Love -- The Most Excellent Way
By Charles Rush
February 6, 2000
I Corinthians 13: 1-13
inhold Niebuhr once said that Jesus taught us that our
self-fulfillment comes as a by-product of the fulfillment of others.
Our self-fulfillment comes as a by-product of the fulfillment of
others. He is right about that.
Reinhold Niebuhr also called the love ethic of Jesus and
'impossible possibility'. It is possible to be centered on the
fulfillment of others. There is a grace from God that opens us in a
transcendent way. On the other hand, love is not a simple possibility
in this life. We cannot do it consistently or easily, even in the best
of circumstances. It remains impossible too.
It is a grace. It is also a discipline. We return to it in
different times, in different ways, growing ourselves in the process of
learning what it really means to love.
Bernie Glassman was married to his wife for many years. For most
of their life, they lived in metropolitan New York where they met. She
followed his life early in their marriage, living where his career took
them, but his wife long wanted to live in the Sangre de Cristo
mountains outside of Santa Fe, and to establish a spiritual community,
to find a more holistic way of living than mid-town Manhattan offered.
After many, many years, it finally opened up and they moved. They
bought an old house, which need lots of work, but it was, as he says,
"a perfect refuge".
Bernie writes, "We arrived on Monday and moved into our house
on Tuesday. The following Sunday, as we were hanging pictures on the
wall, Jishu (his wife) complained of chest pains. She was hurried to
the hospital, where the doctors verified that she had suffered a major
heart attack. For the next four days she seemed to get stronger and
better. But on Thursday night Jishu suffered a second heart attack,
and she left this form of existence on Friday night, the first day of
spring, four days shy of her fifty-seventh birthday.
People ask me how I'm doing. It takes a while for me to
reply, for it's hard to answer them in word. Finally, I tell them I'm
bearing witness.
But how do you feel, they ask me.
I'm raw, I tell them."
Do you feel sad?"
I shake my head. Raw doesn't feel good or bad. Raw is the
smell of the lilacs by the back door, not six feet away from the relics
on the mantel. Raw is listening to Mahler's Fourth Symphony or the
songs of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Raw is reading the hundreds of
letters that come in, watching television alone at night.
Raw is letting whatever happens happen, what arises, arise.
Feelings too: grief, pain, loss, a desire to disappear, even the
desire to die. One feeling follows another, one sensation after the
next. I just listen deeply, bear witness.
I do some work; it's very little in comparison to the former days.
I am careful about how much time I spend with students and associates,
for I know how easy and comfortable it is to let that raw state slip
and let myself be distracted by work and talk with well-meaning
friends. So I, long accustomed to being on the road, have stayed
home. There are only a few people around me.
I live in a house chosen by my wife, reflecting her tastes
and wishes. My own choice would be a studio in New York City's Bowery,
no a house in a canyon overlooking a river. Those were the things
Jishu wanted and Jishu is gone. So I live in her house- I call it Casa
Jishu- and do the things she would have loved. I greet the dawn coming
over the mountains, watch the hummingbirds, prune the lilac bushes.
Each time I think of the smile on her face had she been here to do
these things. Instead I do them, bearing witness to her presence and
her absence.
How am I doing?"
I'm bearing witness. And the state of bearing witness is the
state of love."
It is a funny thing that when we are young, we are so intent on
finding out who we are, establishing our own identity. And if we are
lucky enough in the middle of our life to have profound love, whether
with a spouse or good friends, we open ourselves intimately. After a
few years, we find that we have become quite different people than we
ever would have imagined that we would have become because we have
loved and been loved. It is not the only way to live, but as Paul
says, it is the more excellent way.
Profound love is about being open to being changed by another; it is
about letting yourself become the support that makes other people grow
and flourish; it is about bringing out the higher spiritual capacities
that we are meant to manifest.
