Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
* * *
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; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. … For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
* * *
Is love overrated?
This is often what I hear people say when their marriage goes sour or when they get disappointed in their relationship. Radio waves are filled with songs about love – songs about unrequited love, about the joys of falling in love, and songs about the pain and hurt of love. Love may be the most misunderstood and misused word in the English language.
Higher Love.
Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is a wasted time.
Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere.
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be.
Bring me a higher love
Where’s the higher love I keep thinking of?
Steve Winwood sang these words in his song, “Higher Love.” Songwriter, Will Jennings, says that he wrote the song as “a modern hymn for a time when things were not so much taken for granted, so that one has to plea, ‘Bring me a higher love,’ – and the lines are all trying to explain why there must be a higher love.[i]
The song continues this way.
Worlds are turning and we're just hanging onFacing our fear and standing out there aloneA yearning, and it's real to me.There must be someone who's feeling for me.Things look so bad everywhereIn this whole world, what is fair?We walk blind and we try to seeFalling behind in what could be.Bring me a higher loveWhere's that higher love I keep thinking of?
The question – Where is that higher love I keep thinking of? – might have been in the Apostle Paul’s mind when he visited the city of Corinth around 50 CE.
The city of Corinth was a thriving urban centre renowned and envied for its prosperity. It was a home to tens of thousand people. As a colony of the Roman Empire, Corinth was a city that commanded the premier sea route from Rome to eastern Mediterranean. The city was commonly referred as “wealthy Corinth.”
While the city was a flourishing commercial centre, one modern scholar described Corinth as “spiritually and intellectually empty.” Ancient writers, too, regarded the Roman city of Corinth as the epitome of crass materialism – and of moral decadence. Alciphron, a Greek philosopher and a writer who lived in 2nd century CE, wrote that “among all the luxuries of Corinth (I) found nothing to enjoy, since the people were so ungracious and uncultured and since the poor of the city were so grossly exploited by the rich.”[ii]
An affluent city where the poor are grossly exploited by the rich was the context Paul had in mind as he wrote to the church after his first visit. In today’s scripture, the apostle Paul used Greek word “agape” as an essential aspect in being Christian. Why did he name agape as being much greater than faith and hope?
The ancient Greeks used three distinct words for love. The word eros described a sensual and sexual aspect of love. The word philia was used to describe love between friends and amongst family members. The early Christians adopted the word agape to describe the relationship between Jesus and his disciples as well as the relationship between God and humanity.
Love, agape, according to Paul, was the kind of love God had for humanity. Rebecca Ann Parker, a professor of theology in the US, wrote, “Love is not an individual possession, but the spirit that breathes through relationships of care. Jesus’ vision of basileia, the community of God, committed him to the struggle for justice and right relationships: living such a commitment saves us.”[iii]
People in our time, however, seem to see love as something we can privatize and own. In our society, love has become a commodity. Eros would be the kind of love we hear on the radio and see in the commercials. Love in our time is quite often equated with sex rather than a concern for welfare of one another. Philia is a less common concept for many in our society. Friends are hard to find and much harder to keep. Agape seems to be absent in our time.
How do we rediscover and share the agape Paul talked about?
Listen to a story that may help us rediscover the meaning of agape between two individuals. It is a true story from South Korea.
A father brings his teenage son to a Buddhist monk who lives alone in a remote mountain. It is late in the evening. The monk lives in a small hut deep in the mountain. As soon as the monk greets them, the father begins to berate his son in front of the monk. He narrates faults of his son one by one. When he is finished, he turns to the monk and says, “Dear venerable monk, I have tried everything with this son of mine. I am at a loss with him. He has done everything but to follow my wish for him. There is nothing I can do now for him. So, I brought him to you. I beg you make him a decent human being.” With that the father leaves to return to the city.
There is an awkward silence emanating from the teenager. He feels so much anger and shame and pain.
The monk gets up. He lights a fire in the clay oven outside the hut. He takes a bucket and fetches water from a stream near by. He heats the water. When the water is hot enough, he pours the steaming water into a large basin. Then the monk rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and kneels in front of the teenager and folds up his pant legs.
In silence, the monk takes each foot of the teenager and begins to gently wash his feet. Tears well up and begin to stream down on the teenager’s face. When the washing is done, the monk dries the boy’s feet. Then the monk prepares a futon bed for his guest.
