Four Kinds of Love

Eros: The Love of Pleasure

Robert K. Tschannen-Moran The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ Columbus, Ohio December 1, 1996

Memory Verse: "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) Today's Texts: Luke 3:1-16 Opening Prayer: Gracious God, fill our hearts with love. We seek to learn your ways and to hear your voice. May this time of preaching be faithful and true to your word. This we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Chances are, we've all seen at least one of these television commercials. The original, and still the best, begins with an unshaven, middle-aged man sitting at the end of a dock, talking to his father. He apparently has something important to say, but he just can't find the right words. He becomes increasingly agitated and emotional until he tearfully blurts out that memorable line: "I love you, man!" His father, seeing through the faade, replies, "You're not going to get my Bud Light." At which point, the heartbroken little boy of a man moves on down the dock only to start the routine all over again with his brother. These popular television commercials illustrate the problem we have in the English language with the word, "love." It can and does apply to practically every human attachment. We can love our food, our pets, our jobs, our friends, our partners, our families, our churches, our countries, and our enemies. We can have a clandestine love affair, a church-sponsored love feast, and rotund little love handles. The love of money can be the root of all evils while the love of God can be the highest of goods. The love of nature has inspired many a sonnet. We can make love and fake love. We can send love and receive love. It is a broad and elusive concept.

For the next four weeks we will delve deeply into the subject of love. Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of Christ into the world. If we use the season of advent to learn more about love, and to become more loving ourselves, we will have used this time well. The advent texts will serve as the backdrop for our conversation. They illustrate, each in their own way, different dimensions of love. The Greek language, in which the New Testament was written, captured the nuances of love by using different terms. Instead of one catch-all word, the Greek language broke love down into four different but related dimensions. Eros, the love of pleasure, is the dimension we will consider today. In the next few weeks, we will focus on Philia, the love of friends, Storge, the love between parents and children, and Agape, the servant love encouraged and epitomized by Christ. Looking at these different facets of love will help us to better understand and apply the greatest commandment of them all: To love God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Mark 12:29-31). When Jesus provided this poignant summation of the Law, Eros was not exactly the kind of love he had in mind. Although Eros has inspired many religions, both ancient and modern, the word never made it into the New Testament. Eros is too self-centered, too preoccupied with desire, too focused on pleasure, to comprise the way of Christian devotion. Ignatius, the first-century Bishop of Antioch, describes Eros as something to be shattered. He is being taken to Rome, to suffer a martyr's death in the amphitheater, when he writes a letter imploring the Roman Christians to not try and win for him the mistaken kindness of a reprieve. What makes him so confident in the face of death? The fact that his passionate love for the world, his desire, his Eros, had been crucified with Christ. He now finds happiness in the incorruptible love of God. (Ignatius to the Romans 7:2, cf. Galatians 6:14). This use of Eros is obviously much bigger than sexual desire. It is anything which focuses on self-gratification rather than on spiritual growth. It is becoming attached to and dependent upon the object of our desire. It is a form of idolatry which fails to recognize and respect the other. From this vantage point, we can see why Ignatius would seek to crucify Eros with the cross of Christ. The problem is not with pleasure, but with the love of pleasure. Such love can quickly take over and dominate our lives. The book of Proverbs speaks of erotic love as a trap (Proverbs 7). It professes to offer happiness and joy, but it really offers emptiness and pain. It is, in other words, seductive. Enough is never enough, when it comes to Eros (Proverbs 30:15f). It quickly becomes an obsession, leading to destruction and death. Greek mythology recognized the hazards of Eros, the god of love, by portraying him as the son of Chaos and the consort of Longing. He shoots darts of desire into the bosoms of gods and humans, wounding them with the blindness of love. He distracts them from their real purpose in life.

The Judeo-Christian tradition, which commands the worship of no gods other than the one, true God, cannot tolerate such distractions. The love of pleasure becomes a god unto itself. It demands more and more from us in order to produce the same ephemeral high. The more we grasp at our own comforts, the more elusive they become. It is a vicious spiral, leading to the decadence of our affluent and commercialized society. And so we wait, not for the coming of the Christ, but for the unveiling of Air Jordan XII, the most prestigious shoe in the sports world, and of other Christmas specials. This temptation to indulge our selfish desires is not unique to 20th century North Americans. It was a problem which Jesus specifically came to address. Listen again to the hard-hitting talk of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus who proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. "Prepare the way of the Lord," John said to the crowds, "make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked shall be made straight, the rough ways smooth. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Luke 3:4-6). Those words from the prophet Isaiah were invoked by John to call people away from Eros -- the love of pleasure -- in order to bring them closer to faith. "What should we do?" the people asked. If you have two coats, John said, share with those who have none. If you have enough food, share with those who are hungry. If you collect taxes, take no more than the prescribed amount. If you serve in the army, do not threaten or extort money from people. Be satisfied with your wages.

