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"Love: More Than a Feeling"
Over the years here at Second, I have only repeated a handful of sermons – that is deliberately. Some of you may say that it sounds like the same old thing day after day, week after week!! But deliberately, at least, I’ve only gone back to some old sermons once in awhile and I’m going to do that this morning. A good friend in the congregation mentioned a particular sermon a week or two ago and it tied in with the end of our series, looking at the mission statement of our church in which we said that part of our calling was to glorify and love God. And I thought we would follow that through this morning by thinking together of God’s call to love. At the heart of our Christian faith there is the call of God to love: to love God and to love each other. Though we may agree to disagree, and at times not even agree to disagree but just disagree, on various doctrines of the church, what we cannot disagree on is that at the center of Jesus’ teaching, when he was pressed, at the center of his teaching, we find him affirming the commandments to love God and love neighbor. And yet, even though it seems so simple, this business of ‘how to love’ gets confusing very quickly. In our individual lives and in our society as a whole it gets confusing very quickly. Is this admonition to love, for example, only a private admonition? Or is it public? – how do you demonstrate love in the public sphere? How does love manifest itself when it comes to the relationship between one government and another, between one nation and another? How do you take this love into the business world in which you operate, outside of the family, when businesses are competing with each other? How, in such circumstances, do you express the love which Jesus calls us to show?
Furthermore, it’s not always easy. It’s not always easy either, even within a personal context to know exactly how we’re to love. When to be gentle and when to be tough. Our Deuteronomy passage had both of those kinds of love within it – gentle love and tough love. When is it when you open the boundaries and say it does not matter that you have crossed those boundaries, I love you anyway. And when do you say, I can not let you cross that boundary again. That would be to allow you to be irresponsible and I can not do that. I must hold you to account. That too is love, or can be, tough love. Gentle love. Tough love. When do we show one and when do we show the other? It’s not always easy. It’s not always easy to know how love is to be expressed and part of the difficulty – not all of it, by any means – part of the difficulty comes because of what we might call a deficiency or a limitation in the English language. That is, we have this one word – love – which in other languages is often described by a multitude of words, by a whole grouping of words which describe different elements of love. And being clear about love’s different elements, helps clarify our responsibilities and obligations. This morning, I’d like us to think of these different elements or dimensions of love with the help of the Greek language. Indeed, I’m picking up on what was written over forty years ago now by C.S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar, most famous for his children’s books, for his Narnia series. Back then, forty years ago or more, he wrote a book called The Four Loves, in which he split up ‘love’ into its different dimensions with the help of the Greek language – that is, he used four words in the Greek language to unfold these dimensions or aspects of love. And the words are these: eros, storge and filia, and agape. Eros and storge and filia and agape. Each reflect a different aspect or dimension of love. Let’s look at them one by one, beginning with eros. EROS is the word from which, of course, we get the word erotic. It has to do with sexual love. But more than that, it has to do with romantic love. And more than that, it has to do with the kind of love which is energizing and passionate. The kind of love which is all-consuming. It may consume us! Or, it may consume the one we love. It’s the kind of love which changes things. It turns the world upside down. It’s the kind of love which that great theologian, Elvis Presley(!), sang about when he sang, "Bless my soul, what’s wrong
with me? And then the next words, you know those? "Uh hum, um
um, yeah yeah." Well, that’s what eros does, you see. It shakes everything up.
Romantic love, eros love, does that and it’s not just limited to intimate relationships. But it can catch us as well when it comes to the realm of ideas for example, of thoughts.
What are you doing? I’m still working. Why? Because I love it. There’s something passionate about it.
