What does love look like?

Acts 10.44-48 The Gentiles have received the Spirt as much as we have

1 John 5.1-6 This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments

John 15.9-17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

 

‘I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’

 

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Today’s gospel is part of a longer passage in which Jesus is addressing his disciples, and, by extension, he is teaching us too.

 

He’s teaching them, and us, some profoundly important things: about the nature of God; about how he and God, the Father, relate; and about how we frail, sinful, mortals can both reflect the divine love, and be drawn into it, such that we take on the character of God and are fruitful and filled with joy.

 

But this morning’s passage can be quite confusing: the language of St John’s Gospel can appear to repeat, go round in circles and be generally baffling.

 

We need a key to unlock it; and that key for interpretation is the concept of love.

 

I was challenged during the past week with this thought that was put to me: we Christians talk a lot about love, it appears a great deal in our readings and Great Tradition, but how far do we understand what it means?

 

What is this love that Christ teaches?

 

One starting point is to note that the Greek language has different words that all translate into English as ‘love’.

 

(So the slogan ‘love is love’ is a little more complex than it first sounds.)

 

For example, there is a difference between my love for my country and the love I have for my wife and children: both are love, but are somewhat different!

 

Rather than go down the dictionary route, we might ask, in the spirit of the gospel passage, ‘what does love look like?’

 

What does it look like truly to love God?

 

What does it look like truly to love another person?

 

What does it look like truly to be loved by God?

 

What does it look like truly to be loved by another person?

 

St Paul famously describes what this love looks like, in what he calls a ‘more excellent way’, that is, more excellent than many spiritual gifts like prophecy, teaching, healing, speaking in tongues and such like (1 Corinthians 12.28-30).

 

What Paul raises our sights towards are the ‘higher gifts’ which he goes on to identify as faith, hope and… love.

 

So here is a way into our questions about what love, human and divine, looks like:

 

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. (1 Corinthians 13.4-7)

 

Here’s an exercise to do with those verses. If you replace your name for ‘love’ does it ring true? How does this sound if you apply it to yourself? How far can you say?

 

I am patient; I am kind; I am not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but I rejoice in the truth. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

 

Ask, does your life look like that? And how can you let go of those things that are not of love? [see below for a method of examining this in your life]

 

And if you replace the name ‘Jesus’ for ‘love’, you find the two are interchangeable.

 

Indeed, at risk of going back to the dictionary, what St Paul is describing is the Greek word agape, which sometimes people call ‘Christian love’.

 

In fact, it’s the word Jesus uses throughout the Gospel reading this morning when the word ‘love’ appears. It is the love described by St Paul: a love that is pure and sacrificial and generous and joyful and fruitful and flowing from God.

 

And this love endures though everything.

 

Whilst everything is partial in this world, in the life of the world to come we will see unimpeded, for then we will know the life and love of heaven, when we are fully grafted into the life of God.

 

So love is not about rivalry or competition or making trade-offs or seeking selfish gain is not love.

 

When we truly love we will the good of the other, simply for their sake not ours.

 

So love always involves treating another person as a person not an object. 

 

That is where prevalence of pornography is so destructive both to the viewer and the viewed.

 

Pornography is literally inhuman because it makes another person’s body into an object to be viewed not a person to be loved.

 

Love is personal.

 

By that I mean love is about persons, that is how we are made.

 

The first letter of John reminds us that if we can’t love another person, then we cannot begin to love God. (1 John 4.20)

 

Yet God’s love is what brought us, and the whole creation, into being.

 

This love is home, a love to rest in and dwell in: ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love’. (John 15.9)

 

This love is sacrificial because, as Jesus says, love is tested in what it is ready to give up or let go of, not in what it tries to hold onto, even life itself: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’. (John 15.13)

 

That’s the ultimate expression of what love looks like – and it is what we see when we contemplate the Cross.

 

It is the primary command of the Lord of how we are to be; everything else flows from the Divine Love: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.’ (John 15.10).

 

This is what makes abiding in God possible and bearable.

 

Our love is always a response to God’s love: without love there is no space for truth, no space for hope and we squeeze out faith.

 

Love fulfils all that is good, and beautiful, and true: love binds all together in unity as a whole.

 

This love is seen on the Cross, for Jesus laid down his life for his friends, and he calls you and me into that friendship.

 

What a privilege, friendship with the Source of Love.

 

So may we respond, in love, to the Love that comes to us from God.

 

LIVING IN GOD’S LOVE:

A FORM OF SELF-EXAMINATION

 

“God is love, and those who live in God live in love and God lives in them.” (1 John 4.16)

 

“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.” (1 Corinthians 13.4-7)

 

Can I say?

I am patient; I am kind; I am not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; I do not rejoice in wrongdoing, but I rejoice in the truth. I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

 

Jesus said: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15.9-11)