Sermon for CATM - July 17, 2005 - “The Power of Love”
What is love? Have you ever asked that? Or have you ever had someone say to you that they didn’t know what love is? I’ve seen people really struggle to find out what it means to love.
I’ve seen friendships fail for lack of love. If you think about it, we’ve seen devastation occur for lack of love. Think of London. Think of Rwanda. Think of the ongoing struggle in the Middle East.
Or is that just political? People warring over land, people hating each other over tribal differences. People making statements about western culture and unjust wars? You wonder. Eh? You wonder what love brings to our lives. You wonder what all the hate is about that we see in the world.
And we ask, “Why!?!?!” What in the world has brought about the current state of the world? most of us are use to just struggling with our own problems, working through our own issues. Our minds occupied with the day-to-day. And then...BOOM. The huge struggles that the world is facing intrude in on our lives. With a vengence. So many people, it seems, are so angry at others. There’s so much hate in the world.
There is an epidemic of hate in the world today. It is expressed as a man walks into a subway station, boards a train and then, seeing children, and women and men young and old all around him, makes the final decision to detonate a bomb in the hopes of killing as many innocent people as possible.
We have seen this in London. In four separate incidents timed for the harm of as many as possible. We have seen this in Madrid, Iraq. Israel. Jordan.
We are being told that we also, in this peace-loving, peacekeeping, non-warring nation of Canada and especially in this multi-racial, multi-religious city of Toronto that we are on a list. A list of hate. Somebody, connected to Al Queida, may want to kill as many children as possible, as many innocent people going about their lives.
And we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that those who kill in these ways die for religious convictions, and so some may be inclined to sympathise. Or to see the murderer as somehow a victim and all the victims as somehow responsible for forcing this man to commit this desperate act. But I caution those who think this way. Do not be deceived. Don’t make friends with evil. Do not excuse it, don’t coddle it.
People kill because they hate. God has nothing to do with it. It is a human choice. And the problem of hate is a human dilemma which distorts humanity. Twists our thinking. Calls good evil and evil good.
This is difficult to talk about because for must of us here today, we come to church to learn to live another way, or to connect with the One who is love, the One who said, “Greater love has no man than to lay die his life for his friends” and followed it up with action.
The God who by definition is “love”. But if we’re going to understand, truly, the power of love, we need to take a realistic, if brief, look at the problem of hate. There is a power to hate. It is
The Power of Confusion
John says in 1 John 2:11 “Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him”.
Hatred distorts reality. It perverts what is real and stretches over it a smothering, doctored interpretation and understanding. Those who hate are out of touch with the true value of life. Hatred blinds people. It blinds them to the good in life.
It causes people to be so focussed on what they are upset about that they don’t see how it is changing them, how it is affecting them. Those who hate don’t know where they are going, says John.
The power of hate is also the power to divide.
The Power to Divide
Hate involves a deep rejection of another. It is not merely a matter of not having time for another. It involves a wholesale rejection of another person. Then comes a great divide. Once there was perhaps a walking together, a talking together, a sharing together. Now there are only walls. Barriers.
A new not-knowing another. And then in the absence of communication and relationship, assumptions are made. The worst is thought. The vacuum is filled with suspicions. People who should be friends, be working together toward a common good are prevented by a huge division between them.
The Power to Kill
This is pretty obvious. We have too many current examples of this. The impact of hate is felt by
anyone who reads the news.
And then of course, hate destroys the hater. The suicide bombers in London had been young men full of promise, full of potential. Lives ahead of them. Families, children ahead of them. Real contributions to society ahead of them.
And then, because they allowed their hatred of the West, or hatred of whatever to consume them, because they willingly listened to those who helped them focus their anger, they reduced the potential of their lives to...what? To death. To killing. To a legacy of grief and suffering that will linger with the memories of the innocents that they killed.
Hate is not to be taken lightly. We almost never talk about this in church, but at times like these,
especially when we want to reflect on the polar opposite thing to hate...love...it’s worth it to
pause and think about why love is so important. Why self-giving is so important.