There is that passionate connection there. It doesn’t matter about the rest. Everything else fades into oblivion when eros is there. When passionate, romantic love is there, for people or for pursuits, it turns the world upside down. It shakes everything up. But that’s not all of love by any means. If that were all of love, then it would be impossible to live. You would never know where you stand. Everything would be ‘all shook up’ all the time, and far from being able to say that love brings us all together, we probably wouldn’t even know where we stood with one another. No, there’s more to love than just eros. STORGÉ. At the very least, there’s what we might call ‘storgé’ as well. S-t-o-r-g-é. Storgé love. Storgé is the kind of love that I remind couples of when they come for marriage counseling. I don’t actually use the word but we talk a lot about it. Storgé. It’s the love which is there by nature and by blood within groups or within families. A young couple may have plenty of eros but if their relationship is going to be successful, what they have to realize is, they’re not only marrying each other, but they’re marrying each other’s families. Even if those extended families hardly ever see each other after the wedding, that couple brings those families into that relationship inescapably. And there must be an embracing of this reality to some extent or another, or there will be trouble. To ignore it is to walk straight into trouble. Those bonds remain. Though a new bond has taken place which I trust in a way supercedes that previous bond, that first bond is always there, and it will grow as they themselves have family. Storgé. It’s the love which is there because of a group, because of a family, because of race, because of some connection with a larger whole. It’s a love of a parent for a child, it’s the love of a brother for a sister. It’s that love which enables two siblings who are at war with each other to close ranks when they’re attacked from the outside and somebody could be gravely mistaken, saying, "You don’t love each other." But when they attack, my, that love rises up. They close ranks and there is a bond there which is hard, which is hard to break. Storgé. Love within a family, within a tribe, perhaps even within little Presbyterian tribe, we have a love for each other because we belong to the same group. When I was thinking of storgé, I was reminded of a scholarship I received when I was back in graduate school in the 80's. The scholarship came from a man called Mr. Thompson. I never met Mr. Thompson, though I wrote him a thank you letter. His scholarship money enabled me to pursue my graduate work. Why did he give it to me? Because he loved me personally? No, I never knew him. Why did he give it? Because he loved the ministry? I suppose that’s the case, but, in particular, he gave it because he loved the ministry of our denomination. And he wanted it to thrive. There was a connection. He had this "Presbyterian" connection with others around him and even with me whom he did not know. I was the beneficiary of remarkable generosity, given, I think, because of storgé. So there we have it – in families, tribes, sororities, fraternities, lodges, clubs, professional associations. Bonds which at times are thicker than blood. Storgé: that kind of family love. And Eros: passionate, emotional, turning the world upside down kind of love. And then, thirdly, filia. FILIA. The love of friends. ‘Friendship love.’ As in "Phila-delphia:" ‘adelphos’ in Greek means ‘brother.’ While ‘Phila’ come from the Greek word for friend or friendship. . . Love. Deep friendship. The ‘city of brotherly love.’ The love of friends. Filia was regarded in much of the ancient world as one of the greatest gifts of life, especially amongst a group called the Epicureans. This was the height of life, as it were. It wasn’t things, it was friendship – just being with somebody you ‘love to be with.’ And when you are with them, you can just be yourself. You don’t have to wear a mask. And it’s all okay. And you know it. That kind of a friendship which makes the moments pass quickly, all too quickly. A love which arises not because of passion or romance, a love which arises not because of family or because of ties or group dynamics, but simply because ‘the other one’ is someone with whom we feel this connection, this kindred spirit. We begin a conversation with somebody out of the blue, and we say to ourselves, "I want to talk more to that person. I know that we will love being with each other." It was an essential part, this filia, in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Maybe you remember the stories about Anne of Green Gables, set on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Anne had a bosom buddy called Diana. Anne and Diana were the best of friends. Anne called the relationship one of ‘kindred spirits.’ That’s who they were. A friendship that lasted through all kinds of stresses and strains. Anne was bright, intelligent, successful; she was going places. And Diana was sort of a homebody. But no matter how their lives diverged, that connection, that friendship, that filia, was there. There was no jealousy in it. Just a desire for the blessing of the other. Good friends. Some of you may have seen the remarkably sad article in Friday’s (June 23, 2006) Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper about the decline of friendship in our nation. Let me read (and paraphrase) for you some of that article. "Americans who shocked pollsters in 1985 when they said they only had three close friends today say they have just two. And the number who say they have no one to discuss important matters with has doubled to one in four. According to a nationwide survey to be released today, in the June issue of the American Psychological Review. One in four say they have no one with whom they can talk about important matters. Men and women of every race and age and