Be Love

Love is great!

We search for that person who completes us (wedding reading)

In January Amazon released a movie called, “What Love Looks Like”. It opens with a series of couples very much in the beginning stages of love. They’re all early 20’s couples, in that early stage of romantic love — that intoxicating phase. Quickly it moves to a series of scenes of couples having typical marital problems, not hearing each other, not being on the same page, etc. Then on to couples having problems getting to know each other, and maybe start out a romantic relationship. You know the awkward attempts at pick-up lines stage. And then the turning to friends for help stage.

And of course, one guy, in trying to figure out what to text to a girl he met in the park, almost texts, “Hey do you want to get married?” It was going to be his second text to her.

Sometimes we jump into moments like this so quickly because we’re overwhelmed with trying to figure out what love is — and how love can be in our lives. We feel somewhat incomplete, and we’re searching for the person who will help us feel whole.

When I hear today’s reading, I can’t help but think about weddings.

How can you not? I’m sure I’ve heard it at more weddings than anywhere else — definitely more often than on Sunday mornings.

Being Love isn’t the same as being “in love”

And as much as we know that love at the beginning of relationships and even the love at weddings is intense, we also realize that over time it changes.

What is Love?

A state of being, not a series of actions, not a virtue

Early in a relationship, love is expressed by action. You know the things that a couple does for each other. The flowers that are bought and given, the sandwiches that are shared, the meals that are prepared for each other.

Just like the opening scenes of the movie, things can quickly change and become more mundane.

The words from today’s reading might come to mind.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NRSV

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.

We figure we’ll bear with it, we believe it is worth is, we hope the mundane can be overcome, and we can recapture that initial love.

At times we might even come back to these words hoping to recapture that initial love — if we’re patient enough, kind enough, truthful enough, … then we’ll recapture that feeling.

Is that what Paul was getting at though? Was he trying to give us a manual on how to be in a romantic relationship? Or at least was he trying to describe how the Church in Corinth could find couples?

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year C, Volume 1 Theological Perspective

Read outside the context of Paul’s entire letter, it might seem that love is simply the foremost in a list of virtues, yet another talent one might try to perfect; but read within the context of the letter, this love is a state of being.

That puts a whole new level on things — not a description of actions or virtues — but a state of being. If you thought being patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable, resentful, etc was hard … being love is even harder.

How do we change our state of being?

So how do we change the state of our being?

Deuteronomy and Leviticus

The state of our being is incredibly important. Jesus was asked once what was the most important commandment — the most important thing we could do. Here’s his reply:

Matthew 22:36–40 NRSV

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

And since we often think that love is shown by what we do, we begin to wonder ...

How can we show our love when we can't be with one another? How do we set our core — our being — to be love.

Jesus of course is quoting this from Deuteronomy:

The New Revised Standard Version The Great Commandment

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.a 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblemb on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Keeping love with us all the time, teaching children about love, talking about love when we’re at home or away, thinking about love when we go to sleep and get up, when we write them on our hands and foreheads, and post them at our doors … it can’t but not change us to the very core.

Love isn't about what we do, it is about who we are at our core -- and that is evident when we're together or when we're apart.

Love is Eternal!

Jesus taught in parables -- people saw dimly

Our being apart, does make it harder to see the love that we have for each other. It doesn’t mean that the love isn’t there though. We know it is there within ourselves — and by extension we can assume it is there in others as well. When I read the part of this reading about seeing dimly, I think about how our seeing is dimmed at this time — and also how Jesus didn’t teach things clearly. He taught in parables, and people had a hard time “seeing” what he meant.

Seeing the face of Love, means seeing the face of God

Our hope is that one day, we will “see” what Jesus was teaching about — we will see love — we will see the face of God.

Seeing clearly … seeing God’s face … means we will see the unique/identifying characteristics of God (i.e. Love)

For in seeing God’s face — actually in seeing any face — we see the unique identifying characteristics of a person. What is unique about God? God is love — from the beginning — through now — and until the end — God is love.

We rejoice in being unique and loved in God’s eyes.

May we rejoice in our own unique and identifying features and characteristics. May we rejoice in our ability to be love in the world. For our God is love and for that we give thanks. Amen.