This is what it takes to prepare for the Anointed One of God. We cannot focus on ourselves and the objects of our own desiring. We must focus on others and the will of God. Then, and only then, will we discover the happiness that we seek. "Happiness," writes Nathaniel Hawthorne, "is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and softly sits on your shoulder." Unfortunately, our society has failed to understand this critical point. Exercising our inalienable right to pursue happiness has become an excuse for over-indulgence and self-gratification. Chasing after butterflies has become our national obsession. Television soap operas and talk shows reveal our preoccupation with sex, drugs, power, and money. Dennis Rodman can boast of being as bad as he wants to be, without shame or regret. This is, after all, a free country -- a place Ronald Reagan once described as the country, above all, where someone can always get rich. Eros is the underlying basis of our entire culture. The "I love you, man!" Bud Light commercials illustrate the point. At the heart of Madison Avenue's elaborately engineered system of

persuasion lies one fundamental premise: Each group in our society has its weaknesses and deepseated emotional needs. Through focus groups and interviews they identify those needs and then devise 30-second television spots that make it seem as if ordinary, everyday products are part of the soothing solution. No wonder grateful and relieved consumers purchase the advertised goods with such reckless abandon. We are manipulated by our longings and our fears. We are dragged there by Eros. Last week the Dispatch ran a story on DHEA, a nutritional supplement which was described as the fountain of youth. The next day, health food stores couldn't keep up with the demand. Who cares about the potential cancer risks of long-term use. We want to feel better now! We want to enjoy life and to live it with gusto. We want to give ourselves every edge, and every buzz, we possibly can. Agencies make big profits by isolating and identifying each population segment's vulnerabilities, transforming average run-of-the-mill items into magic panaceas, and then targeting their newly designed therapeutic sales pitches at the right cluster of people. One outspoken ad executive has candidly described the exploitive brand of psychological manipulation which undergirds the American marketing community: "Advertising deals in open sores . . . Fear. Greed. Anger. Hostility. You name the dwarfs and we play on every one. We play on all the emotions and on all the problems, from not getting ahead . . . to the desire to be (loved). Everyone has a button. If enough people have the same button, you have a successful ad and a successful product." (Jerry Della Femina, 1981 magazine interview). But conspicuous consumption does not make for a happy life. The Bud Light commercials depict a miserable man enslaved by his desire for love and alcohol. We see from the response of his cohorts that this is not the first time they have encountered such a ploy. But enough is never enough. The man stumbles on, from one commercial to the next, hoping his deceit will pay off. Such is the pursuit of pleasure. It is both self-destructive and counterproductive. In last year's confirmation class we talked about the difference between pleasure and joy. They quickly responded with knowing responses. Having spent 13 or 14 years immersed in a culture of pleasure seeking, they could quickly identify its futility. They were looking for something different, something deeper, something which depends upon the journey of faith. When will we realize that the only button worth pushing is the one that reminds us we are waiting for Immanuel! The sign of God with us is not happiness and the pursuit of pleasure, it is the cross which gives meaning and measure to life. This morning we break the bread and pour the wine as a reminder of the One who came not be served, but to serve. "This is my commandment," Jesus said, "that you love one another as I have loved you. If you keep this commandment and abide in my love, my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete." (John 15:11f). Amen.

Philia: The Love of Friends

Robert K. Tschannen-Moran The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ Columbus, Ohio December 8, 1996

Memory Verse: "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) Today's Texts: Luke 3:1-16 Opening Prayer: Thank you, God, for the love of friends. Thank you for bringing us together this morning to hear your word. Knit us together in the common project of listening for you. Amen. It's hard to say what was going on at the time, some of you may even remember, but in the early 1940s, before the United States had entered World War II, Dr. Lichliter -- the pastor of this church -- wrote several articles in our newsletter about the problem of assimilating new members. Judging from an article written after his departure, I suspect Dr. Lichliter knew that our church was no longer attracting and keeping people as it had when he first arrived in the mid1920s. For all its positive attributes, First Church was not keeping up with the growth-rate of Columbus. This problem admitted to only two possible solutions: either we had to increase the rate of additions or decrease the rate of subtractions. Dr. Lichliter focused on the latter. "It is those who drift away from the church," he wrote, "that give us pause. We wonder why -- and it is difficult to find out. At least, it is difficult for the Ministers to get at the real reason. People come in, are active for awhile in attendance and support and then just drift away. After two years we have no other alternative than to place them on the Inactive List." (First Church News, May - June 1941). Dr. Lichliter called this "our most serious problem." People drifting away from the church undermined our sense of community and exposed the superficiality of our relationships. Dr. Lichliter saw a direct correlation between the willingness of people to get involved with the church and the trajectory of their tenure as members. Those who failed to develop strong and active relationships, inevitably left in pretty short order. Those who invested themselves and gave the most of their time, talent, and treasure, inevitably made a connection which lasted for decades and even for generations.