It’s important to reflect also because it’s pretty easy, effortless really, to get caught up in hate. I
have a confession. As I was reading and watching and listening to reports this week of the carnage in London and the who committed those heinous crimes, I was tempted to get very angry.
The Tooles, who as many of you remember were part of this church for many years, (Lisa is still here with us) were at at least two of the locations in London, Kings Cross and Aldgate, that were bombed, just a few days earlier before the terrorists attacked. That made it much more personal for me. To think of losing one of you or of your children, or my own family for that matter, in one of these acts of madness, is devastating.
Hate can easily find expression in us, if we listen to our emotions more than we do our Saviour. What does our Saviour say? He says something even more challenging than what we are looking at today in 1 John. Jesus says, “Love your enemies”. We can never forget this.
My comments today, though, are focussed on John’s call to us to love one another. This is love within the church, between sisters and brothers. Obviously there’s a broader point to what John has to say to us as well.
What is love? What is the power of love? What does loving have to offer us that hating will never get us?
The Power of Love is at least two things:
10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
The Power of Love is firstly that it gives light and clarity. When we love, we very often will look at life and at others with more understanding. That’s because love listens. It doesn’t assume it knows. Hate is closed, mind-made-up, judgement made. Hate envies. Hate keeps close tabs on the behaviour of others. Hate is self-seeking. Hate is a hair-trigger. Hate loves to see harm come to others.
But Scripture tells us that:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. 1 Cor 13:4-8
God is the POWER behind love. That is why love is all these things.
Secondly, The Power of love is its ability to bring healing. Every headline of every newspaper reminds us of how desperately broken our world is. There is so much war and insurrection. There is so much desperate poverty. There are so many families touched by separation and divorce. Doctors advise us to not watch the news before we go to bed because there is just too much bad news.
Love reaches out to bring healing.. Live 8 was a global effort to stop the devastating effects of
poverty. Bono, a renowned musician and committed Christian, was a key player in bringing the eyes of the world to focus on the possibility of eliminating poverty. Will poverty ever end in this lifetime? Of course not, but the love that motivates such people to do good can transform the world.
And the truth is, the acts of love you and I perform...the ones done by individual people...are in
the end far more significant that even a worldwide effort like Live 8. You and I interact with hundreds of hurting people every week. We are also among the hurting, but I hope we’re discovering that our own healing is actually wrapped up in the healing others receive through us.
How can God’s love bring healing through you? Does all this talk about love seem pretty lame or pretty distant to you? Do you ever wonder, “If I don’t feel love, how can I act in a loving way?”
J. Allan Peterson, in The Myth of the Greener Grass, writes: Newspaper columnist and minister George Crane tells of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. “I do not only want to get rid of him; I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me.”
Dr. Crane suggested an ingenious plan. “Go home and act as if you really loved your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him.
“Make him believe you love him. After you’ve convinced him of your undying love and that you
cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”
With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be
surprised!”” And she did it with enthusiasm. Acting “as if.” For two months she showed love,
kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing.
“When she didn’t return, Crane called. “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?” “Divorce?!?” she exclaimed. “Never! I discovered I really do love him.” Her actions had changed her feelings. Motion resulted in emotion. The ability to love is established not so much by fervent promise as often-repeated deeds.
Love heals divisions. Love asks for forgiveness. Love gives forgiveness. Love reaches out, touches the lives of others and is itself nourished as it reaches out.
It is the love of God is the true love that stands as the eternal standard and definition of what love is and means. God...is...LOVE. And, as the scripture says, we love because He first loved us!
I close with a poem:
Love ever gives.
Forgives, outlives,
And ever stands
With open hands.
And while it lives,
It gives,
For this is love’s prerogative——to give, and give, and give.
- John Oxenham
God, thank you for Your love. It is bigger than every struggle we face. It is more healing than the best medicine. Teach us to love, O God. Teach us to love one another through actions and not only words. Teach us to love our enemies, help us to rise to that challenge. And may Your love be seen in our lives daily. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
