Every morning when I drive into Stoughton, I pass the post office and the banner which hangs outside declaring it to be “Your Place for Valentine’s Day.”  I bet every candy store, card shop, florist, teddy bear company, and gift boutique make the same kind of claim.  And between now and February 14, we are no doubt going to hear a lot more about Valentine’s Day and how you can tell the special people in your life how much you love them.

 

And so, with the subject of love so prevalent around us this time of year, this morning I want to talk about love.  But before I get to love, I first want to talk to you about snow, which has not been that prevalent this winter.

 

The Eskimo people of Alaska and northern Canada have at least 24 words for snow.  Each word refines the overall concept of snow in some way.  There is a term for snow before a storm, and another for snow after a storm.  There is a word for snow lying in a certain direction, and another word for snow that comes at a certain season of the year.  The reason for this absolute precision of language about snow is because Eskimos live, eat, sleep, work, play and survive in snow.[1]

And just as snow is a major element of life in the Arctic, so is love a major element of our human life.  Love is big business this time of year, and as I said, we’ll no doubt been hearing more about love as we get closer to February 14.  But it does seem that, no matter what the season, hardly a day goes by that we don’t read a story in a magazine, or see a show on TV, or hear a song on the radio that deals with the subject of love, whether it be the love of a parent for a child, the love of a child for a pet, the love between two friends or two lovers, or the love that someone might have for something – be it money, food, power, or material possessions. 

 

When you come to think of it, our language and culture have placed an impossible burden on the word “love.”  We can mean so many things when we use this tiny but immense word.  We can mean romance, friendship, obsession, desire, addiction, or affection, just to name a few.  And English is not the only language which has this limitation.

In the Old Testament, we read of several different kinds of love which are all expressed by the same Hebrew word ahav.  We read of the love a man has for a woman in the story of Jacob and Rachel [Genesis 29:18], and of the love between parents and their children, such as Abraham and his son Isaac. [Genesis 22:2].  There is also the love between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law in the story of Ruth and Naomi [Ruth 4:15], and the love between friends David and Jonathan [1 Samuel 18:1].  And this same word ahav expresses the love that God has for humanity [Deuteronomy 23:5] and that we humans have for God [Deuteronomy 5:10].

That’s a lot of different meanings to pack into one little word.  And it puts pressure on us when we are using the word “love” – whether in English or in Hebrew -- to nuance it in such a way that we communicate exactly what we mean.  We use the word so lightly and loosely these days, and it has been so used and abused, that it has lost clear meaning.  We love our cat and our car; we love money in our wallets and ketchup on our french fries.  How can I casually throw out the sentence, “I love potato chips,” and then expect to convey the full depth of my meaning when I say, “I love God”?

If only we had as many different words to communicate different kinds of love as the Eskimos have for “snow.”  The Greeks were wiser; the language of the New Testament has several ways of expressing the English word “love.”  One is eros, which is defined as desire, yearning, or drive. 

The Greeks also speak of philia, which perhaps translates best into English as “friendship.”  Philia is a give-get kind of love representing a 50-50 relationship where you give something and get something in return.  It means have affection for, or be fond of.  It is an important kind of love; our word philanthropy, literally meaning “love for humanity,” is derived from this Greek root, as is Philadelphia, meaning "city of brotherly love."  Jesus uses this word philia to describe the love parents and children may have for each other [Matthew 10:37].  In Scripture we also see this word used to describe those who love falsely [Revelation 22:15], or to describe the hypocrites’ love of praying in the synagogues in order to be seen [Matthew 6:5], or the love people have for the seats of honor at a banquet [Matthew 23:6].

 

But to these two different words for “love,” the Greeks added one more for which, interestingly, there seems to be no equivalent in English: it is the word agape.  Agape is a higher form of love – an unconditional love, a love without strings.  Agape is the kind of love that Paul writes about in our scripture lesson this morning. 

 

Now, I am willing to bet that there are people who have never opened a Bible and haven’t a clue who Paul or what an apostle is, but are familiar with his ode to love because they have heard it read at a wedding.  And at a wedding, the words are so beautiful, so hopeful, so…unrealistic.