This correlation led Dr. Lichliter, during the final years of his pastorate at First Church, to exhort both new and older members alike to take more responsibility for nurturing their relationships with the Ministers and with each other. People would go in the hospital, or have a pastoral need, without ever letting anyone know. People would fail to introduce themselves to one another following worship. People would not always participate in the fellowship groups, clubs, and classes. By the early 1940s, these dynamics had apparently become a source of great consternation. Dr. Lichliter identified what he called a "constructive restlessness in the Parish," a restlessness that was fomenting a "spirit of critical inquiry" to re-study the functions and purpose of the organizations in the church. "All this is good," Dr. Lichliter concluded. "It is no reflection upon any organization's past to stop occasionally and take an inventory. There is no reason why any group should go on in the same way, with the same type of program, and with the same objectives. It is good to ask fundamental questions and seek diligently for the answers." (Ibid.) Eavesdropping on this conversation from the early 1940s illustrates the fact that our church has long struggled with its sense of community and its reason for being. Mr. O. A. Miller, who donated the stained glass window in the east transept, was fond of pointing out that First Church was not a downtown church, but a "city-wide church" drawing from the entire metropolitan area. This diversity, one of our most esteemed assets, made it difficult to stay in touch with each other throughout the week. One could go from Sunday to Sunday, without ever coming into contact with another church member. Dr. Lichliter urged people to be more intentional and more involved, in order to develop their sense of community with each other. He challenged people not only to believe in God, but act accordingly This rings as true today as it did fifty years ago. It probably rings more true. In 1970 Philip Slater wrote a book entitled The Pursuit of Loneliness (Beacon Press Boston). Reflecting on the decade of the sixties, Slater argued that three basic human desires are deeply and uniquely frustrated by North American culture: the desire for community, the desire for engagement, and the desire for dependence. This is the way of the world, or at least our world, into which we are indoctrinated from birth. Our market economy has pushed competition to the extreme edge of the envelope. Loneliness has become the price tag of success. Individualism has been aggravated by technology and wealth. We can now do just about anything from the comfort of our own private home, with our own private means of transportation and entertainment. But such convenience is counterproductive to community. "An enormous technology," Slater concluded, "seems to have set itself the task of making it unnecessary for one human being ever to ask anything of another in the course of going about his (or her) daily business. Even within the family Americans are unique in their feeling that each

member should have a separate room, and even a separate telephone, television, and car, when economically possible. We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it. What accidental contacts we do have, furthermore, seem more intrusive, not only because they are unsought but because they are unconnected with any familiar pattern of interdependence." Our attempt to deny human interdependence and to pursue unrealistic fantasies of selfsufficiency is exemplified by two familiar processes in contemporary America: the flight to the suburbs and the do-it-yourself movement. We find ourselves in what Slater diagnosed as a vicious circle: the more we try to avoid or minimize potentially irksome or competitive relationships the more arduous, competitive, trivial, and irksome our relationships become. With such a clarion call to community articulated at the end of the sixties, a decade of activism and protest, one would think that we might have made some progress on this front in the past 26 years. Unfortunately, Slater's call was not heeded and things have gone from bad to worse. In 1985, Robert Bellah and company wrote a national bestseller entitled Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Harper & Row San Francisco). Bellah documented, through a series of interviews and sociological studies, that the cherished value of rugged individualism had left middle-class Americans isolated, beleaguered, empty, and minimal. We had fulfilled Alexis de Tocqueville's prophecy from the 1830s: in exercising our individual right to the pursuit of happiness we have undermined the social conditions which are a prerequisite for happiness. We have eroded such basic institutions as extended families, religious communities, local politics, and cooperative neighborhoods. Think, for a moment, about your friends. How many friends do you have? Where do they live? How often do you see them? What do you do, together? I, for one, have been in my current home for more than three years. I still don't know the name of the woman who lives in the house next door. Even those neighbors I do know by name are not really friends. In fact, there is very little time for friendship at all. We are busy people who take more pleasure in our projects and our possessions than in our relationships. Even our children have become a project: a temporary condition as they pass through our doors on the way to their own private lives. This is what Bellah calls the culture of separation. John Donne, in 1611, at the very beginning of the modern era, with the prescience sometimes given to great poets, described our culture well: 'Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone; All just supply, and all Relation:

Prince, Subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot, For every man alone thinkes he hath got To be a Phoenix, and that then can bee None of that kinde, of which he is, but hee. "Donne lived in a world where the ties of kinship, village and feudal obligation were already loosening, though only a few perceived how radical the consequences would be. America was founded by people who had come loose" from the structures of traditional societies. Now the experiment has run its course, and it is hard to see how a world so fragmented, so lacking in any overall pattern, can be transformed. The advent of computers, and the World Wide Web, has made it more rather than less likely that people may end up with no real friends at all. We will all have virtual friends, who conform only to the figments of our imagination and can be turned off at will. No wonder churches are under so much pressure today to produce a sense of community: it is a quality of life that is otherwise lacking in our society. The struggles of Dr. Lichliter's time have grown worse rather than better. The question is no longer, "How do we assimilate new members?" The question is, "How do we assimilate at all?" How do we bring together isolated and busy people, without any obvious sense of connection or loyalty, and meld them into a caring and concerned community? When community has become such a scarce and singular experience in our every day lives, the church cannot expect to get much help from the culture at large. Television portrays only two visions of the good life: extreme personal success and vivid personal feeling. It perpetuates the culture of separation. We must, therefore, turn to a different source for inspiration and direction. We must turn to scripture and the teachings of Jesus. Of the four Greek words for love, two of them appear in the New Testament and they are used almost interchangeably. Philia and Agape, the love of friends and the love of God, are related to one another as a shadow relates to a tree. The more we give of ourselves to God, the more we cast a shadow of love among people. It is no accident that as soon as Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, as soon as she knew that the Lord was with her, she decided to run, with haste, to the home of her relative Elizabeth in

