The kernel of this sermon includes the importance of one's relationship with God, the nature of true friendship and love, and the complexities of interpersonal relationships, particularly between men and women, all from a Christian perspective.
We all know too well that Interpersonal Relationship is the degree and level of how we get along with people. It is the level of understanding in connection with vulnerability, ideas, opinions, goals and objectives between oneself and other individuals. Generally speaking, we are constantly relating to people because we are social beings and don't live in isolation. Therefore, we have different kinds of relationships - family ties, clan extended relationships, friends, colleagues, associates, etc. Thus, armed with all the facts we need to know about the implications of our relationship with God and our fellow human beings, let us commit our past failings into the hands of our loving Father during this Lenten season and earnestly be resolved to make a U-turn in all our relationship to owe nobody anything but love as St. Paul tells us “If you have erred, forgive yourself, accept yourself and hold your head high to live for a better and brighter tomorrow.”
Our main focus in this discourse will be:
1. Our relationship with God and
2. Friendship between the complementary sex.
We cannot appreciate this topic without examining our vertical relationship with God which affects directly or indirectly our horizontal relationship with our fellow human beings. With this in focus, we are bound to have a balanced experience and attitude to Interpersonal Relationships in our lives.
Let us talk about the love of God or our relationship with God before we look at the relationship between man and woman (can you please turn to the person on your right and share how your relationship with God is now?).
Is intimacy with God possible here below? We all desire a personal friendship with God through His Son Jesus – a friendship that can satisfy our every craving for absolute love, our every longing for absolute truth, and our every desire for intimate conservation with God as a friend speaking to a friend. In talking about such a relationship, we should be careful not to base it on the level of human feelings because feelings and affection are subject to change; therefore, we cannot rely too much on our feelings in our relationship with Christ. This is so, because our love for Christ, which has no visible and sensible support is based on faith. It is through this faith that we can draw closer to God.
To build up an intimate and personal relationship with Christ then we must work through these steps: -
a. The certitude that we are loved by God - Accepting ourselves as we are – sinners – Romans 3: 23
b. Belief in the presence of Jesus.
c. Knowing Christ – Philippians 3: 10-12
d. Resembling Christ – I Peter 2: 21
Having summarised how our relationship with God should be, we can then proceed to about Interpersonal relationships between a man and a woman in your class. Young, mostly unmarried adults. These tips are also applicable to those who are married. It will help you renew your marital relationships.
Relationships are between individual persons, which is fostered by understanding, which is a result of communication – good communication. This is the main tool to understanding each other in a relationship just as the root is the plant, without which it cannot survive.
Generally speaking, we all are different individuals with different ways of doing things. What might seem reasonable to others might be unreasonable to another. Therefore, we have to give room for individual differences. Having this in mind, we might be able to accept each other's expectations.
Your Expectations
We should be realistic individuals basing our expectations on reality, such as, it is very difficult to find a young man having just one friend, especially a female. But his having more than one friend is right because our expectations are unrealistic and ill-informed.
Many young ladies dream of having tall, muscular, broad-chested, intelligent, God-fearing, nice, etc. friends with the hopes of marrying him. But this is an idealistic approach. For most girls, if they cannot get what they desire but take it and accept what is available, they always end up deciding to mold the guy to suit their expectations thinking that they can change him overnight which more often than not fails and they are shattered.
For young men generally, I think you believe you have to 'make it' or be rich before you can capture the attention of the females. You also will expect a lady who is real – no pretense. You also believe that no lady is capable of true love but only after material wealth; girls are abundant so you can toast and toss them as you wish after all they are there if only you have all that glitters.
Therefore, both males and females have different expectations; which could be for material gains, sexual pleasure, spiritual purposes, love or whatever. The end product is companionship because loneliness is the greatest disease of all.
How to Engage in Fruitful and Life-Giving Companionship
We need to understand the relationship between love, intimacy friendship and sex. Intimacy is not having sexual intercourse with a member of the complementary sex. Examples of intimacy without genital sense are: -
- two friends sharing private thoughts and concerns that they would reveal to nobody else.
- a mother with her little child
- Jesus washing Peter's feet as otherwise "you have not part in me" (John 13:8).
This kind of intimacy is completely different from genital sexual intimacy which can often be quite superficial, even between husbands and wives. The deepest intimacy is something of the mind and heart.
Friendship is something precious – friendship between two small children, between husband and wife and long friendships between older people that have stood the test of time. Friendship expresses itself in varying degrees and ways with different people. We cannot love everybody in the same way.
Many sexual relationship that carries the name of friendship, are little more than casual flirtation. Such affairs can be exciting at first but when there is little or no real love, it is surprising how quickly they become boring. One gives a little pleasure to get back a little pleasure but true friendship is absent. Both the man and woman are simply using each other.
Signs of True Friendship: - The criteria here is true love existing between them, expressed within the limits of their circumstances. This is the kind of love that gives always what is best for the other person, but what he or she requests at that moment is sometimes very different from what he or she needs. The following characteristics can be present in all types of friendship, through few friends will be blessed with them all.
When we give our deepest selves to other people when we have a real concern for their happiness, listen to them with all the attention of our hearts, delight in their joys and their successes, praying for them and sometimes with them, sharing in their sufferings and disappointment; also confiding in them in our joys and sorrows. With a real friend, you can be completely open and be yourself. Examples of such friendship are found in the Bible between David and Jonathan.