“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, etc. etc.”  Now, you can call me a cynic or an unromantic, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been married.  Several times.  And despite what Paul says about love being patient and kind, I know that even in my most loving relationships, I have been impossibly impatient and regrettably unkind. 

No matter what Paul says about love not insisting on its own way, I can tell you that even with the people I love most, I have been stubbornly and defiantly set in my ways.  Paul says that “love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,” but couples can indeed doubt each other, they can be hopeless, and at times they can even find each other hard to endure.  And then Paul tells us that “love never ends.”  Well, I’m sorry to say, but love can and does end. 

So, what do we make of Paul’s words?  Is he simply a hopeless optimist or naive romantic?    Nope.  

 

The love Paul is lauding is not the romantic love of a couple getting married; the love that Paul talks about comes from the third party in the covenant of marriage: God.  Agape is the kind of love that God has for us, and it is the kind of love that God wants us to have for each other.  Agape love gives everything and expects nothing in return.  It is not blind love, because the one who gives agape love knows the loved one’s shortcomings and is still willing to accept and love the other without conditions.  Agape is a quality of love that continues to give itself even when no love is returned.  Agape is utterly self-sacrificing love.  When from time to time we come across agape love, we are humbled and silenced precisely because we instinctively know its rarity, and we also know that in its presence we are glimpsing God.

 

Agape is the kind of love God commands us to have toward our neighbors [Matthew 5:43] and also toward our enemies [Matthew 5:44].  Agape is the kind of love that surpasses knowledge and understanding [Ephesians 3:19].  The love that Paul speaks of – the love that endures all things, the love the bears all things, the love that is kind and that never ends -- is God’s love.  The whole Christian life rests on this one word – love.  Christianity’s central metaphor for understanding God, from the First Letter of John [1 John 4:8, 16], is “God is love.” 

 

In everything God does, always, in dealing with all people, God is a loving God.  God's relationship with humanity is grounded in this universal and unconditional love which is for everyone, without limitation or exclusion. 

 

God’s is initiating love; God does not wait to love us until we have fulfilled certain conditions; First John teaches us that “We love because He first loved us “ [1 John 4:19 - emphasis added].

God’s love is faithful.  God never takes back God's promise to love us; even when we are faithless, God remains faithful.  We may turn away from God, but God never turns away from us.  In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “God cannot love you more in eternity than God does at this very moment; God cannot love you less, no matter what, for God loves infinitely.”

God’s is a renewing love.  God’s love forgives and accepts us as we are, no matter what we may have done or not done.  God’s love does not leave us as we are but enables us and empowers us to become transformed people, new creations who live in right relationship with God and our fellow human beings. 

Agape love expresses the essential nature of God, which has its perfect example in Jesus Christ.  In Christ, God came to live as one of us, to stand with us and by us.  The Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ, our denomination, affirms that, "In Jesus Christ…God has come to us and shared our common lot" -- life's pains as well as its joys.

Through Christ, we know God’s costly, self-giving love.  Through Christ, we see God’s reconciling love.  Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, just as God loves those who have made themselves enemies of God.  When God confronts and judges them, it is to heal rather than to hurt, to restore rather than to defeat and destroy, to reclaim rather than to get even and pay back. 

Theologian Karl Barth said that the idea “In loving us, God does not give us some thing, but God gives God’s self.  And in giving us God’s self, in giving us God’s only Son, God gives us everything. 

 

In this morning’s passage from First Corinthians, Paul names love in the same breath as faith and hope, yet he claims something fundamentally different for love, for love is the transformative element in all virtues.  It is possible to have the capacity for great generosity.  It is possible to have vast wisdom, to have fervent spirituality, to have an extraordinary degree of faith.  But Paul has the insight to see that every one of these gifts he mentions in his letter to the Corinthians, no matter how genuinely held and practiced, can be essentially sterile, cold and lifeless, without the life-giving element we call love.

 

Like the snow in the life of the Eskimos, always and everywhere present, so, too, is God’s love.  Think of the many ways you use the word “love.”  And then remember the faithful, renewing, forgiving, accepting, empowering, reconciling, self-giving love that is expressed by the word agape.  Agape is the love which God has for us.  And agape is the love Christ commands us to demonstrate, through our words and in our actions, to one another when he says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  Amen.