order to share the news. Their babies danced in the womb. This was no superficial contact in an electronic chat room. This was a three-month stay, face to face, during which time the women blessed God and served one another in love. "My soul magnifies the Lord," Mary sang, "and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for the Mighty One has done great things for me." (Luke 1:47, 49). Mary and Elizabeth were brought together by the special terms and conditions of their pregnancies. God had done great things for them. This, in the end, is the basis for all Christian community and it is the best hope we have of breaking free from the culture of separation. The more aware we become of God's blessings and God's presence in our lives, the more we are led into a loving relationship with others. If we are all God's children, and if God takes a personal interest in our lives, then we have common basis for traveling together. In sharing and caring for one another, we may even find the heart of God. John Winthrop, one of the first Puritans, expressed this sentiment in a sermon which he delivered on board ship in Salem harbor just before landing in 1630. "We must delight in each other," he told them, "make others conditions our own, rejoyce together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our community as members of the same body." This is what we lack when we lack a sense of community. It is not so much a lack of feeling, a lack of sentiment and affection, but a lack of doing. It is a lack of active caring, a lack of taking time with each other, which tears at the fabric of our lives. During one appearance of Jesus to his disciples, after the resurrection, he asked Simon Peter the question, "Do you love me?" Jesus used the word agape. Do you love me, as much as I have loved you? Simon Peter replied with the word philia. He said, in effect, "I am your friend." Jesus responded with the command: "Feed my sheep." Once again Jesus asked about agape, about how much Peter loved him, and once again Peter responded with philia. "I'm your friend." "Tend my lambs." Finally, Jesus asked the question a third time, only now he used the word philia. "Peter, are you my friend?" Peter was deeply troubled and for a third time said, "Jesus, you know I am your friend." Then "feed my sheep." The command was the same. Even friendship with Jesus required active caring for others: dividing their burdens and multiplying their joys. Friendship is not just a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. It is something we do, by spending time with each other and giving of our very selves. Ask yourselves: how much time do you spend with the other people in this church? Not just in meetings, but caring for each other, having fun together, tending to each other's needs. How much do you give of yourself? Dr. Lichliter was right. Until we take responsibility for this most basic facet of our fellowship, we will never live up to the true measure of our calling.

Friendship comes very close to the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Every time we care for a friend. Every time we pray for them. Every time we send them a card or letter. Every time we break bread together. Every time we visit them or do a favor for them. We are building the community called church and investing ourselves in the reign of God.. Yes, it takes a special effort to build friendships when we are scattered around the city and come from different walks of life. But it's the only effort I know which has the power and the promise to assimilate us into the truth of the gospel and to mark us as the people of God. Amen.

Storge: The Love of Parents

Robert K. Tschannen-Moran The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ Columbus, Ohio December 15, 1996

Memory Verse: "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) Today's Texts: Luke 1:57-80 Opening Prayer: O Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. My current sermon series on Four Kinds of Love was inspired by the writings of C. S. Lewis, who, in 1960, published a book entitled The Four Loves (Geoffrey Bles London). Lewis provided the impetus for organizing my thoughts around the four Greek words for love, although he occasionally gives them a different interpretation. I commend his book to you for further study and review of a subject which certainly has universal appeal and relevance. Storge, the love between parents and children, is arguably the first and most basic love which any of us experience, or lack, in this life. Although science continues to push the edge of the envelope, it remains true that each and every one of us had the experience of being carried and nourished in our mother's womb. Upon birth, we were sheltered, fed, changed, and held. The nursing mother is the operative image for this kind of love. It is instinctual and elemental. Without storge, which Lewis translates as affection, we are destined to die. Affection is not unique to the human species. The solicitous care of mother animals for their young offspring is used in scripture as a metaphor for God. I can remember James Forbes, pastor

