So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1Corinthians 13:13
Last but not least of what I have identified as the affective elements is love. There is nothing certain in faith, hope and love except the potential capacity to deal with adversity, suffering, and the uncertainty of life. Being affective, they are influential in shaping our perspectives and responses to what life brings.
If you have never read 1 Corinthians 13 or haven't done so in long time, read it now. The apostle Paul's treatise on love is, in my opinion, his finest moment. The love of God commonly referred to as agape or unconditional love is present in all aspects of true human love, whether it be the love of family, friends, or the intimate, erotic love between two individuals.
There is no manifestation of true love that is not, at its core, agape.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
I reference this agape love as unconditional love as opposed to the conditional or conditioned love of infatuation, obsession, and possession. Love that is unconditional resides in all of us, just as faith and hope resides in all because God resides in all, but like faith and hope unconditional love can be hidden and ignored by infatuation, obsession, and possession which fuel the illusion of certainty, the "forbidden fruit" of feigned truth. Even the presence of God in our lives can be clouded over by these things. Nevertheless, they are always present.
The reason Paul declares love to be the greatest of the three affective elements is because unconditional love is always present in every sincere act of faith and hope. Paul and other New Testament writers offer marriage as the prime example for demonstrating and examining unconditional love, a place where unconditional love in action should be obvious, but, then as now, is unfortunately not always the case and is why the Christian epistles spend a good amount of time talking about presenting marriage as the union between Christ and his Church. It's application, however, extends far beyond marriage, the family, and the Church.
Paul's definition of unconditional love is summed up in verses four through seven of 1 Corinthians 13:
Love -
1. Is patient
2. Is kind
3. Does not envy
4. Does not boast
5. Is not proud
6. Is not rude
7. Is not self-seeking
8. Is not easily angered
9. Keeps no record of wrongs
10. Does not delight in evil
11. Rejoices with truth
12. Always protects
13. Always trusts (πιστευει - always acts from faith)
14. Always hopes
15. Always perseveres
The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by the International Bible Society
What Paul lists as definitions or manifestations of love is the very image of God in action. It is a very interesting list that requires more than a cursory glance. It goes far beyond niceties. It is presented as the lifestyle we humans were made for.
When I look at the list Paul provided, I am humbled because it appears to be such a tall order, and I know that more often than I care to admit I do exactly the opposite of the things listed. What mitigates my self-loathing, however. is the fact that I'm not alone. Paul struggled with this as we all do. See Romans 7:18-20. My point, however, is not to make an excuse but rather an observation.
When I look at the fifteen ways that unconditional love shows itself, it is not that I or anyone consistently demonstrate all fifteen manifestations all the time, but rather when any one of us exercises patience, kindness... refrains from being rude, looks past the wrongs of another... rejoices with truth, etc. unconditional love breaks through.
What is important, therefore, is that we are mindful of the ways that unconditional love breaks through.
Not every situation is alike. Some situations call for patience, some call for kindness, some call for restraint on our part, and some may even call for anger. We don't always think of those moments as displaying love but Paul says they are, and I would agree that when we do these things from the position of care and compassion for another, unconditional love is active.
Near the end of this list Paul says there are some attributes of unconditional love that are always present. Love always protects. Love always trusts - always acts from the perspective of faith. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres. What Paul tells us is that whenever we exercise unconditional love, these are always present. "Always" in this sense literally means "all ways."
Unconditional love is multi-dimensional. There is no known barrier that can prevent unconditional love from breaking through. Whenever it is exercised in any of its forms it always protects whatever or whoever one is being patient, kind, or slow to anger with. Unconditional love does not work from a perspective of knowing a certain outcome. It is always acting from the perspective of faith and hope. As such, it never stops being active.
The last of these always - "always perseveres" connotes the eternal love of God that is present in any acts of unconditional love.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS NEITHER SELFISH NOR SELFLESS
Love seeks to fulfill the needs of the other as the only means of being truly fulfilled in one's self.
Love is never selfish or selfless.
In fact, Jesus tell us to love our neighbors and our enemies as ourselves. The reality Jesus is pointing to is that one cannot effectively love another person without having a sense of self love and self preservation; of seeing one's self as the other. We often hear of altruistic love as being a selfless act as in someone who preserves and protects the life of another human at the risk of losing one's own life. Giving up one's life for one's friends or another person is not a selfless act; rather, it is the ultimate self-fulfilling act.
