to label a brand of cosmetics,

In the mythology of our culture we have been conditioned to expect love to
"happen" to us one day; right ovt of the blue. We've been conditioned to think
of romantic love in terms of bells ringing and lights flashing, and a temporary
loss of our ability to function. What is worse we have so sustained the myth
that many married people find themselves in trouble because these mythological
definitions of love have just not boen part of their experience,

When we use the word "love" , ordinarily we are dealing with feelings and
emotions which we experience, But vhen the New Testament uses the word it has
nothing whatever to do with subjective, experienced feelings. Love, in the New
Testament, is something you do, not something you feel,

The Greeks - and the New Testament was written in Greek - had several words -
all of which we translate as love,

Eros, from which we get "erotic" indicated physical, sexval attraction, In
its best sense, and its original sense, it indicated the healthy desire of one
person for another person, In our culture, however, the "erotic" has been ex~

Toited to sell mmtion pictures, and magazines and even weed killers, Put,

r “I~ eros meant physical attraction,

That, the Greeks understood, was quite different from what transpires be-
tween members of a family, or between good friends, That relationship the called

il. lia, familial affection, Thiladelphia is the city of Protherly Love: filial
devotion is what a parent has for his children. We call it love: the Greeks
called it Philia,

There are other Creek words that are translated love, but these two ~ eros
and philia - bring the semantic rroblem into perspective, Put when the New Testa-
ment talls abovt love it uses still another word - Agape,

One semanticist commnts that "agape: has neither the warmth of philia, nor
the intensity of eros; that it refers to the will rather than to the emotion;
and that it is concerned most about the demonstration of love through action,"
(A, Richardson, Theolobical Vord Pook of the Pible)

Agape is bene.v.... . LLom, and notice that it has nothing to do with feel-
“7s. That is when wo got into trovble. If you've heard many sermons chances
-~ «. ,9ulwe heard the content of this one several tines before, Every school

boy knows that love is many t ings and that the New Testament idea of love is a
little different from what goes by that name in our eviture, Bverybody knows
that Christianity teaches men to love each other, But we get stalled at this
point because no amount of preaching, no amount of chureh-going - no amount of in-
ternal disci~line = has been able to make us feel love,

We, like all mon, aro basically "responders" when it comes to love. We are
very much inclined to fecl love for those who leve us. When it comes to serving
or helping someone we do it generously and immediately so long as the someone

prompts feclings of love within us, Put we have real trouble with this busixgess
of love when the object of our love doesn't know us - or perhaps does know us
and doesn't like us,

In addition we've been told that a Christian has love in his heart for all
men ~ that is, he feels love for everyone; that a true Christien has a perpetual
smile on his face and never says a bad thing about anyone,

Now, add those two together, and you have the profile of a problem, We don't
feel love for all men + we think we should = and the reaction of many people at
thie point is quietly to reject Christianity as a bunch of sentimental, naive,
nonsense, And given their assumptions, that reaction» is quite appropriate,

However, there is nore to it than this, Joseph Fletcher put it this way:

"To suppose that we are required by any Christian imperative to like everybody
is a cheap hypocrisy ethically and an impossibility psychologically."

And Don Rickles, perhaps even more relevantly, speaks for all men: " I've
yet to meet the man I don't dislike,"

There are some peonle we just don't likes perhaps for wrong reasons = per+
haps for appropriate reasons, There are people who offend us - who displease
us - who "turn us off." We cannot, in honesty, feol affection for the man who
threatens us, the bully who continually harasses our childrm, Ho Chi Minh, or
even some people in our own Church. And pious admonitions exhorting us to feel
otherwise are so much wasted verbiage.