of the Riverside Church in New York City, explaining that the repertoire of no preacher is complete without a sermon on Deuteronomy 32:11. "As an eagle stirs up her nest, hovers over her young, spreads out her wings, takes them up, and bears them on her pinions, so the Lord alone has guided the children of Israel." The same could be said for Luke 13:34, when Jesus cries over Jerusalem, saying "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!" There is something compelling about the image of God as a caring and protective mother, filled with affection for her children. Israel's experience of being sustained in the wilderness, and Jesus' compassion for the city of Jerusalem, are both compared to this most basic of human loves. The prophet Isaiah put it most plainly: "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you," says the Lord. (Isaiah 66:13). This is not to reduce the Judeo-Christian God to yet another nature religion, inferring from creation the attributes of the Creator. But it is to recognize that the God revealed through scripture and Christian experience is not without similarities to the relationship between mother and child. As a word, storge does not appear in the New Testament nor in other early Christian writings. And if the word means nothing more than the instinctual affection of mothers for their new-born offspring, then it may have limited utility in the Christian lexicon. But if the word encompasses the full range of affection between parents and children, over the course of a lifetime, then it may come very close to the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is an indiscriminate character to the affection between parents and children, an affection which easily overlooks the apparent fitness of the beloved, that approaches the grace of God itself. This approach can often be seen in the relationship between parents and children when the children have congenital handicaps. The third son of our neighbors across the street was born with hydro encephalitis, leaving him with permanent physical and mental disabilities. He travels by wheelchair and can hardly speak. But still his parents love him. As his body got bigger and heavier, his parents built a wheelchair-accessible addition onto their home. This unexpected tragedy began a life-long commitment of care giving, based on nothing more and nothing less than affection for their child. This affection has made our neighbors, for all who know them, the epitome of Christian charity. They might not think of themselves as exemplary, only as making the best of a bad situation, but by loving their son through all of his profound challenges they have invested parenthood with new layers of meaning and significance. Storge has been transformed beyond the instinctual affection animals have for their young, who may push a runt out of the litter, into the higher reaches of love. This, it seems to me, is precisely the point of the natural affection between parents and children: it is to draw us out of ourselves and to draw us closer to God. Perhaps this is why Jesus was so fond of calling God "abba," which translates as "daddy" or "pappa." Jesus picked up the Old Testament theme of God as a caring and protective parent, and

took it one step further. This was not a distant and removed God, what Rudolph Otto called "the holy other," but an approachable God who could be counted on as a little child counts upon his daddy or mommy, deserving or not. Christians have called God "our Father" for so long that we hardly recognize its historical discontinuity. In Jesus' day, there was not a single example of the use of the informal "abba" as an address to God in all of Jewish literature, and even the formal references to God as "father" were relatively rare occurrences. But with Jesus, the metaphor becomes a predominant motif. The notion of God as "daddy" appears to come from Jesus himself, while the notion of God as "father" is used by every single author in the New Testament. What startles us about Jesus' use of the word "abba" is not its gender, but its intimate and affectionate qualities. Suddenly, one might say, storge has become the axis upon which our relationship with God revolves. "Abba" and "imma," "pappa" and "mamma," are the first words a Jewish child learns. Now Jesus uses one of these words in relationship to God. Nothing could be more revolutionary. "Unless you receive the reign of God as a little child," Jesus advised his disciples, "you will never enter it at all." (Luke 18:17). This is storge, which goes both ways. It is the affection of parents for their children, and of children for their parents. It is the protective quality of a mother eagle and the trusting quality of a feeble hatchling. It is the nature of our relationship with God, expressed in very human terms. Henri Nouwen has observed that parents will sometimes admit to looking upon the face of their new-born child as a stranger. Who is this person? We've never seen him before. She can't tell us her name. We don't know his admirable and irritable qualities. She has no resume or references. We don't know his strengths and weaknesses. We don't know her aptitudes and abilities. We don't know his problems and potentials. And yet we welcome her into our home without so much as batting an eye. We love him for no reason other than love itself. We end up acting very much like God. Unfortunately, as C. S. Lewis points out repeatedly, the natural affection between parents and children can run into problems over time which are very unlike God. Parents can treat their children as possessions to be used and controlled rather than as gifts to be prized and enjoyed. They can invest so much of themselves in the lives of their children as to destroy the relationships themselves. Lewis tells the story of the recently deceased Mrs. Fidget. "It is really astonishing," writes Lewis, "how her family have brightened up. The drawn look has gone from her husband's face; he begins to be able to laugh. The younger boy, ... an embittered, peevish little creature, turns out to be quite human. The elder, who was hardly ever at home except when he was in bed, is nearly always there now and has begun to reorganize the garden. The girl, who was always supposed to be 'delicate'..., now has the riding lessons which were once out of the question, dances all night,

and plays any amount of tennis." "Mrs. Fidget very often said that she lived for her family. And it was not untrue. Everyone in the neighborhood knew it. 'She lives for her family,' they said; 'what a wife and mother!'" "There was always a hot lunch for anyone who was at home and always a hot meal at night (even in midsummer). They implored her not to provide this. They protested almost with tears in their eyes (and with truth) that they liked cold meals. It made no difference. She was living for her family. She always sat up to 'welcome' you home if you were out late at night; two or three in the morning, it made no odds; you would always find the frail, pale, weary face awaiting you, like a silent accusation. Which meant of course that you couldn't with any decency go out very often." "She was always making things too; being in her own estimation an excellent amateur dressmaker and a great knitter. And of course, unless you were a heartless brute, you had to wear the things. And then her care for their health! She bore the whole burden of that daughter's 'delicacy' alone. The girl was to have no worries, no responsibility for her own health." In all these things, "Mrs. Fidget, as she so often said, would 'work her fingers to the bone' for her family. They couldn't stop her. Nor could they--being decent people--quite sit still and watch her do it. They had to help. Indeed they were always having to help. That is, they did things for her to help her to do things for them which they didn't want done. The Vicar says that Mrs. Fidget is now at rest. Let us hope she is," concludes Lewis. "What's quite certain is that her family are." This is what happens when the affection between parents and children turns into idolatry instead of an avenue to God. Mrs. Fidget was loving the life out of her family with her martyr-like style of care giving. The affection between parents and children can be twisted and destroyed if either party has an interest apart from the good of the other. Erich Fromm has said, "In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation." Jesus put it even more starkly when he said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26). Perhaps this is why storge, as a word, never made it into the New Testament. Without discipline it tends to collapse into a sea of narcissism, needing to be needed to the point of extinction. The affection between parents and children risks its own destruction whenever it becomes an end in itself rather than a means to God. This morning's scripture lessons regarding the birth of John the Baptist demonstrate the right way of handling the affection between parents and children. John's birth was a gift from God. In her old age, past the point of when she could have reasonably expected to get pregnant, Elizabeth conceived and had a son. He was a source of great joy and delight. He filled his mother and