I am always impressed by the humility of those who have accomplished some heroic deed, who say, "I'm not hero. I just did what I had to do" or something to that effect. Such statements are a testimony to the self-filling aspect of love. Love of the other has a rebound effect - saving the life of another is, in essence, saving my life. It is perhaps the greatest testimony to our sense of interconnectedness with all things. Loving the other is loving myself - is loving God who resides in me and in the other.
Selfishness, like anything we deem "ish" in modern parlance; such as, meeting someplace at five-ish or as in the TV sitcom "Blackish," is saying that whatever is "ish" is not fully what that something is. To be selfish is not being fully self - fully who one is - is not a full self.
Unconditional love can only occur in the context of the full self.
Unconditional love is transcendent and its effects are often unseen or go unrecognized in the short term. As such, unconditional love has an infective property that stays with a person to whom love have been given.
When working as a Human Rights advocate in a mental health institution, I would of my own volition seek out or at the request of a unit's staff or a psychiatrist meet with some extremely angry individuals, who on our first meeting would rake me over the coals in no uncertain terms and often in language that could wither a person, but I never reacted to the expressions of their anger which I saw and understood as expressions of pain. I just listened patiently until I was told to leave, which sometimes could happen within a few seconds of meeting.
My first encounter with that type of anger, that type of pain, made me think I would not hear from these individuals again only to receive a call, sometimes weeks and even months later from that individual asking me to visit them. All such experiences led to innumerable visits in which I listened to their pain and anguish, sometime for hours. It could be very draining, but eventually in all of these cases the person in the patient emerged. Where there was once only anger and anguish a smile would break through and laughter, and I knew that healing was happening. This is why I believe Paul placed patience first in the list of unconditional love's manifestations.
If one is expecting an immediate return of love, especially when dealing with a difficult situation, than one is not loving in an unconditional sense.
STRONG LOVE VERSUS TOUGH LOVE
The term, "Tough Love" seems to be used less nowadays. At least I'm not hearing it as much now that I'm retired, but when I worked in mental health I heard it used quite frequently. I was never comfortable with that term. Too often what is termed "tough love" is, in essence, obsessive or possessive love - conditional love.
This term frequently came to bear on situations where some adolescent was constantly misbehaving, getting in trouble with the law, and deemed unmanageable at home. Some parents were often at wits end trying to figure out how to control the unruly adolescent and would opt for a tough love approch; sending their adolescent to some type of stringent behavioral modification program, such as a boot camp.
While some adolescents left those experiences better behaved others didn't, and I often wonder about the long range effect of those experiences. What, if anything, did these adolescents learn about unconditional love? How would they be as a father or a mother raising their own children?
I do not doubt that in some of these cases the tough love approach proceeded from the deeper unconditional love of the parents, but it's application in terms of it being tough love risked unconditional love being morphed to mean conditional love. In more than a few cases it's application was very much about conditions; as in, "You either do it my/our way or you can hit the highway." Such approaches fell under the category of natural consequences, as in, "You brought this on yourself - You're on your own. I/we can't help you anymore."
How many adolescents have been shown the door to their home by such conditional love? I believe the numbers are growing and what becomes more distressing is that many adolescents are being kicked out of their homes or leave because they are not being loved, even when many come from families who identify as Christian or religious.
What a lonely place for anyone to be or not be, especially an adolescent. It is nothing more than sentencing someone to a human version of hell. I have met people in that place. I have seen the emptiness, the shell-like features of people in this hell, of what once was and what could be again if released from it.
Christ descended to hell to release peoples' souls so that they could be. Can we who bear Christ's name do less?
LOVE BEYOND BELIEF
Perhaps Jesus's most notable teachings on unconditional love come in the form of two parables, "The Good Samaritan" (Luke 10: 25-37) and "The Prodigal Son" (Luke 15:11-32).
If unfamiliar, with either, read them now.
The parables of Jesus are multi-layered and, in general, address more than one situation.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus differentiates conditional love from unconditional love and demonstrates that what constitutes true self love as being fulfilled in the love shown to an other.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is told in the context of a question given to Jesus by a student of Judaic law, a scribe. He asks, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" The motive for asking this question has been subjected to speculation, but I believe it to be a sincere question given the fact that at the end of this story we are told the scribe gets the message.
Jesus took it as a sincere question and this story is Jesus's response to what lies behind the scribe's question which is a sincere concern for doing what is right - a sincere concern about his own well-being - a sincere expression of his self love. It is the scribes sincere self-love that Jesus bases this story on.
