Agape Love
By: The Rev. Dawn Stary
I want to speak to you today about love, something that is so central to our Christian tradition that each and every one of our tradition’s great practitioners has something to say about it.
We are going to hear from those people this morning as they witness to us again and again that at the core of our faith is love—a love so profound, so all-encompassing, that it gives the world a glimpse of God. The kind of love that shows people, in practical ways, how much God loves them.
Or as Victor Hugo puts it, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
The first letter of John 4:19 explains, “We love because he first loved us.”
St. Augustine of Hippo tells us that “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 13:1 states, “If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
St. Therese of Lisieux says, “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them."
The Gospel according to St. Matthew reports that Christ himself taught us this:
“‘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.’”
And then finally, I’m sure many of us have heard the words of our beloved Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, when he says, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
Our tradition clearly has much to say about love. And it’s important to note that the love we are called to is a very particular and special kind of love.
The sort of love that I am speaking about, and the sort of love that Jesus commands to his followers, is different from the sort of love pop culture sells us.
Chocolates, flowers, and dates are lovely and can play an integral part in a person’s intimate relationships. Romantic love is beautiful, but it’s not what we are talking about here.
Christian love is agape love. Dr. Melissa Symington of Pepperdine University explains agape love this way:
“The kind of love that doesn't retaliate is what we call agape love. Agape love, which is most often crowned as the highest form of Christian love, is the kind of love and action that shows empathy; extends the desire for the good of the beloved; wants the best; extends help or demonstrates good intentions; and is intended for everyone. Agape love is sacrificial. But it's certainly not easy.”
And Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. put it this way: “At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love … When we rise to love on the agape level, we love men not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but we love them because God loves them.”
[pause]
Agape love is the kind of love that challenges us to see beyond our biases and our disagreements. It is the kind of love that allows us to pray for peace and goodness for those whom we don’t like.
Agape love, which is not always easy to achieve, is the type of love that causes us to see the full humanity of all of God’s people.
No matter if they are rich or poor, no matter the color of their skin, where they are from, what gender they are, what teams they root for, what party they vote for, and on and on.
Agape love is the type of love that gives us the courage to be bearers of God’s goodness here and now, to be people who give others a glimpse of how good God is, and how much God loves them.
Today’s epistle reading from the letter to the Ephesians reminds us that as followers of Jesus, we must break down walls and we must move beyond our divisions so that we might grow together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
The letter to the Ephesians, which is addressed to a Gentile audience, was written around the year 60 AD about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Christ.
The letter has been attributed to St. Paul; however, most scholars believe it was not written by Paul, but was written in his name, which was not uncommon during the beginnings of Christianity.
This letter is specifically addressing the divisive matter of circumcision amongst members of the Jesus movement at that time.
Some Christians believed that men should be circumcised, which was customary in the Jewish tradition.
However, circumcision was not the standard amongst Gentiles. The contention between the “uncircumcision” and the “circumcision” was real, and was fraught with hostility.
The author implores the Christians addressed in this letter to move beyond differences and towards unity.
The author petitions the readers to recognize the damage being done by these divisions and to realize how it impacts the goodness and good works that God is calling them to enact here on earth.
How can they collect alms for the poor, feed the hungry, and preach the good news of Jesus Christ when they are occupied by their concern for who is in or out of Christianity because of a physical difference?
And today, how can we collect alms for the poor, feed the hungry, preach the good news, challenge oppressive systems of power, demand equity for all, and love with our whole hearts God, our neighbors, and ourselves if our minds and hearts are occupied with bias, hostility, fear, and anger?
The answer is that to practice love in a way that reveals God’s love to the world, to live into Christian agape love,
we must search our hearts and souls and shine a light on those parts of us that harbor prejudice even as we serve the poor.
We must look at those parts of us that want to respond with resentment even as we listen to the proclamation of God’s word.
As we heard earlier from Victor Hugo, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” You see?
When we love others with agape love, they reveal God to us, and we are given the gift of being able to reveal God’s love to them.
Here at St. Andrew’s, over the past year, you all have shown me the face of God.
None of us are perfect, and we all have more work to do.
And I encourage every one of us, myself included, to truly search inside ourselves to uncover any antipathy hiding in the shadows of our hearts so that we might love ourselves and one another as God has loved us.
But truly, I tell you all, my family and I have witnessed God’s goodness during our time here.
God’s face has shown itself to us during worship, volunteering, and fellowship.
We arrived here as strangers and now we leave here as friends because you created spaces for us, you built bridges, you welcomed us at your tables, and your opened your hearts to us and you bore the face of God.
You loved us with agape love! Simeon, nor Declan, nor I are without flaws, but still, you have looked past our shortcomings, choosing to love us.
Even when we have not seen eye-to-eye, we have not built walls between us, we have chosen love.
If we believe Presiding Bishop Curry when he says, “If it is not about love, it is not about God,” then we have a lot to be proud of here at St. Andrew’s.
During my short time with all of you, our work together has been about God because it has been about love.
Finally, may we remember St. Clare of Assisi’s words: “We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become.”
Thank you for loving me, Simeon, and Declan, and thank you for shaping us with your love.
In the name of our beloved savior, Jesus Christ, amen.
