Luke
10:25-28
August 5, 2012
Just then a lawyer stood up to test
Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to
him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And
he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
This morning we’re beginning a new sermon series on the
fruits of the Spirit, which is based on Galatians
5:22-23: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no
law against such things.” I don’t
think it’s a coincidence that Paul starts his list of fruits by emphasizing
love.
Very early on in my life, I realized that the center of Christianity
is love. It’s what really matters. It’s primary in Paul’s list, and through out
passage for today, it’s the center of Jesus’ teachings. Without love in the
world, things begin to crumble.
I discovered the truth of this last statement early on in
my counseling career through groundbreaking research that was done in the late
1980s. There was a period in the 1980s when so many new and different kinds of
counseling approaches and techniques were being designed. Some were based on
digging deeply into people’s subconscious. Others were focused on changing
behavior. Others emphasized helping people discover natural health directives
already within us. Others were designed to help us become aware of the nature
of reality and how to respond to it. The field of counseling was becoming
divided into those who were Freudians, Jungians, Lacanian, Rogerian, Bowenian,
cognitive behaviorists, social learning theorists, Rational Emotive therapists,
and so many, many more. The question arose: out of all those different kinds of
counseling, which is the most effective.
Research experiments were created to objectively research
the question. In the end these studies found something surprising. All of the
approaches were relatively effective in helping people, but what seemed to
matter most was not the particular approach to counseling, but the extent to
which clients and patients felt loved by their therapist. That was a
groundbreaking discovery, and it baffled many people who were devoted to one
field or another. The findings may also answer why it is that new therapies
always seem so groundbreaking with the originators, but not with followers. The
originators of these therapies have a deep passion and care for their patients,
and develop these approaches to be more effective. That passion and care is
their love. But those who follow them care more about the techniques, and so
aren’t as good at the love, which makes their results more mixed. The point is
that in counseling, just as in life, LOVE matters most.
The famous psychiatrist, Karl Menninger, who founded the
world-renown Menninger Clinic in Kansas, often said, “Love cures people—both the ones who give it and the ones who receive
it.” He understood, as both a therapist and as a Christian, that without
love people don’t get better but get worse. He believed that a lack of feeling
love is what ails us in society.
Menninger realized something that Christ understood
deeply, but that humans over time have to constantly re-remember. And each time
people re-remember about love it’s like a revelation to them, even if it’s been
there all along. I remember the 1960s when there was a huge emphasis on love,
especially in 1966, dubbed the Summer of Love. The hippie movement saw love as
the answer to almost everything, and the music, film, and literature of the day
stressed it. Musically, the Beatles sang, “All You Need Is Love.” This song was
followed by many others in the late 1960s and early 1970s that promoted love as
the answer to the worlds ills. Slowly, though, through the 80s, 90s, and the
2000s, love became less and less prominent as a theme in our culture. People
don’t talk about it much as a major force in life today, even in Christian
circles. This was summed up to me by a pastor who once said to me, “Yeah, I suppose love is important and all
that, but not as important as righteousness.”
Culturally our focus tends to be more on erotic, sexual
love rather than on an altruistic love. Many scientists and philosophers have
called into question whether there really is any altruistic love, saying that
what looks like love is simple self-interest masquerading as altruism. If you
look at music, film, and literature, it is mostly about conflict and supremacy
(basically about breaking up), or about erotic love.
Part of the reason why love’s been diminished in our
culture has to do with the diminishment of religion. People are walking away
from Christianity in droves, and they’re doing so because they believe that we Christians
have lost our grounding in love. And in many ways they’re right. So much of Christianity
today is focused not on how great our love is, but on theological purity,
orthodoxy, right doctrine, and dogma. No wonder people walk away. They don’t
experience Christians as being loving. They just experience us as constantly
promoting our rightness.
Look at the impact our loss of love has had on those who
have walked away from Christianity. David
Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, two researchers for the evangelical research company,
the Barna Group, published a book two years ago titled, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...
and Why It Matters. They did research on how non-Christian adults between
the ages of 18-35 view Christianity. What they found really shows how loving we
are perceived to be by non-Christians.
- 91% believe that Christians are antihomosexual.
- 87% believe that we are judgmental
- 85% believe that we are hypocritical.