So Jesus answers his self love question by showing him that his self interest, his self love, is only fulfilled in in serving the interests of others, in the act of providing unconditional love to another person. An added but extremely important twist to the story is that Jesus demonstrates the universality of unconditional love by casting the person who acts from unconditional love as a Samaritan, someone who would have been viewed with contempt by Jesus's audience at the time. In this story we see the extent to which unconditional love is applied.
Of course this story has many other applications and meanings, but the point I would make is that Jesus, in telling this story pushes his audience's concept of love - our concept of love - beyond the beliefs we have about who to love and the extent to which love should go.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the majority of the storyline addresses the doings or undoings of the younger son, but the storyline is told only to provide context to what Jesus is getting at, which is the unconditional love demonstrated by the father in this narrative.
One could easily question the indulgent nature of the father by dividing the inheritance he would leave his two sons and allow the younger son to throw his portion away on riotous living. What comes to play in our adult, parental minds is our inclination to treat love conditionally. I believe Jesus was well aware of that inclination in telling this story.
Jesus is moving us beyond that mindset to a deeper understanding about unconditional love. Unconditional love is also about detachment. There is a point in unconditional love, as the saying goes, "to let go and let God." Letting go is not about tough love but rather is about the strength of love that remains in place and at play even when we let go of the things and of people. In the context of this story we see that unconditional love is about detaching from our infatuation with things, our obsession with having it our own way. It is about letting go of our possessiveness of the people in our lives.
Through the younger son's narrative we learn something about the infective property of unconditional love. When he hits slop-bottom (feeding on the waste thrown to the pigs), the love of his father that has always resided in the depth of his being emerges; a love that has always held him even when left to his own desires.
His father's love was the anchor of his soul that gave him the hope and the faith to finally pick himself up from slop-bottom and make the journey home. He did so not knowing what reception he would receive, but in faith beyond any belief he anticipates - he hopes beyond any belief that some semblance of his father's love awaits.
When he is still at a distance, his ever faithful, ever hopeful, ever loving father runs to him and when finally embraced in the unconditional loving arms of his father - a love that surpassed all the younger son's beliefs, all is restored and love is returned.
Unconditional love, beyond any belief, always and in all ways comes full circle.
Until next time, stay faithful.
If you have never read 1 Corinthians 13 or haven't done so in long time, read it now. The apostle Paul's treatise on love is, in my opinion, his finest moment. The love of God commonly referred to as agape or unconditional love is present in all aspects of true human love, whether it be the love of family, friends, or the intimate, erotic love between two individuals.
There is no manifestation of true love that is not, at its core, agape.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
I reference this agape love as unconditional love as opposed to the conditional or conditioned love of infatuation, obsession, and possession. Love that is unconditional resides in all of us, just as faith and hope resides in all because God resides in all, but like faith and hope unconditional love can be hidden and ignored by infatuation, obsession, and possession which fuel the illusion of certainty, the "forbidden fruit" of feigned truth. Even the presence of God in our lives can be clouded over by these things. Nevertheless, they are always present.
The reason Paul declares love to be the greatest of the three affective elements is because unconditional love is always present in every sincere act of faith and hope. Paul and other New Testament writers offer marriage as the prime example for demonstrating and examining unconditional love, a place where unconditional love in action should be obvious, but, then as now, is unfortunately not always the case and is why the Christian epistles spend a good amount of time talking about presenting marriage as the union between Christ and his Church. It's application, however, extends far beyond marriage, the family, and the Church.
Paul's definition of unconditional love is summed up in verses four through seven of 1 Corinthians 13:
Love -
1. Is patient
2. Is kind
3. Does not envy
4. Does not boast
5. Is not proud
6. Is not rude
7. Is not self-seeking
8. Is not easily angered
9. Keeps no record of wrongs
10. Does not delight in evil
11. Rejoices with truth
12. Always protects
13. Always trusts (πιστευει - always acts from faith)
14. Always hopes
15. Always perseveres
The Holy Bible, New International Version 1984 by the International Bible Society
What Paul lists as definitions or manifestations of love is the very image of God in action. It is a very interesting list that requires more than a cursory glance. It goes far beyond niceties. It is presented as the lifestyle we humans were made for.
When I look at the list Paul provided, I am humbled because it appears to be such a tall order, and I know that more often than I care to admit I do exactly the opposite of the things listed. What mitigates my self-loathing, however. is the fact that I'm not alone. Paul struggled with this as we all do. See Romans 7:18-20. My point, however, is not to make an excuse but rather an observation.