No words were spoken but the teenager heard loud and clear that he was cared for. The teenager “heard” through the silent washing that he was loved for who he is.
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action.
John Allen, the writer of “Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu,” describes a scene at an Anglican cathedral in Cape Town on Saturday, September 2, 1989. The police attacked the protestors with batons and tear gas. The protestors were also sprayed with a water canon with purple dye so they could be tracked down.
“Tutu was summoned to the cathedral, where he found hundreds of shocked protestors taking refuge. Many bore red welts across the bodies and faces. … He was encouraged by the number of young Whites there.”[iv]
He shared the following words with those who were fighting to dismantle apartheid:
“Say to yourselves, in your heart: “God loves me.” In your heart: God loves me, God loves me. … I am of infinite value to God. God created me for freedom. … My freedom is inalienable. My freedom is God-given! I don’t go around and say, Baas [boss], please give me my freedom. God loves me, I am of infinite value because God loves me and God created me for freedom, and my freedom is inalienable, God-given. Right! Now straighten your shoulders, come, straighten up your shoulders like people who are born for freedom!”[v]
Four days later, Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa.
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action. Faith in God and Hope of God’s reign in our world are expressed through love in action.
On the night before Jesus was captured and executed on the cross, Jesus shared a meal with his beloved. For everyone at the meal, not knowing what was about to happen, it was a Passover supper. But for Jesus, the meal was a celebration of his ministry with his beloved on the night before embodied agape was about to be enacted on the cross. This is what we celebrate together today – agape of God enacted in and through Jesus whom we confess as our Lord and Saviour – as we partake bread and wine together as community.
We live in a society where many still live in hunger and abandonment from their neighbours. We also live in a world where many are following the Way of Jesus and live out agape in and through their lives.
Steve Winwood sang the question, “Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?”
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action. Faith in God and Hope of God’s reign in our world are expressed through love in action. Love becomes agape when we live out the higher love of God.
Amen.
-------------------------------------------
[i] Songfacts (website) http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5168
[ii] Victor Paul Furnish, The Anchor Bible: II Corinthians, New York: Doubleday, 1984, 4-22.
[iii] Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, Boston: Beacon Press, 2001, 4.
[iv] John Allen, Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu, New York: Free Press, 2006, 307.
[v] Ibid., 307.
Higher Love.
Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is a wasted time.
Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere.
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be.
Bring me a higher love
Where’s the higher love I keep thinking of?
Steve Winwood sang these words in his song, “Higher Love.” Songwriter, Will Jennings, says that he wrote the song as “a modern hymn for a time when things were not so much taken for granted, so that one has to plea, ‘Bring me a higher love,’ – and the lines are all trying to explain why there must be a higher love.[i]
The song continues this way.
Worlds are turning and we're just hanging onFacing our fear and standing out there aloneA yearning, and it's real to me.There must be someone who's feeling for me.Things look so bad everywhereIn this whole world, what is fair?We walk blind and we try to seeFalling behind in what could be.Bring me a higher loveWhere's that higher love I keep thinking of?
The question – Where is that higher love I keep thinking of? – might have been in the Apostle Paul’s mind when he visited the city of Corinth around 50 CE.
The city of Corinth was a thriving urban centre renowned and envied for its prosperity. It was a home to tens of thousand people. As a colony of the Roman Empire, Corinth was a city that commanded the premier sea route from Rome to eastern Mediterranean. The city was commonly referred as “wealthy Corinth.”
While the city was a flourishing commercial centre, one modern scholar described Corinth as “spiritually and intellectually empty.” Ancient writers, too, regarded the Roman city of Corinth as the epitome of crass materialism – and of moral decadence. Alciphron, a Greek philosopher and a writer who lived in 2nd century CE, wrote that “among all the luxuries of Corinth (I) found nothing to enjoy, since the people were so ungracious and uncultured and since the poor of the city were so grossly exploited by the rich.”[ii]
An affluent city where the poor are grossly exploited by the rich was the context Paul had in mind as he wrote to the church after his first visit. In today’s scripture, the apostle Paul used Greek word “agape” as an essential aspect in being Christian. Why did he name agape as being much greater than faith and hope?
The ancient Greeks used three distinct words for love. The word eros described a sensual and sexual aspect of love. The word philia was used to describe love between friends and amongst family members. The early Christians adopted the word agape to describe the relationship between Jesus and his disciples as well as the relationship between God and humanity.