I once heard someone describe why her grandmother was so important
in her life and she put it this way. She said, my grandmother had a
grove of fruit trees in her back yard- apples, peaches, and pears. She
had raspberry bushes and blackberry bushes too. She was forever
pruning this garden and her flowers too boot. I have a permanent image
of her in that garden with her pruning sheers and a smock over her
clothes, and an old hat that she wore with a sassy expression. When I
think of her today, I see her that way even though we didn't really
spend all that much time in that garden. I think it is because when I
was in her presence I felt like I was being watered and tilled. She
had the most gracious smile and touch. You just couldn't be a selfish
brat when she held your face in her hand. You just wanted to be a
better person, certainly better than the person I was when I was
fighting with my sister. And the funny thing about her was that I felt
safe with her, in a way that I can't really put int
I remember when there was a terrible tragedy in our family. It was
horrific and senseless. I was 11 years old and I was so terribly
afraid. I was just anxious that the world was going to fall apart.
But I knew if I could just stand next to my grandmother, it was going
to be all right... not that everything would be solved, but somehow,
someway it was going to be all right. She could make the rockiest soil
bring forth fruit."
What a wonderful thing to say. Which leads me to ask, what are you
doing to tend to those that are all around you? How are you helping
them to grow? We can't exactly will ourselves to be nurturing of
others in love. At the profoundest level, you have to be transformed
by God.
On the other hand, we can open ourselves to being filled with God's
love. We can say a prayer in the middle of the day: "God
redirect me. Open me to your love. Fill my soul with your presence.
Grant that you love might flow through me to others, that they might be
healed and matured.
I think that is what Paul is getting at in his wonderful 13
th
chapter of 1
st
Corinthians. He is reminding us of the need we have to practice the
discipline of love, to turn ourselves again, daily, to God and ask for
divine presence to manifest itself in our lives. It does not come to
us naturally.
Naturally, we return to the competitive side of things. Even our
most intimate relationships perpetually threaten to slip back into the
competitive mode. Siblings seemed to be wired this way from birth do
they not? They seem to think start off viewing their parents as only
capable of giving a finite amount of love and affirmation, so that if
someone else gets 2 doses of love that is 2 doses I lost out on.
I have two puppies right now that are like this. They are
sisters. They want to nuzzle against you like you are their Mama. If
one of them gets in a really good snuggle position, the other one will
jump into that spot and try to take it away which causes a lot of
snipping and growling. I am all the time saying to them, "Ladies,
we are Christian dogs. We live in peace with each other." But
they don't listen to me.
I know it's a banal example to use. But how many times have you
seen grown Aunts or Uncle's still behaving, more or less, in the same
way? How many times during the week, do you find yourself thinking 'I
ought to change gears here'?
My professor so wonderfully alludes to this need to change gears
when he amplifies St. Paul somewhat. "Love does not yell at the
kids and pout with the mate; love is not jealous of time and other's
gifts; it is not domineering or rude. Live does not insist on my way
and my terms; it is not self-pitying or demanding of overt expression
of 'gee you're great'; love does not always find fault with the
performance of others; it does not shout "I told you
so"," But rejoices in even little successes and in all signs
of growth."
An important part of life is lived in this intersection. We
regularly fall back into competitive mode. We look to our most
intimate relationships in terms of what they are giving to me.
Consciously or unconsciously we are constantly keeping score, with our
own needs being the tacit reference point. Much of what is on that
tally sheet is pretty pedestrian, pretty ordinary, stuff.
One side of the tally sheet has a line of credit: planned great get
away vacation for February break, read to kids 3 nights this week;
helped spouse out of jam when they were overbooked. The other side is
a line of expenditures: planning for a long weekend with my college
friends without spouse, bought gift for self that really annoys spouse
(like dogs); asked spouse to take my place at the field trip at the
last minute.
And this equation had better factor out evenly at the end of the month,
more or less. If it doesn't, we have two predictable responses. One
is various forms direct anger. Some of us grouse around the house all
the time and make life a nuisance for everybody. Some of us are
sarcastic, letting loose these little darts at every witty chance. We
are rude, finding fault. Some of us throw tirades or tantrums,
especially men seem to love to throw tirades and send the rest of the
family cowering for cover. That is being domineering with our size.