When I look at the fifteen ways that unconditional love shows itself, it is not that I or anyone consistently demonstrate all fifteen manifestations all the time, but rather when any one of us exercises patience, kindness... refrains from being rude, looks past the wrongs of another... rejoices with truth, etc. unconditional love breaks through.
What is important, therefore, is that we are mindful of the ways that unconditional love breaks through.
Not every situation is alike. Some situations call for patience, some call for kindness, some call for restraint on our part, and some may even call for anger. We don't always think of those moments as displaying love but Paul says they are, and I would agree that when we do these things from the position of care and compassion for another, unconditional love is active.
Near the end of this list Paul says there are some attributes of unconditional love that are always present. Love always protects. Love always trusts - always acts from the perspective of faith. Love always hopes. Love always perseveres. What Paul tells us is that whenever we exercise unconditional love, these are always present. "Always" in this sense literally means "all ways."
Unconditional love is multi-dimensional. There is no known barrier that can prevent unconditional love from breaking through. Whenever it is exercised in any of its forms it always protects whatever or whoever one is being patient, kind, or slow to anger with. Unconditional love does not work from a perspective of knowing a certain outcome. It is always acting from the perspective of faith and hope. As such, it never stops being active.
The last of these always - "always perseveres" connotes the eternal love of God that is present in any acts of unconditional love.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IS NEITHER SELFISH NOR SELFLESS
Love seeks to fulfill the needs of the other as the only means of being truly fulfilled in one's self.
Love is never selfish or selfless.
In fact, Jesus tell us to love our neighbors and our enemies as ourselves. The reality Jesus is pointing to is that one cannot effectively love another person without having a sense of self love and self preservation; of seeing one's self as the other. We often hear of altruistic love as being a selfless act as in someone who preserves and protects the life of another human at the risk of losing one's own life. Giving up one's life for one's friends or another person is not a selfless act; rather, it is the ultimate self-fulfilling act.
I am always impressed by the humility of those who have accomplished some heroic deed, who say, "I'm not hero. I just did what I had to do" or something to that effect. Such statements are a testimony to the self-filling aspect of love. Love of the other has a rebound effect - saving the life of another is, in essence, saving my life. It is perhaps the greatest testimony to our sense of interconnectedness with all things. Loving the other is loving myself - is loving God who resides in me and in the other.
Selfishness, like anything we deem "ish" in modern parlance; such as, meeting someplace at five-ish or as in the TV sitcom "Blackish," is saying that whatever is "ish" is not fully what that something is. To be selfish is not being fully self - fully who one is - is not a full self.
Unconditional love can only occur in the context of the full self.
Unconditional love is transcendent and its effects are often unseen or go unrecognized in the short term. As such, unconditional love has an infective property that stays with a person to whom love have been given.
When working as a Human Rights advocate in a mental health institution, I would of my own volition seek out or at the request of a unit's staff or a psychiatrist meet with some extremely angry individuals, who on our first meeting would rake me over the coals in no uncertain terms and often in language that could wither a person, but I never reacted to the expressions of their anger which I saw and understood as expressions of pain. I just listened patiently until I was told to leave, which sometimes could happen within a few seconds of meeting.
My first encounter with that type of anger, that type of pain, made me think I would not hear from these individuals again only to receive a call, sometimes weeks and even months later from that individual asking me to visit them. All such experiences led to innumerable visits in which I listened to their pain and anguish, sometime for hours. It could be very draining, but eventually in all of these cases the person in the patient emerged. Where there was once only anger and anguish a smile would break through and laughter, and I knew that healing was happening. This is why I believe Paul placed patience first in the list of unconditional love's manifestations.
If one is expecting an immediate return of love, especially when dealing with a difficult situation, than one is not loving in an unconditional sense.
STRONG LOVE VERSUS TOUGH LOVE
The term, "Tough Love" seems to be used less nowadays. At least I'm not hearing it as much now that I'm retired, but when I worked in mental health I heard it used quite frequently. I was never comfortable with that term. Too often what is termed "tough love" is, in essence, obsessive or possessive love - conditional love.
This term frequently came to bear on situations where some adolescent was constantly misbehaving, getting in trouble with the law, and deemed unmanageable at home. Some parents were often at wits end trying to figure out how to control the unruly adolescent and would opt for a tough love approch; sending their adolescent to some type of stringent behavioral modification program, such as a boot camp.
