The Four Loves
Good Morning. And as you might have seen by the bulletin cover, this morning we are looking at love and 1 Cor 13, the Love Chapter. And while this is a good reminder for Valentine’s Day, it’s not really about that. Some of you might know this, and I preached about it 3 years ago, but in Greek, there are 4 different words that we translate in English as love, but each has a slightly different meaning. This can lead to a bit of translation confusion as you might imagine. One example is the end of John’s Gospel, when Jesus uses different words asking Peter “Do you love me?”, but in English its translated as the same word.
In Greek, we have Eros Love, which can also be translated as Passion. “I love kissing my wife.” Note, that’s different than saying “I love my wife.” Its actually more like saying love Lasagna. Both of these I love, but I love them mostly because of how they make me feel. In that sense Eros love is very inward focused. Passion/Lust
Storge Phillos are similar but easy to distinguish once you know the trick. Storge describes love within a family, used commonly of parents for children and vice versa. Philia love describes the idea of friendship, loving someone as if they were family. And yes, it is the first part of Philadelphia, where Delphia means city and Phila means to love “as if” a brother.
Lastly, we have Agape love. The type of selfless, Unconditional love that God has for us. No strings attached. We know it is no strings because while we were enemies with God, Jesus bought us with His blood.
That’s what Paul talks about in 1 Cor 13, and it’s the word used when Summarizing the Law, “You shall Agape Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Now we know, of course this is impossible. We are sinners, and this is why we need Christ. But that doesn’t change what is right and wrong. The lawyer who questioned Jesus knew he was wrong, despite being proficient in knowledge of the law. We are expected to love God and our neighbor not for how they make us feel, or what they mean to us, but to love them with no strings attached. Unconditionally as God loves us.
To help set this in context, let’s be practical one second. One of the very popular slogans to support LGBTQ causes is “Love is Love.” It’s everywhere. This is a helpful way to understand the problem with that.
What they mean by that is the same thing people meant 40 years ago at the beginning of the sexual revolution. Passion/Eros Love is Agape. Or Passion/desire/lust, is the same as Storge or Filial love. And it’s not true. They’re different.
Our lesson from 1 Corinthians 13 is Paul’s teaching on Agape Love, which is why I have tried to take some time to distinguish these types of love, because without this distinction, the chapter is confusing.
Furthering the confusion is the fact that 1st Cor. 13 has become a sort of all-purpose scriptural reading on all sorts of occasions. I think mostly because people think it sounds so sentimental and non-judgmental-
-unlike other, more obviously threatening Bible passages.
It’s just talking about how great “love” is! Right???
That’s because they didn’t look closely at the chapter.
The fact is that First Corinthians 13 is maybe THE most condemning passage in the entire Bible. It condemns all kinds of things that any of us would normally think of as good things, because they were not done in the name of Agape Love.
For instance, v. 3. Paul says, If I give away all I have, but don’t do it out of Agape Love, but with a false motive, it is worthless. In v. 4, Paul condemns those who are not patient, who are unkind, who envy, boast or brag. These, he says, fall short of the Love God expects.
By his Holy Spirit, God makes available to us the gift of agape love. To show this love is to act for the good of another person without regard to what it may cost us. Unlike romantic love--which is in no way a bad thing –Agape love is not mainly a matter of feelings; Agape love is a matter of will and action.
And since it is about will and action, and not feelings and emotions, the Love we are called to have for God, for one another, and even for the strangers, is about what we actually do.”
A person who has this love puts up with everything and everybody in a kind and generous spirit. A person with agape love never wants what he doesn't have already; he doesn't keep a list of times he’s been offended; he doesn’t enjoy hearing about all the bad things others are doing.
Our lesson on love is put here, because Lent begins this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. Christians have traditionally give up different things during Lent, but we can often miss the reason why.
There is a hilarious quote I wish I remembered where it came from where this one young girl told her mom she was going to give up spitting on her brother for Lent that always sticks in my mind. You can’t do that. I mean you should always give that up.
But no matter how much we do--run ten miles a day, avoid red meat, give up smoking or alcohol, and read only Christian books--no matter how good any of those disciplines may be in themselves, they are worthless if they don't make us more agape loving for God and others.
The ultimate point of Church, the Bible, sermons, or any spiritual discipline is not learning information about God, or greater self-awareness, or lower cholesterol. Good as all those things are, the only worthwhile point of any of them is to help us WANT to love and serve God and other people, and then TO ACTUALLY go ahead and do it.
And to make sure that we get it, Really Really get it, in a practical way, we see Jesus live it out in the story of Blind Bartimaeus. Our Gospel lesson is in the context of an argument about who is the greatest disciple.
After that Jesus tells them he is on the way to Jerusalem to die, in just a few days! He’s laid out the road he’s is facing, looking to the cross, and trying to make them understand the love he has for them, which leads to our redemption but His death and separation from His Heavenly Father.
And with His mind set on the Cross, Jesus Selfless Love for this Beggar stops him in his tracks.
Jesus stops this whole caravan for someone that no one seemed to notice or worry about. Someone who was shouted down. Jesus showed love to help someone who could never pay him back. And the beggar, as soon as he gains his sight, followed Jesus on the way to the cross to die.
As we approach Lent this Wednesday, I encourage you to meditate on this idea of this love. Whatever we do, we are to do it for the Love of God, and to better enable us to love our neighbor as ourselves, or, as St. Paul says 3 chapters earlier in 10:31-So whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