father with storge. He was the answer to prayer. But instead of trying to possess this special gift, even though he came as their only child so late in life, Elizabeth and Zechariah named him in obedience to a vision and dedicated him to the service of God. The tongue of Zechariah was set free and he sang a memorable song of praise and dedication. "You, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:76-79). This is affection at its best, turning people on to the majesty and service of God. When our relationships as parents and children, children and parents, become oriented in this way they have the potential to draw us close the meaning of life itself. When we give our children to God, right from the beginning, we allow God to shape and form our affections into the very image of his love for us. This is why we baptize our babies and call ourselves a family of faith. Amen.

Agape: The Love of God -- Part I

Robert K. Tschannen-Moran The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ Columbus, Ohio December 24, 1996

Memory Verse: "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) Today's Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20 Opening Prayer: Incarnate God, thank you for the gift of Christmas. Help us to focus on your presence in order to receive the gift of your love. Amen. This evening we're going to talk about the love of God, by putting two stories together. One story has already been told, in our Christmas Eve scriptures. It's the story of people rejoicing in the light of God. It's the story of a child being called Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting God, Almighty Father, and Prince of Peace. It's the story of the Messiah, born in Bethlehem, bringing

good news of great joy to all people on earth and even to the angels in heaven. The other story is no less familiar to most English-speaking Christians. It's the story of Ebenezer Scrooge as told by Charles Dickens in his short but wonderful novel published in 1843, A Christmas Carol. You remember the story line, whether from reading the book, watching the play, or enjoying the numerous silver screen spinoffs. A tight-fisted old meany has an attitude when it comes to the revelry and merriment of Christmas. "Merry Christmas!" Scrooge exclaimed increduously to his nephew at the beginning of the book, "Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas,' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." Now that's what I call an attitude. No wonder Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner." The man was "hard and sharp as flint." Nobody ever stopped to ask how he was doing or to make a date for company. Nobody, that is, except his nephew who decided to offer a season's greeting on Christmas Eve while Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" he cried in a cheerful voice. To which Scrooge gave his now famous reply: (wait for response) I know we can do better than that. What did Scrooge say in response to his nephew's cheerful Christmas greeting? "Bah! Humbug!" That's better. We can probably even do it antiphonally. Let me hear the children. What did Scrooge say? "Bah! Humbug!" And now the adults: "Bah! Humbug!" The men: "Bah! Humbug!" And now the women: "Bah! Humbug!" Everyone together: "Bah! Humbug!" Now admit it. Doesn't that feel good? We actually came out and said it. After all the problems we've had, after all the crises we've faced, after all the brokenness we've suffered, after all the loved ones we've lost, after all the meetings we've endured, after all the running around we've done, after all the money we've spent, and after all the sleep we've forfeited -- who feels like celebrating Christmas? There is, in each and every one of us, something which identifies with Ebenezer Scrooge. And yet.... And yet there is another voice, without which the composition is not complete. It is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. It is the light of one shining in the darkness. It is the word of one brooding with God yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In those days a decree went out that all the world should be registered. So Joseph and Mary left