Funny thing is that there are a whole lot of people that can
effectively engage in these behaviors that can't, for one reason or the
other, actually articulate why they are angry. It's just that they
feel like they are giving more than they are getting. It's not fair
and I'm mad and you're gonna have to deal with it.
Likewise, the other expression of anger is passive. Paul refers to
those people who pout. They won't talk. They stay gone, physically or
emotionally. "Don't even touch me, not tonight." Paul says,
"Love is not self-pitying".
That is when you think that other people should read your mind and
comment appreciatively about something you spent a lot of time doing
that they apparently don't seem to notice as much as they should, even
though a number of people wouldn't notice, but these people should
because they are so close to you that they should just know, and you
have your feelings hurt just because things are going on as usual. The
person close to you says, "What's wrong with you?" You
respond, "Nothing, nothing... and I'll not tell them in a million
years if they can't figure it out on their own. And you spend a huge
block of time letting them just stew in the silence, wondering,
"what have I done?" Serves them right. "Love does not
As psychologists are constantly teaching us, it is important for us to
have our needs met, to learn to communicate our needs directly and
effectively. That is another sermon. This morning, I only want to
observe a contrast. How different the world is when you are secure in
yourself, when you can transcend worrying about your needs, when you
can focus on just radiating meeting the needs of other people. That
really changes the whole dynamics in the community, doesn't it? Just
try it as an experiment for a couple of days. Take one relationship
and spend some time thinking of several things you could do for that
person that would bring them fulfillment. You can't do this expecting
a pay out of some kind. You just do it, like the bumper sticker says
to practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
For more or less healthy relationships, this usually works wonders.
When we radiate out acceptance, love, and caring to others, they become
relaxed, positive, expansive. You can watch them grow. It is possible
to take the relationship to a whole new level. If it is a more or less
healthy relationship, they will instinctively respond by being more
caring. It is possible to start a whole chain reaction of goodness.
We can actually be the catalysts that beam out love energy to people
all around us, if we open ourselves to it, and just watch it heal
people all around us. You can watch them grow into better human
beings. St. Paul says, love "rejoices even in little successes
and all signs of growth. Love accepts humanity, even in
my family;
believes in grace even for
my kids,
my boss,
my employees;
hopes for progress; encourages new beginnings."
Right now, some of you are thinking, "Reverend, you don't know my
kids?" I understand. Some of you are thinking, "You don't
know how dysfunctional my boss really is?" I understand. It is
true that the Bible never gives us much good advice on what to do with
people that take and take and take and take, who seem actually
incapable of giving. Jesus never really gives us much advice on how to
handle dysfunctional Uncle Bob. I plan to bring this up with the
Almighty in heaven.
Our scripture only points us today in a direction. It doesn't deal
with the particulars. It doesn't deal with qualifications, nuance,
exceptions to the rule. It points in a direction.
There is nothing quite so beautiful as an older couple that has
discovered the art of caring for one another over a long period of
time. They have a certain shimmer in their eyes, a palpable warmth and
grace. There is nothing quite as profound as two elderly sisters that
have encouraged each other up through all the phases of life, suffered
together through tragedies they did not want but learned to live
through, who have given each other the confidence and trust to branch
out and bloom because they are deeply rooted. There is nothing quite
as enduring as a friend who has known you when you made stupid
mistakes, who has encouraged you when you were down, someone you could
speak your heart with and know your stuff would be treasured- even when
it is raw or rash. Someone who believed in you, invested in you. That
lasts. My brothers and sisters that is where we want to head. St.
Paul says that is what we are aiming for. It is the more excellent
way.
Now I will try to be patient an understanding with others as God
is patient and understanding with me. So faith in god and others, hope
for myself and others. God's love for me and in me for others, these
three; but the greatest of these is love."
Amen.
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