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The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
January 31,
2010 The Rev. William Van Oss, Rector
Readings
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, And we pray that all unity will one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes,They’ll know that we are Christians by our love.
That’s a little song I learned in church back around 1975; I was 11 years old. Nineteen seventy-five was not a high water mark in the world of church music. The song I just sang might be criticized for being simplistic or idealistic, but it has stuck with me, deeply, for 35 years. Especially the refrain, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
The song is so deep in me that it flew into my head when I read today’s Second Reading from First Corinthians. That’s a great hymn about love, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It hears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Paul writes a spiritual hymn, an uplifting, beautiful piece about love.
This scripture is proclaimed at almost every wedding I celebrate, perhaps it was read at yours. It’s an idealistic picture, isn’t it? It might be dismissed by the more “realistic” among us, but it’s a vision, a hope, a dream, a little bit like everyone being “one in the Spirit, and one in the Lord.” Of the several Greek words for love that Paul had to choose from, he chose to use “agape” in this hymn. Agape is the kind of love God has for us, and that we are called to have for each other. Agape is an altruistic and respectful love. Agape means that we love the other regardless of shared affections, personal attraction, their deservedness of being loved or their ability to reciprocate. In other words, we love them even if we don’t like them, even if they don’t deserve to be loved, even if they are not able to reciprocate, to give love back. This is agape love. The kind of love Christians are called to have for each other, the kind of love God has for us. Because God loves us even when God doesn’t like us very much, even when we hurt each other or ourselves, even when we are selfish or petulant or worse. Agape love is the foundation of our Christianity. It is what makes us Christian.
Recently, I was reading a spiritual writer who suggested that being called a Christian is not so much something we say about ourselves, rather it is something that others should say about us. As in, “Hey, look, there’s Karen Armstrong, she’s a Christian, you know.” What I believe this writer meant is that our Christianity should be evident, it should show. People around us should see it. We Christians should be different. And we are, when we love our enemies, when we forgive 70 times 7 times, when we do good in the name of Christ, when we bless those who mistreat us. In other words, when we love with agape love. When we love people we don’t like, people who don’t deserve it, people who don’t love us back.
A few weeks ago, I saw the movie Invictus. It is the story of Nelson Mandela, who became president of the country of South Africa in 1994. Mandela had fought against apartheid, the legal system that enabled whites to subjugate and oppress blacks, and Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for his activism. Mandela was released in 1990 when apartheid ended and promptly elected South Africa’s president. And he worked tirelessly to try to bring blacks and whites together, to unite the very divided country. One way he tried to do this was to unite the country around the all-white rugby team, the Springboks, who were despised by black people who saw them as a symbol of apartheid and oppression. Mandela met with the captain of the Springboks, a white man, to share his vision of forgiveness and unity. He encouraged the team to offer rugby clinics to black children, and to make appearances in black neighborhoods.
In one deeply moving scene, the rugby team visits Robben Island prison, where Mandela was held for 27 years. The team captain stands in Mandela’s empty cell, stretching out his arms to touch both walls at once, looking through the tiny window picturing Mandela in the courtyard with a hammer making big rocks small for 27 years. Some of his teammates are critical of their captain’s affection for Mandela and at one point one teammate shouts at him, “What do you like about the bloody president so much? What’s so great about him?” And the captain calmly replies, “He was unjustly imprisoned for 27 years and he came out willing to forgive his captors.” That’s agape love, that’s Christian love, that’s how people will know we are Christians, the willingness to love even our enemies, to practice a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Thankfully for most of us, the call to love is not quite so dramatic or heroic as with Mandela. For us, the question might be, can we love those we disagree with? What if we, as a church, local, diocesan, national, global, modeled agape love by loving people who feel differently about say, gay bishops? What if we respected and loved those we disagree with in the church, could we be a model for others to follow? Might people who disagree with each other on political or community issues learn to love and respect each other in spite of their differences? Might we stay together and continue to work things out rather than splinter off into our own little like-minded groups, little “echo chambers?”
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, And we pray that all unity will one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes,They’ll know that we are Christians by our love.