their home, even though Mary was expecting a child, and traveled to Bethlehem. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in cloths, and placed him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Right from the beginning the Messiah was born into a "Bah! Humbug!" kind of world. The Holy Spirit could have chosen a woman of high station in the capital city. But instead, as Martin Luther once wrote, "God preferred a lowly maid from a mean town." (Roland Bainton, The Martin Luther Christmas Book). As if that wasn't enough, the child was born away from home, in a cow stall, because no one would make room for them in the inn. Joseph and Mary could easily have started their own "Bah! Humbug!" chorus. But instead there was a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" Even the shepherds were amazed by what they saw, while Mary treasured up these things and pondered them in her heart. We all know what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge. Visited by three ghosts, he eventually converted to the Christmas Spirit. He eventually saw the angels singing in heaven as "he opened up his heart and began to think of all people, even people below him, as fellow-passengers to the grave, rather than as different races of creatures bound on other journeys. And so it came to be said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if anyone alive possessed the knowledge." That, you see, is the true Christmas carol. To turn "Bah! Humbug!" into "Merry Christmas!" is not to make a healthy and appropriate adjustment to a consumer-oriented society. It is to change altogether our understanding of the bottom line. It is to give up the pursuit of profit at the expense of people. It is to respond to difficulty with compassion and faith. This is what Ebenezer Scrooge learned after grieving the pain of his childhood and glimpsing the pain of his future. This is what Jesus Christ came to stir in the hearts of people like you and me. This is agape love, reaching out to us, transforming our loves into the very image of God with us. After reading A Christmas Carol and another one of Dicken's Christmas books for the first time, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to a friend, "I cried my eyes out, and had a terrible fight not to sob. But oh, dear God, they are good -- and I feel so good after them -- I shall do good and lose no time -- I want to go out and comfort someone -- I shall give money. Oh, what a jolly thing it is for (someone) to have written books like these and just filled people's hearts with pity." Christmas is, indeed, the time for us to regain the Spirit of Christian charity in a "Bah! Humbug!" world. Our revelry and merriment will be empty celebrations if they are not expressions of love. But once love is found, there is no way to keep silent. Even the rocks and stones begin to sing. The pain of the world cannot overcome the life of God. Scholarship may call into question the historicity of the Christmas story, but it cannot call into question the essential truth of the gospel:

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son to save us from our sins. Do I hear a "Merry Christmas!"? Do I hear a "Merry Christmas!" from the children? Do I hear a "Merry Christmas!" from the adults? "Merry Christmas!" to you all, and "God bless Us, Every One!" Amen.

Agape: The Love of God -- Part II

Robert K. Tschannen-Moran The First Congregational Church United Church of Christ Columbus, Ohio December 24, 1996

Memory Verse: "Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13) Today's Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20 Opening Prayer: O God, teach us how to love. Push away our fears that we might reach out to others even as you have reached out to us. Use this hour for your glory. Amen. There is a trend in modern scholarship to interpret many of the traditions regarding Jesus as the imaginative reworkings of the church trying to gain a foothold in the pagan world. The traditions regarding Christmas are understandably prime candidates for such reinterpretation. Last week Jean Mac Nevin loaned me a copy of Robert Funk's new book, Honest to Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). Robert Funk is one of the movers and shakers behind The Jesus Seminar, which has made headlines by questioning the historicity of the Jesus' traditions by voting with colored marbles. These scholars view the scriptural stories regarding Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection as mythological creations of the early church fathers. These creations are what John Shelby Spong calls midrashic inventions, since they resemble and take their lead from the ancient Jewish practice of narrative theology. (Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). In loaning me the book, Jean asked for my recommendation as to whether or not it should be in the church library. What are we to think and do, when the historical Jesus is reduced to nothing more than a humble, iconoclastic Galilean sage? If the most cherished stories of our tradition are

reduced to nothing more than interpretive doctrinal overlays, then why are we here tonight? Should a book like this be in our library? The latest issue of U.S. News & World Report features a cover article on this controversy as it relates to Christmas. (December 23, 1996). "Christmas," they report, "is an American passion 96 percent of Americans say they celebrate Christmas in some form, according to a recent poll." The only problem is that our Christmas celebrations stem neither from Jesus nor from the early church. There is no record in the New Testament of anyone celebrating Jesus' birthday. In fact, the first mention of a Nativity feast appears in a calendar more than 300 years later. Christmas was a rather late invention designed, apparently, to make Christianity more competitive with the pagan religions and mystery cults of the day. Ever since that time, Christmas has been a perennial battleground for competing cultural, religious, and economic forces. Our Puritan ancestors refused to celebrate the event at all. Cotton Mather described yuletide merrymaking as "an affront unto the grace of God." But Cotton Mather did not carry the day. And over time, the mystery of the incarnation has become inextricably intertwined with the biggest shopping season of the year accounting for up to 50% of retailers' profits. So when scholars such as Robert Funk tell us that the infancy narratives in Luke and Matthew are relatively late creations of the church designed to fill in the obscure origins of a great figure, with no more claim to historical authenticity than the infancy narratives of Plato or Alexander the Great, we are probably not surprised. It's hard to see how Christmas in America, 1990's style, could have evolved from the birth of Jesus all on its own. There were obviously other forces at work. But in the still of the night, when all the preparations have ceased, some of us yet repair to Jesus. I love that old expression. That is why we are here, is it not, so late on Christmas Eve. To repair to Jesus. This hour of worship is like the eye of a hurricane, between the busy preparations for Christmas and the actual event itself, we come here for a moment of peace. That is one of my objections to modern scholarship. It too often takes things apart, it too often dissembles things, without putting them back together in light of its own insights and understandings. It sweeps us out into the violent winds of the storm without pulling us back into the peaceful center. Robert Funk, for example, views the infancy narratives of Jesus as analogous to those of Superman and The Lone Ranger. Superman descends to earth from another planet by miraculous means as a baby. He is given special knowledge in the form of a luminous crystal which he is not at liberty to use until he is mature. To perform the rites of initiation he must withdraw to the polar ice cap in order to ponder his role. Superman subsequently launches has career as a savior in a large urban center, where he fights for truth, justice, and the American way.