Love, agape, according to Paul, was the kind of love God had for humanity. Rebecca Ann Parker, a professor of theology in the US, wrote, “Love is not an individual possession, but the spirit that breathes through relationships of care. Jesus’ vision of basileia, the community of God, committed him to the struggle for justice and right relationships: living such a commitment saves us.”[iii]
People in our time, however, seem to see love as something we can privatize and own. In our society, love has become a commodity. Eros would be the kind of love we hear on the radio and see in the commercials. Love in our time is quite often equated with sex rather than a concern for welfare of one another. Philia is a less common concept for many in our society. Friends are hard to find and much harder to keep. Agape seems to be absent in our time.
How do we rediscover and share the agape Paul talked about?
Listen to a story that may help us rediscover the meaning of agape between two individuals. It is a true story from South Korea.
A father brings his teenage son to a Buddhist monk who lives alone in a remote mountain. It is late in the evening. The monk lives in a small hut deep in the mountain. As soon as the monk greets them, the father begins to berate his son in front of the monk. He narrates faults of his son one by one. When he is finished, he turns to the monk and says, “Dear venerable monk, I have tried everything with this son of mine. I am at a loss with him. He has done everything but to follow my wish for him. There is nothing I can do now for him. So, I brought him to you. I beg you make him a decent human being.” With that the father leaves to return to the city.
There is an awkward silence emanating from the teenager. He feels so much anger and shame and pain.
The monk gets up. He lights a fire in the clay oven outside the hut. He takes a bucket and fetches water from a stream near by. He heats the water. When the water is hot enough, he pours the steaming water into a large basin. Then the monk rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and kneels in front of the teenager and folds up his pant legs.
In silence, the monk takes each foot of the teenager and begins to gently wash his feet. Tears well up and begin to stream down on the teenager’s face. When the washing is done, the monk dries the boy’s feet. Then the monk prepares a futon bed for his guest.
No words were spoken but the teenager heard loud and clear that he was cared for. The teenager “heard” through the silent washing that he was loved for who he is.
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action.
John Allen, the writer of “Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu,” describes a scene at an Anglican cathedral in Cape Town on Saturday, September 2, 1989. The police attacked the protestors with batons and tear gas. The protestors were also sprayed with a water canon with purple dye so they could be tracked down.
“Tutu was summoned to the cathedral, where he found hundreds of shocked protestors taking refuge. Many bore red welts across the bodies and faces. … He was encouraged by the number of young Whites there.”[iv]
He shared the following words with those who were fighting to dismantle apartheid:
“Say to yourselves, in your heart: “God loves me.” In your heart: God loves me, God loves me. … I am of infinite value to God. God created me for freedom. … My freedom is inalienable. My freedom is God-given! I don’t go around and say, Baas [boss], please give me my freedom. God loves me, I am of infinite value because God loves me and God created me for freedom, and my freedom is inalienable, God-given. Right! Now straighten your shoulders, come, straighten up your shoulders like people who are born for freedom!”[v]
Four days later, Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa.
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action. Faith in God and Hope of God’s reign in our world are expressed through love in action.
On the night before Jesus was captured and executed on the cross, Jesus shared a meal with his beloved. For everyone at the meal, not knowing what was about to happen, it was a Passover supper. But for Jesus, the meal was a celebration of his ministry with his beloved on the night before embodied agape was about to be enacted on the cross. This is what we celebrate together today – agape of God enacted in and through Jesus whom we confess as our Lord and Saviour – as we partake bread and wine together as community.
We live in a society where many still live in hunger and abandonment from their neighbours. We also live in a world where many are following the Way of Jesus and live out agape in and through their lives.
Steve Winwood sang the question, “Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?”
Love is a verb. Love is expressed through action. Love is experienced in action. Faith in God and Hope of God’s reign in our world are expressed through love in action. Love becomes agape when we live out the higher love of God.
Amen.
-------------------------------------------
[i] Songfacts (website) http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5168
[ii] Victor Paul Furnish, The Anchor Bible: II Corinthians, New York: Doubleday, 1984, 4-22.
[iii] Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, Boston: Beacon Press, 2001, 4.
[iv] John Allen, Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of Desmond Tutu, New York: Free Press, 2006, 307.
[v] Ibid., 307.
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