- 70% believe that we are insensitive to others.
These statistics tell us all we need to know about how
loving we are perceived to be. It shows that a vast majority of non-Christians
think that Christians don’t love. So, they walk or stay away because they don’t
think we’re very loving. The think we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. My
question, though, in response is a simple one: who teaches them about love? The
American Christian movement has lost its moorings in love, but there’s been
nothing to replace it. We may not be perceived to be very loving, but it’s not
as though there’s any other institution in our culture teaching love. The
result is that people walk away from the church and become less exposed to a
need for love—not just erotic love, but a deeper, Christ-like love.
In his day, Jesus was trying to restore an emphasis on
love. The emphasis then was on law, not love. The focus was on whether or not
they were perfectly observing the Sabbath, praying the right ways throughout
the day, eating the right foods, etc,… Jesus saw their lack of love, and so he
emphasized love as the core of law. He emphasized the Great Command found in
our passage: “You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength,
and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” This is what
matters. In essence, if we are following this command, it will automatically
lead us to follow the law, but following the law will not make us love. Still,
people of our day and age are similar to the people of Jesus’ day. People keep
persisting in thinking that things other than love are what matter—how biblical
we are, how moral we are, how ethical we are. If we love, we will be biblical,
moral, and ethical, but being biblical, moral, and ethical don’t make us
loving.
If you want to know what ails all of us, it’s a lack of
love, and correcting it all starts with falling in love with God. Jesus teaches
us to love by letting go of judgment, letting go of resentment, becoming humble,
and learning to see others as God sees them, which allows us to act in love.
What kind of love is Jesus talking about? Let me share
with you something that, to me, makes it clear.
Some of you have heard of Catherine of Genoa. She is one of my favorite
mystics, and a woman who inspires me despite her having died 600 years ago. Catherine
of Genoa lived during the 1400s in Genoa, Italy. It was a time in which all of
Europe was slowly emerging from the Dark Ages. Life was getting better, but it
was still difficult. Catherine, at age
16, was forced into marriage to an older man named Guliano Adorno. The marriage
was arranged by Catherine’s older brother for financial and political reasons. It
was a terrible marriage from the start. Adorno was a womanizer, an adulterer,
and a scoundrel. He neglected and abused Catherine, as he squandered their money
and engaged in one tryst after another. Catherine entered a dark, ten-year
period of depression in which her life spiraled downward.
At age 26, Catherine went to her church for confession (a
regular practice for her), but didn’t have the energy to confess. Instead, she
cried and asked for a blessing from God. The request came from the deep desperation
of her heart. In that moment, she had an experience of God’s love that
overwhelmed her. She became deeply aware of how much God loved her, and in that
moment made a pledge to God: “No more sin for me. Only God’s love.” She decided in that moment
to dedicate her life to God.
She began to volunteer in the Pammotine Hospital, caring
for victims of the plague. This was
during one of those periodic times when the bubonic plague swept through
Europe, killing thousands. Catherine’s
ministry to the plague victims was one of love.
There was no cure for the disease.
There was nothing much that Catherine could do except love these people
who were left by relatives to die. You see, plague victims were feared and were
often abandoned by relatives and friends. When everyone else drew back in horror,
Catherine drew closer. She was repulsed by the sores that covered their bodies,
yet following God’s guidance she kissed the sores. She kissed the ill, cooled
their heads, and comforted them. In short, she loved them as God loved
them.
Her life became such a beacon of light that it had a
transforming effect on those around her. Many co-workers and volunteers were
inspired and transformed by her presence. Her husband, whose dalliances had almost
destroyed Catherine, was transformed by her and her love. When he had a son
through an affair, Catherine raised the boy, Thobia, as her own. Eventually,
her love shined a light on Guliano that helped him to see the pain he had
caused, and it opened a door for him to experience God’s love. Guliano gave up his affairs and financial
squaderings, and for the rest of his life worked beside Catherine in the hospital,
caring for the sick. Catherine is the example of love. Her calling wasn’t to
perfection, but to love. Too many today seek perfection, not love.
We’re called to love—not to perfection, not to judgment,
not to knowledge, not to greatness, not to anything else. We were created by
God to love God and to be loved by God, and to love others with God’s love. Remember
this: Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it
Amen.
