Love's Source

1 John 4:16b-21

Rev. Monte Marshall

I begin this morning with an amazing story of love.  During a Christian worship service held at St. Rafael’s cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003, the parish priest “told the story of a woman whose son and husband were killed by a police officer.  Eventually they caught the police officer and dragged him before the court.  In court, as the judge considered the sentence of the police officer, the woman spoke boldly:  ‘He took my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give, and he needs to know what love and grace feel like—so I think he should have to come to visit my home in the slums, twice a month, and spend time with me, so that I can be a mother to him, so that I can embrace him, and he can know that my forgiveness is real.’”[1]

Stories like this cause me to wonder:  Where does love like this come from? 

Well, this morning’s text from 1 John answers the question theologically:  “We love because God first loved us.”  The Greek word for love used in this text is agape.  This kind of love is not an emotion or a sentiment, and it’s not the romantic kind of love.  Agape is love as action; love that is selfless and self-giving, love that gives without expecting a return; love that is extended even to those deemed unlovable; love that is available even to the enemy, the adversary, the opponent; and yes, the murderer. 

According to 1 John, it’s love like this that has its source in God.  As commentator Gary Charles puts it, this means that “our love is not self-generating but comes to us as an unsolicited and undeserved birthing gift from God….Human love is not some self-potential that we must only learn how to tap.  For John, human love is always derivative of God’s love.”[2]     

Undergirding this affirmation is a more fundamental claim.  1 John says that “God is love.”  Imagine that!  God is love!  Commentator Ronald Cole-Turner writes:  “More than power or even goodness, God is love—restless, creative, self giving, opening, flowing out into the other, coming back in new wholeness.”[3]  After writing thousands of pages that fill thirteen volumes, in a work entitled Church Dogmatics, the renowned theologian Karl Barth arrived at a simple definition of God that echoes the proclamation of 1 John:  God is “‘the One who loves.’”[4]

So God is not only the source of love—God is love!  And according to 1 John, those who abide or dwell in love embody God in their loving.  The text says:  “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.”

The implications of this claim are astounding.  This means that when we are on the receiving end of an agape kind of love from another human being, it’s not just that person loving us, it’s also God loving us.  And when we see other human beings loving one another with an agape kind of love, we are seeing a manifestation of God’s love—even if those doing the loving have no faith, or a different faith than our own.

A case in point:  I’ve shared this story before, but it bears retelling in this context.  The story comes from the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Peter Arnett.   “He tells of a time when he was in Israel, in a small town on the West Bank, when a bomb exploded.  Bloodied people were everywhere.  A man came running up to Peter holding a little girl in his arms.  He pleaded with Peter to take her to a hospital.  As a member of the press he would be able to get through the security cordon that had been thrown around the explosion scene.  Peter, the man and the girl jumped into his car and rushed to the hospital.  The whole time the man was pleading with him to hurry, to go faster, heartbroken at the thought the little girl might die.

“Sadly, the little girl’s injuries were too great and she died on the operating table.  When the doctor came out to give them the news, the man collapsed in tears.  Peter Arnett was at a loss for words.  ‘I don’t know what to say.  I can’t imagine what you must be going through.  I’ve never lost a child.’

“It was then that the man said, ‘Oh, mister!  That girl was not my daughter.  I’m an Israeli settler.  She was a Palestinian.  But there comes a time when each of us must realize that every child, regardless of that child’s background, is a daughter or a son.  There must come a time when we realize that we are all family.’”[5]

Now that’s agape love—a love that comes from the God who is love—a love that we’ve come to know in Jesus Christ.  And yet, as Peter Arnett’s story reveals, God’s love is not reserved for Christians alone.  A Jewish settler in Israel loving a Palestinian child as if she was a member of his own family also embodies God’s love just as surely as Jesus did.  Love like this doesn’t recognize boundaries that divide people because this kind of love comes from the God who is boundless love.  So every act of agape undertaken by any human being is made possible because God has loved us first.  And every act of agape undertaken by any human being reveals God’s work and presence in the life of the lover, whether the lover recognizes it or not.  

But having said this, isn’t it also true that love is oftentimes very hard to come by?  1 John identifies two obstacles that obstruct our abiding in love in response to God’s love for us:  fear and hate.

Fear, in the language of 1 John, is tied to punishment.  And punishment is clearly connected to the theological notion of a day of judgment—a concept that holds out the prospect of eternal reward for those deemed “the righteous,” and divine punishment for everyone else.

Unfortunately, the church has all too often resorted to fear mongering around this notion of punishment as a means of scaring people straight.  This “turn or burn” approach to the faith is epitomized by preachers like Jonathan Edwards.  In 1741, he preached a hell-fire and damnation sermon entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  He said in his sermon:  “There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air.”[6]  This kind of stuff sends a shiver down my spine!  And of course, this kind of fear mongering still goes on today.  And in my estimation, it does more harm than good.

Listen again to 1 John:  “Love will come to perfection [or maturity] in us when can face the day of judgment without fear—because our relation to this world is just like Christ’s.  There is no fear in love, for perfect love drives out fear.  To fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love.”

It sounds to me as if 1 John is more interested in loving people straight than in scaring people straight.  It sounds to me as if 1 John sees God as a lover and not as an abuser or a punisher or an executioner.   

The authors of If God Is Love are in sync with 1 John when they conclude that “Fear and love are incompatible.”  They write:  “Fear indicates our distrust of the one who claims to love us.  A child trembles when a parent threatens, “If you don’t behave, I’ll send you away.”  A wife is terrorized when a husband warns, “If you leave me, I’ll kill you.”  Human beings cower when God commands, “Serve me, or I’ll damn you to hell.”  Where fear is encouraged, love withers.”[7]

And 1 John sees love as the answer to hate:  “If you say you love God but hate your sister or brother, you are a liar.  For you cannot love God, whom you have not seen, if you hate your neighbor, whom you have seen.  If we love God, we should love our sisters and brothers as well; we have this commandment from God.”

Can’t we imagine how differently the story of the Iraqi woman and the police officer would have turned out if she had yielded to fear and hatred rather than love?  And can’t we imagine how differently the story of the Israeli settler and the Palestinian child would have turned out, if he had yielded to fear and hatred rather than love?  

Let me say this plainly:  Love that has its source in the God who is love, is the only anecdote to fear and hate in this world.  Consider this story from one of the authors of If God Is Love:  “My mother came from a broken family.  She became convinced her father left because of her misbehavior, that she was bad and he’d rejected her.  She carried this burden into her marriage.  Indeed, the night before she married my father, her grandfather, who’d raised her, pulled her aside and warned, “This man you’re marrying is too good for you, but if he leaves, we’ll take you back.”

            My father tells the story of the first night he left my mother home alone.  He returned to find her hysterical, sobbing in their darkened living room.  When he asked her what was wrong, she replied, “I was afraid you’d never come back.”  Though he assured her he’d never leave her, it took many years for my mother to trust my father’s love.  Only his unconditional love had the power to heal her deepest wounds, calm her secret fears, and transform her into a mature, beautiful human being.  Where love is triumphant, fear ends.”

            The authors then conclude:  “Human transformation comes when love casts out fear, assuring us we’ll never be disowned, abandoned, or destroyed.  Only in the rich soil of unconditional love can we truly grow.”[8]

So I ask again:  And where does love like this come from?  1 John answers the question:  “We love because God first loved us.”  And even more:  “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.”  May it be so for us.  Thanks be to God!