education level reported fewer intimate friends than the same survey turned up in 1985. The remaining confidants were more likely to be members of their nuclear family than in 1985, according to the study, but even intimacy within families was down as well. Weakening bonds of friends which other studies affirm have far-reaching effects. Among them, fewer people to turn to for help in crises such as Hurricane Katrina. Fewer watchdogs to deter neighborhood crime. Fewer visitors for hospital patients and fewer participants in community groups. The Red Cross has seen volunteering take a dive in the past half dozen years. One reason why things were so difficult with Katrina was that the people just weren’t there who used to be there to volunteer, to connect their lives in a network with others. The decline which was greatest in estimates of the number of friends outside of the family also puts added pressure on spouses, families and counselors. In families, we want to help each other but if there isn’t an outside ring of friends, then everything becomes so intense in the family unit, there’s no relief, release with those outside. And why is this the case? People working longer, socializing less, commuting longer, watching TV longer and stuck behind our computer screens longer." What a sad picture. Yet one that the church is surely poised to deal with. Isn’t this why we not only ‘belong to a church’ but why we ‘come to a church?’ So that we can find others with whom we can share fellowship – the deepest things in life. So that’s another word for filia, isn’t it? . . fellowship. Filia. A sense of connection with others. And I trust that of all places, we find it here in the church. We desperately need filia – friendship. We desperately need storgé to thrive within our family groups. And eros, how dull life would be without it, love that is romantic and passionate. And finally, we need agape. A-g-a-p-e. The fourth love of which C.S. Lewis speaks, AGAPE. the kind of love which God has for us which Jesus commands us to have for God. The kind of love which Jesus commands us to have not only for our friends, but even for our enemies. How can we possibly love our enemies? It’s not eros, it’s almost certainly not filia, it’s quite possibly not storge, but it is agape. Agape – the kind of love which we can muster to love even our enemies. The kind of love which Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 when he says that "love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things. It believes all things. It hopes all things. It endures all things. This kind of love never ends." How quickly eros can turn into hatred. How quickly those positive passions can turn into negative passions. How easily we can exclude ourselves or be excluded from some group: we thought we were bonded to them for life but now we’re on the outside. And the storgé goes. And even with filia, as the newspaper report implied, we have friends but we don’t work at it. We don’t connect. We just don’t have the time to do it. It disappears. But agape, aah, agape is far deeper. And the Apostle Paul says it lasts forever. And it can do so because fundamentally, agape is not a feeling but a choice. Not a feeling but a choice that is quite independent of the one whom we love. A choice that is quite independent of the one whom we love. William Barclay, the late great professor of New Testament at the University of Glasgow defined agape love like this. He says, "It is it the spirit which says that no matter what any person does to me, I will never seek to harm him or her. I will never set out for revenge. I will always seek nothing but his highest good. That is to say, agape is unconquerable benevolence. It is invincible good will. It is not simply a wave of emotion. It is a deliberate conviction of the mind issuing a deliberate policy of the life. It is a deliberate achievement and conquest and victory of the will." A choice, a decision we make again and again, though it is tough to do. Indeed, I’m convinced that without God’s help it cannot be done. Agape is what I ask every couple to do when they come before me – and God(!) – in a wedding service, when I marry them. I do not ask them about their eros that day. I don’t ask them how they feel about their in-laws that day. I don’t ask them about their filia or friendship, though I hope it is strong. When I give those vows, it’s agape that I’m speaking about. Will you love each other whether things are good or whether they are bad, when you want to and when you don’t want to. . . . for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish until death do you part. . . It is a solemn covenant. Nothing emotional about it actually. A solemn covenant. Even if eros fades, will you do it? If filia diminishes, will you do it? If storge is hard, will you do it? That’s the call. That’s the love which Christ calls us to when he says love your enemies. Not just your friends but your enemies. A decision. And why? Well, as a reflection of God’s love. It’s God’s decision to love us that way. Don’t ask me why God does it, but God does. It’s the love of Christ for us that takes him to the cross, in which he loves us and says, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," even though it is our sins that drive him there. He still loves us. He decided to do that. The decision has been made: his love will never be revoked. We’ve been called to love. To love God. To love each other. It’s not easy. It’s complicated to know how it plays itself out in different parts of life. But perhaps it helps a little to break it down into its component parts and to think of the different places and people in our lives in which love is at work.
What a high calling. May God so fill us with such love as this that we find God’s love reaching out from us to others as we seek to follow Christ. Amen. Let us pray.
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David A. Renwick