The day is December 11, 1979: in Oslo, Norway, an Albanian nun named Teresa, who has dedicated her life to live a simple life of love among the world’s poorest and most desperate people, receives one of the world’s most significant awards – the Nobel Peace Prize. As part of the proceedings, she had the opportunity to speak, and here is one of the things she said:
Jesus “insisted that we love one another as he loves each one of us. And we read that in the Gospel very clearly - love as I have loved you - as I love you - as the Father has loved me, I love you - and the harder the Father loved him, he gave him to us, and how much we love one another, we, too, must give each other until it hurts. It is not enough for us to say: I love God, but I do not love my neighbour. St. John says you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbour. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbour whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live. And so this is very important for us to realise that love, to be true, has to hurt. It hurt Jesus to love us, it hurt him. And to make sure we remember his great love he made himself the bread of life to satisfy our hunger for his love. Our hunger for God, because we have been created for that love. We have been created in his image. We have been created to love and be loved, and then he has become man to make it possible for us to love as he loved us. He makes himself the hungry one - the naked one - the homeless one - the sick one - the one in prison - the lonely one - the unwanted one - and he says: You did it to me. Hungry for our love, and this is the hunger of our poor people. This is the hunger that you and I must find…”
There is much there worthy of further reflection, but the line I want to pull out for today is this: “And so this is very important for us to realise that love, to be true, has to hurt.”
Context:
In this space between the seasons of Advent, where we anticipate and celebrate the birth of Jesus, and Lent, where we anticipate and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have been talking together about the greatest theme in the life of Jesus: love. We know the words of Jesus in response to the question asked him, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:36-40). We see and believe that loving God and loving our neighbor are indeed the greatest commandments, and most of us here today would wholeheartedly affirm our desire to obey Jesus’ command and truly, honestly, powerfully, live lives of love.
But how? That is the question we have been considering – how do we love like Jesus, today, in our culture, in our lives – how do we do that? In the previous two sermons in this series, we talked about some myths about love that our culture believes and contrasted them with Scripture: first, we agreed that love produces feelings, but is not itself a feeling; and second, that love is not temporary but rather permanent.
Today I want to dive into another aspect of love, and once again take us to Jesus to see if that rings true, and then talk about what that means for us in how we live lives of love. And that aspect was introduced by Mother Teresa’s affirmation that “love, to be true, has to hurt.”
Is that True?
Part of the exercise in this sermon series has been to read our culture, and compare/contrast that with the messages of Scripture about love. So the question is this – are there messages in our culture about love that would support the 30 year-old observations of a Catholic nun, or does our culture speak a different message? To get there, let’s reflect on what our culture has to say about pain and hurt – what is our culture’s view of these things? To be avoided at all costs, even ignored? A necessary but unpleasant part of life that must be endured? Or a genuine and valuable part of what it means to be human that shapes us in positive ways? Perhaps you see another possibility?? What do you think, and can you give us an example of a place where you see this message in our culture?
Now let’s take this the next step – if that is our cultural messages about pain and hurt, how does Mother Teresa’s statement that “love, to be true, must hurt” resonate with you?
Is that Jesus?
All the way through this series, we’ve returned to one living standard by which to judge the messages we receive about love, whether through our culture or through Mother Teresa: is that Jesus? So if we agree that our culture sees hurt as a problem (or “bad thing”), and Mother Teresa says “love, to be true, must hurt”, what about Jesus?
Let’s go to John 15, which Mother Teresa quoted: “9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”. Notice especially that last verse, and then let’s go to the cross. Let us stand once again at the foot of the cross of Jesus, the incarnate God of the universe who willingly left heaven to come to earth and humble himself, let us remember the whip and the crown and the nails, and then let us once again ask the question, does love hurt?
You know, it kind of flabbergasts me that we as Christians talk lots about wanting to be “Christlike”, wanting to be like Jesus, and we think that means we are just going to be “nice”. We think it means we’ll avoid conflict, won’t stir up trouble, won’t be noticeable, we’ll just be sweet and kind and nice and plain and innocent. We think the same thing when we talk about being “loving” – I heard it this week, putting “love first” means we’ll just be nice. We associate this idea of love with the idea of smooth sailing, happy feeling, problem avoiding, happy whistling, life-is-just-super-okey-dokey-cause-I’m-just-loving-like-Jesus!
But that, my friends, is not what I see when I look at the cross, which I believe is the greatest example of love and is the fulfillment of Jesus’ statement that “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Where do we get this notion that love doesn’t hurt? That love makes life easier?? That love means that everything will be nice??? We certainly don’t get that from looking at the life, death, and example of Jesus.
So then why on earth would we bother?
If you are following along, the next really good question might very well be this: then why should we bother? If love equals pain, if “love, to be true, has to hurt”, why would we pursue a life of love? I’m looking for some feedback here, what are your thoughts on the matter?
I’ll share my answer: why bother loving, if it hurts? Because it is worth it.
Consider, once again, Jesus. Why come to earth? Why live as a man? Why experience rejection, torture, unjust, humiliating death? Listen very closely: because our response of free love to Jesus for what He has done for us, you and me, is worth all the pain, sacrifice, humiliation, rejection, and death on a cross. I’ll say that again – Jesus loves because being freely loved in return outweighs all the pain and sacrifice.
As evidence for this rather bold statement I simply offer a story. Not my story, a story of Jesus’, and as such a familiar story, but nonetheless one that provides the evidence that love, even though it hurts, is worth it. Luke 15:
“A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’
31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”
The story illustrates the point: loving the prodigal son hurt – but it was worth it. Loving the son who stayed home feeling self-righteous hurt, and that one we’re not sure of the ending (did he come around and see things as the Father saw them? Did he join the party and forgive? Did he get past his self-righteousness and celebrate? Or did he stay outside, nurture a grudge, make life difficult for the younger son, make him earn his way back into a relationship? We don’t know…) – but even if the ending turns out badly, loving that son is worth it also.
Conclusion:
In 1 Cor 13, which we have frequently referenced as we try to build a Biblical rather than a cultural understanding of love, there is a section at the end that basically says this: we need to grow up and leave childish things behind us. Childish things are great for a child, but there comes a time to “put away childish things” (vs. 11), like presuming that love won’t hurt. That it will be all sweetness and fluff. That’s a Hallmark Card, not Scripture.
So let me ask you this: who do you find most difficult to love at the moment? Where is it really hard to love, to put aside your own feelings of hurt or anger or desiring revenge or of wanting to say “well fine, if he wants to take advantage of me like that younger son, then he can just get out of my life and not come back”. Now with that person or situation or relationship in mind, I ask you this: what does it mean to love? What does it mean to be like Jesus – to live like Him, to love like Him, to live in obedience to Jesus’ command in John 15:12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” As you go this week, may you live and love as you have been loved by Jesus.