With the myth of Superman as his paradigm, and the abuses of the church as his foil, Funk sees little remaining value in the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew. But why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Why not take the insights of modern scholarship regarding the historical Jesus and use them to reinterpret the infancy narratives as moving demonstrations of an incarnate God, fully human but fully divine? Why not take what we know of Jesus in order to find new meaning in stories which may have been fashioned by communities with very different agendas? Perhaps this what we mean by the inspiration of scripture. Surely the texts themselves are ripe for reinterpretation. When Isaiah proclaims the birth of a savior, with all the fanfare of chapter nine -- Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace -- the tradition is immediately transformed in chapter fifty-three by the vision of a Suffering Servant who grew up in our midst without form or majesty, with nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. Already the Superman, armed with the right-handed power of God, is giving way to the Incarnate Christ. So too with the story of Jesus in Luke, chapter two. The virgin birth can just as well be taken as the miraculous stirring of God with us rather than as the mighty intrusion of God from above. A homeless child is visited by shepherds, the rabble of society, as a prefiguring of his ministry and death. If this scene is good news of great joy for all people, then its very strange news indeed. Once again Superman is hard to find. There's no magic crystal and no magic powers. There's no denigration of human life. There is only the birth of a Crucified God, who loves us and shares our common lot, even the most common of them all, in order to call us into the reign of love. This is the elevation of human life by the very identification of God with us. Has not the recognition and appreciation of this movement always been the true power of Christmas? Dr. Howard Thurman was known for five decades as a dynamic speaker, preacher, and mystic. In 1953 he was made the Dean of Marsh Chapel and Professor of Spiritual Disciplines at Boston University. His was the first such appointment of an African American to a predominantly white university anywhere in the United States. Dr. Thurman loved Christmas not because of its connections with the Superman myth, but because of its power to get people to look deeply at themselves. The thought of God releasing an only child to certain death, under no compulsion or duress, is enough to give pause to even the hardest of human hearts. "Christmas," Dr. Thurman once wrote, "is a mood, a quality, a symbol. It is never merely a fact. As a fact it is a date on the calendar; to the believer it is the anniversary of the Event in human history. An individual may relate meaningfully to the fact or to the Event, but that would not make Christmas." The mood of Christmas -- what is it? It is a quickening of the presence of other human beings in whose lives a precious part of one's own has been released. It is a memory of

other days when in one's path an angel appeared spreading a halo over an ordinary moment or a commonplace event. It is an iridescence of sheer delight that once bathed one's whole being with something more wonderful than words can ever tell. Of such is the mood of Christmas.

The quality of Christmas -- what is it? It is the fullness with which fruit ripens, blossoms unfold into flowers, and live coals glow in the darkness. It is the richness of vibrant colors - the calm purple of grapes, the exciting redness of tomatoes, the simmering light of the noiseless stirring of a lake at sunset. It is the sense of plateau behind a large rock where one may take temporary respite from winds that chill. Of such is the quality of Christmas.

The symbol of Christmas -- what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother's nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stirred with the newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil." (The Inward Journey, 1961).

That, I would suggest to you, is the point of the story in Luke's gospel. It is not to overpower us with the signs and wonders of a Superman who embodies the myth of redemptive violence. It is to overwhelm us with the compassion and grace of a Servant God who incarnates the presence of transforming love. It is not to fight for the American way or any other way identified with the cultures and creeds of this world. It is not to satisfy all our needs. It is to break open the reign of God as a seed, growing in our midst, for all people everywhere to experience and enjoy. For the past several weeks on Sunday mornings we have been considering the subject of love. We have looked at different kinds of love ranging from our love of pleasure to our love of friends and family. At one time, I thought of these loves as somehow competitive with the love of God. I can remember giving wedding sermons which warned against the dangers and shortcomings of affection, friendship, and family attachments. Keep your eyes fixed on God, I would say, and everything else will follow. There is, of course, a certain truth in this. Our natural loves can indeed become idols which leave no room for God. Even the union between husband and wife, which is compared by the apostle

Paul to the union between Christ and the church, is subject to this distortion. But there is a greater danger than loving the things and people of this world too much; it is to have loved too little or to have never loved at all. The natural loves are not competitive with the love of God; they are used by God to transform an otherwise hurting and loveless world. This is the meaning of Christmas, of God taking human form in order to experience the full measure of life. This is why the same Greek word, agape, is used in the New Testament to refer to all kinds of love. The more we relate to others, the more we give ourselves to others, the more God comes to us. The love of God is in the midst of life, suffering indignities from the cradle to the grave. Insulating ourselves may offer a kind of protection, but it also isolates us from the reign of God itself. "There is no safe investment," writes C.S. Lewis. "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglement; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness." "But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." (The Four Loves, Harcourt Brace & Company New York, 1960, 1988). I suppose there are those who might object to the risks implicit in Bethlehem on Broad Street. I suppose there are those who might object to a Crucified Messiah. But it began long ago, in a Bethlehem manger. This movement of God. The broken body. The shed tears. The spilled blood. This is the love of God. And if there be no other way for us, so be it. Amen.