Saint Andrew's Church
Lake Worth, Florida

The Eve of the Fifth Sunday of Easter [May 8, 2004]
CANON RICHARD T. NOLAN

Not All Love is Loving

         We repeatedly hear the word "love" as the heart of Christian living. However, when we look at Jesus' relationships, there are many ordinary uses of the word that his life rejects, because not all "love" is loving.

         "Springtime love," for example, is that wonderful feeling of exhilaration in new relationships, when life is all aglow. Such infatuations are common at the outset of many new associations. The feelings of delight are understandable, but as yet undeveloped. Nonetheless, many couples (and others) discard new bonds, as springtime love calms. How sad! Their new relationships were not given a chance to mature, and they begin the never-ending quest for the next connection. This is certainly not how Jesus and his friends lived.

         Consider another "love" that is not loving. A particular family does everything together: the parents, their son and his wife with their soon-to-be-adult children, are always together on vacations, weekends, picnics, and so on. Likewise, a gay couple does the equivalent: everything must be together, even activities which one of them dislikes. For all involved in this so-called "love," individuality is practically non-existent. Their theme song is "You belong to me." As a couple, they own each other (or, one tries to own the other). They possess each other (or, one tries to possess the other). They are addicted to each other (or, one is addicted to the other). They crush each other (or, one crushes the other). Surely, this brand of parasitic love is not at the heart of Christianity. Without a doubt, possessiveness is not the love lived by Jesus Christ and his allies. Such relationships are stifling, and, unless all involved want to be possessed, the relationships will be brief.

         A pious hermit prays hour after hour in his desert cave. Within him is a deep longing, indeed a craving, to be unified with God, to lose himself in the Divine. A lonely, solitary figure, he minimizes his bodily needs. He makes a virtue of calculated poverty and lifelong chastity. We could not imagine that he could be earthy or enjoy a good party. He feels what he calls love only when he is most yearning to be united with God, during times of trance-like meditations. Surely, this brand of love is not at the heart of Christianity. The deliberate repudiation of close human relationships is absolutely unnatural for all human beings. Indisputably, a "fatal attraction" to the Divine is not the communal love lived by Jesus and his disciples.

         Many men and women have been raised to be "givers." They have been taught that only other people's needs matter. They can provide for others, but are difficult to provide for. There is desperation in their overwhelming need to be needed, their need to provide. They are willing to "give you the shirt off their backs" but cannot straightforwardly accept assistance from others. Furthermore, obsessive "givers" are poor companions, because they are incapable of mutuality. The glorification of martyrdom and selflessness in some circles, and among some of the unwell people in the Church past and present, has too often encouraged the neglect of the final two words of Jesus' teaching, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Unquestionably, without those final two words any notion of love is not at the heart of Christianity. Without doubt, pious self-neglect for its own sake is not the love lived fully by Jesus and his followers.

         Many contemporary groups, trapped in a 1970s mode, promote instantaneous pseudo-intimacy as love. With forced smiles, such gatherings require individuals to greet each other with Hollywood-"dahling" embraces and counterfeit familiarity - even though the persons might not even know each other's names or circumstances. How utterly alien to the genuine, slow-grown, profound affections lived and taught by Christ and his supporters! Individuals, couples, and groups ensnared in pseudo-intimacies have surface interactions at best.

         Now, let us consider the qualities taught and lived by Jesus Christ: emotions and ways of relating to each other encouraged by him as he instructs us to love one another. First, hear the witness of St. Paul (I Cor. 13:4 ff.) "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

         And now, some pertinent insights drawn from religious and secular sources: Love implies the possession of a feeling of deep involvement in another; a loving relationship is supportive (not undermining), firm (including "no" as well as "yes"), mutual (not one-way), tender (not brutal), joyful (not woeful), fearless (not apprehensive), and peace-loving (not embattled). A loving relationship is creative (not monotonous), forgiving when sorrow is expressed (not begrudging), merciful (not vindictive) and upbeat (not downcast). Loving relationships are those that encourage us to feel warmly and with equal regard toward our real neighbors; loving relationships encourage us to be self-loving, to take care of our own needs, too.

         Such loving is at the heart of flourishing spousal relationships, friendships, family life, and the life of vibrant congregations. Indeed, these are the qualities at the foundation of a truly noble, caring, and gentler social order.

         In these comments, I have not exhausted the many meanings of the word "love." Nor is my vision of the love of God in Christ complete. But I am bold enough to encourage you to be careful of the word; many of the self-defeating examples I've explored have often invaded the Christian Faith and are damaging spiritually and emotionally to the unsuspecting. Watch out for too much springtime love, possessiveness, for religious loners and givers unable to receive, and for pseudo-intimacies! They diminish or eradicate Christ-like relationships.

         To distinguish among the many emotions called "love," it is Good News that you and I are guided chiefly by those qualities lived for us and for our liberation by God's own Clue to Love, none other than Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.