Deceit becomes impossible. A Nigerian proverb expresses it well "Hold a true friend with both hands".
This kind of friendship can exist between a male and female explicitly excluding genital interference.
Falling in "love"
The most powerful and pervasive misconception about love is the belief that "falling in love" is love or at least one of the manifestations of love – says Scott Peck. When a person falls in love what he or she certainly feels is 'I love him'' or 'I love her'. But two problems are immediately apparent.
(1) The experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience.
(2) The experience is invariably temporary.
No matter whom we fall in love with sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person, but it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterises the experience of falling in love always passes. Therefore, the experience of falling in love is not real love because: -
Falling in Love:
- is not an act of will. It is not a conscious choice. The experience can capture us at times when we are not seeking it, when it is inconvenient and undesirable. Discipline and will can only control the experience, they cannot create it. We can, therefore, choose how to respond to the experience of falling in love, but we cannot choose the experience itself.
- is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries, but a partial and temporary collapse of them. Once the moment of falling in love has passed and the boundaries snapped back into place the individual remains disillusioned.
- has little to do with purposively nurturing one’s spiritual development. One purpose of falling in love is to terminate our loneliness which could result in marriage. Before we fall out of love, we feel we have arrived, that the heights have been attained, that there is no need and no possibility of going higher. We feel no need for development. We are content and our partners are perfect. Falling in love is not love but a collapse of ego boundaries, a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behaviour.
True or Real Love
We must realise that true love is too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words - In other words, God is love. But for a working definition, I use Scott Peck's definition of love as: The will to extend one's self to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth". True love is an act of will – namely both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love; we choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving, if we are not loving it is because we have chosen not to love and therefore, do not love despite our good intentions.
Real love does not have its roots in a feeling of love. It often occurs in a context in which the feeling of love is lacking, when we act lovingly even though we don't feel loving.
True love is giving one's life to others, in one way or another. It means doing our best to make other people truly happy. This has taught us love – that he gave up his life for us; and we too, ought to give up our lives for our brothers ". This means that we spend our lives with other people, loving them with real concern.
This might seem impossible unless sometimes we have been loved ourselves to be loved we must first experience love. For further reflection read 1 Jn 4:10,19. Therefore, real love should take off when the falling-in-love ecstasy fades.
Sex
The genital sexual act transmits life. The use of it, therefore, is sacred and reserved for marriage where the family unit is specially geared to the welfare of a new life. But the finest thing in the world can become the ugliest when badly used e.g. wine. A good thing but when misused leads to sin and oppression. The same with sex, when wrongly used can have a long-lasting ill-effect on oneself and other people.
Pre-marital sexual activity is image-depreciating. It affects one's self-concept. It is an act with both biological and psychological implications. It involves one's entire personality. Unregulated sexual activity is a mark of low self-value and low moral standing. If you value your body, then you will not expose it to different people in such close contact. In any case sexual relationship is reduced to a pleasurable, selfish act outside the province of marital love, mutual attraction is debasing immoral and psychologically unhealthy and therefore, unacceptable except in a moral society.
However, armed with all the facts we need to know about the implications of our relationship with God and our fellow human beings, let us commit our past failings into the hands of our loving Father during this Lenten season and earnestly be resolved to make a U-turn in all our relationship to owe nobody anything but love as St. Paul tells us “If you have erred, forgive yourself, accept yourself and hold your head high to live for a better and brighter tomorrow.”
Women, don't make unnecessary demands on men, on the other hand, men don't make unnecessary demands on the ladies. Love one another as brothers and sisters so that God's will may be made manifest in your life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, nurturing healthy interpersonal relationships is a multifaceted endeavour that begins with our relationship with God and extends to our interactions with others, particularly between men and women. As we've explored, true friendship and love go far beyond the superficial notions of "falling in love" or casual flirtations.
Key takeaways from this discourse include:
1. Our relationship with God forms the foundation for all other relationships. It requires faith, acceptance of His love, and a desire to know and resemble Christ.
2. True friendship is characterized by genuine concern, open communication, and a willingness to share in both joys and sorrows.
3. Real love is an act of will, not just a feeling. It involves choosing to nurture one's own and another's spiritual growth.
4. Sexual intimacy is sacred and should be reserved for marriage. Pre-marital sexual activity can have long-lasting negative effects on one's self-concept and psychological well-being.
5. Both men and women should be realistic in their expectations of relationships and avoid making unnecessary demands on each other.
As we move forward, let us commit to improving our relationships during this Lenten season. We should strive to forgive ourselves for past failings, accept ourselves, and resolve to make positive changes in all our relationships. Let us love one another as brothers and sisters, always keeping in mind that the ultimate goal is to manifest God's will in our lives.
By applying these principles, we can cultivate meaningful, life-giving companionships that enrich our lives and bring us closer to fulfilling our spiritual purpose. Remember, in all our interactions, we should "owe nobody anything but love," as St. Paul advises, fostering a community of mutual respect, understanding, and genuine care for one another.
—Hevenu Shalom Aleichem (We bring peace upon you)
Rev Prof Uwomano Okpevra