The Gespel is not naive: It is not very sentimental, What it says at this
point is that your feclings are irrelevant, We're not talking, here, about your
emotions, “hat we are commanded to do is to deal lovingly, benevolently, with
all men - regardless of how we feel toward them, This is the "tough" side of
the Gospel ~ the side that gets hidden by a lot of sticky sentinentalism, Jesus
pointed out that anybody can, and everybody does, love their friends, family and
neighbors, That is, we respond with feclings of love toward those who love us.
The extraordinary ~ the specifically Christian imperative is to deal lovingly
with even the enemy,

It was ironical that several years ago, in the midst of the great debate that
accompanied the establishing of our Civil Pights laws, many people were saying
"yor can't legislate love." And Christians were retting up set and quoting the
Bible on love, and generally feeling very anxious abovt this threat to one of the
foundations of their faith, Of course ycu can't legislate love ~ if what you mean
by love has to do with feclings and emotions, But that is irrelevant. “hat you
can do, and what Jesus did, was legislate that people shall be dealt with lovingly
~ or justly - or ecually. One of the more creative aspects of the whole Black
Power idea is that hoywhites feel about blacke has suddenly become rather un- si
important. Black militants simply don't care about that anymore. What is german,
and essential is the way people are treated by other people and institutions -
regardless of how they feel,

The love the New Testament talks about - agape love ~- I believe boils dow
to this: it is the clear imperative to deal lovingly with the unicveable - with
those you do not like,

The second thing about Christian love is that it is non-judgmental and non-
reciprocal, When Jesus told his disciples to love their enemies = he was not
urging them to condone the activities of those who persecuted them and spat on
them and cursed them, .That is to say, Christian love does not eliminate making
value judgments about other people; it simply removes love from those value
judgments. Christians are called to deal lovingly with others even when they are
violently oprosed to what the other is doing,

In other words, Christian love is not reserved for the deserving] ‘hen it
comes to the business of charitable, benevolent vork the Church cannot seek
those who, for one reason or another, deserve help without overstepping the
boundaries of love, WNeirther is Christian love reserved for those who will be
grateful when they have received it,

The Church, I believe, has made some very strategic misjvdgments at this point.
I, for one, have always beon very uncomfortable with the Thanksgiing and Christmas

charity that literally gushes from the Church annually; because the beneficiaries

of that charity are not really the poor ~ for whom the conditions of poverty
remain - but the donors, the ones who have given without sacrificing or caring,
and who will reap a harvest of good feelings from the gratitude of those they
have given a few samples of affluence.

Christian love is not a feeling but an activity. I+ is not judgmental
and it does not demand a response of gratitude. The third and perhaps the
most important thing about this love is that it is the test of Christian
faith. I read to you this morning from the first letter of John. New
Testament scholars speculate that the author may have been the last living
associate of Jesus. We know that the letter was written in a time when all
kinds of divergent and alien ideas were creeping into the Church, and that
the letter was an attempt to set down in writing some standard by which
men and their beliefs could be measured. One general theme runs through
this letter - love. Love is the test of Christian faith. This is how it
reads: "Here is the test by which we can make sure that we know him: do
we keep his commands? . . . My children, love .must not be a matter of words
or talk: it must be genuine and show itself in action. . ."

It appears that the Church of Jesus Christ has spent a lot of time
devising other standards: theological orthodoxy: adherence to certain
ethical prohibitions ~ everything, in fact, but this ultimate test. But
this is it: this is what defines a Christian: this is what he does uniquely
and specifically — he loves.

How? If love is a matter of feeling, we are in trouble. But agape -
love is a matter of will. It is a matter of living and acting in a certain
waye And that we can do. How can we do? - choose to do it. Will to do
it. Forget our feelings and love because that is how we are called to be.

And then, having divorced this process entirely from the arena of human
emotion, a miracle happens. Feeling is born: love — as emotion reappears —
but this time in a new way. Before, our love for others was based on their
worthiness - and our need. Now we love — for no one's sake but God's.
That's what agape means — loving for God's sake.

That's what the New Testament means by love. That's what the cross
means -— God's own unmerited love for us. That wasn't a feeling — but an
act, a costly act. And it is the promise of the Gospel that that act -
that supreme self-giving — that perfect love - is what enables us
to love.

Love is somthing you do. May God grant us grace that we may - do it.

Amen.

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