While some adolescents left those experiences better behaved others didn't, and I often wonder about the long range effect of those experiences. What, if anything, did these adolescents learn about unconditional love? How would they be as a father or a mother raising their own children?
I do not doubt that in some of these cases the tough love approach proceeded from the deeper unconditional love of the parents, but it's application in terms of it being tough love risked unconditional love being morphed to mean conditional love. In more than a few cases it's application was very much about conditions; as in, "You either do it my/our way or you can hit the highway." Such approaches fell under the category of natural consequences, as in, "You brought this on yourself - You're on your own. I/we can't help you anymore."
How many adolescents have been shown the door to their home by such conditional love? I believe the numbers are growing and what becomes more distressing is that many adolescents are being kicked out of their homes or leave because they are not being loved, even when many come from families who identify as Christian or religious.
What a lonely place for anyone to be or not be, especially an adolescent. It is nothing more than sentencing someone to a human version of hell. I have met people in that place. I have seen the emptiness, the shell-like features of people in this hell, of what once was and what could be again if released from it.
Christ descended to hell to release peoples' souls so that they could be. Can we who bear Christ's name do less?
LOVE BEYOND BELIEF
Perhaps Jesus's most notable teachings on unconditional love come in the form of two parables, "The Good Samaritan" (Luke 10: 25-37) and "The Prodigal Son" (Luke 15:11-32).
If unfamiliar, with either, read them now.
The parables of Jesus are multi-layered and, in general, address more than one situation.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus differentiates conditional love from unconditional love and demonstrates that what constitutes true self love as being fulfilled in the love shown to an other.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is told in the context of a question given to Jesus by a student of Judaic law, a scribe. He asks, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" The motive for asking this question has been subjected to speculation, but I believe it to be a sincere question given the fact that at the end of this story we are told the scribe gets the message.
Jesus took it as a sincere question and this story is Jesus's response to what lies behind the scribe's question which is a sincere concern for doing what is right - a sincere concern about his own well-being - a sincere expression of his self love. It is the scribes sincere self-love that Jesus bases this story on.
So Jesus answers his self love question by showing him that his self interest, his self love, is only fulfilled in in serving the interests of others, in the act of providing unconditional love to another person. An added but extremely important twist to the story is that Jesus demonstrates the universality of unconditional love by casting the person who acts from unconditional love as a Samaritan, someone who would have been viewed with contempt by Jesus's audience at the time. In this story we see the extent to which unconditional love is applied.
Of course this story has many other applications and meanings, but the point I would make is that Jesus, in telling this story pushes his audience's concept of love - our concept of love - beyond the beliefs we have about who to love and the extent to which love should go.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the majority of the storyline addresses the doings or undoings of the younger son, but the storyline is told only to provide context to what Jesus is getting at, which is the unconditional love demonstrated by the father in this narrative.
One could easily question the indulgent nature of the father by dividing the inheritance he would leave his two sons and allow the younger son to throw his portion away on riotous living. What comes to play in our adult, parental minds is our inclination to treat love conditionally. I believe Jesus was well aware of that inclination in telling this story.
Jesus is moving us beyond that mindset to a deeper understanding about unconditional love. Unconditional love is also about detachment. There is a point in unconditional love, as the saying goes, "to let go and let God." Letting go is not about tough love but rather is about the strength of love that remains in place and at play even when we let go of the things and of people. In the context of this story we see that unconditional love is about detaching from our infatuation with things, our obsession with having it our own way. It is about letting go of our possessiveness of the people in our lives.
Through the younger son's narrative we learn something about the infective property of unconditional love. When he hits slop-bottom (feeding on the waste thrown to the pigs), the love of his father that has always resided in the depth of his being emerges; a love that has always held him even when left to his own desires.
His father's love was the anchor of his soul that gave him the hope and the faith to finally pick himself up from slop-bottom and make the journey home. He did so not knowing what reception he would receive, but in faith beyond any belief he anticipates - he hopes beyond any belief that some semblance of his father's love awaits.
When he is still at a distance, his ever faithful, ever hopeful, ever loving father runs to him and when finally embraced in the unconditional loving arms of his father - a love that surpassed all the younger son's beliefs, all is restored and love is returned.
Unconditional love, beyond any belief, always and in all ways comes full circle.
Until next time, stay faithful.
No comments:
Post a Comment