The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Gospel reading from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, May 21st: Acts 10:25-48; 1 John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17)

GOD IS LOVE

In this week’s second reading and gospel reading, the word “love” appears a total of 18 times. In both cases, the apostle John was the author of the sacred texts: his first of three epistles and his gospel. No wonder John was known as the Apostle of Love. It seems like that’s all he ever talked about.

In the reading from his first epistle, John tells us, “Let us love one another, because love is of God….Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”

In the gospel reading, Jesus explains the importance of love: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you….This I command you: love one another.”

A couple of months ago Pope Benedict published his first papal encyclical. Using words from John’s epistle, the encyclical is titled, “God Is Love” (Deus Caritas Est).

The very first section heading in the encyclical letter is, “A Problem of Language.” The pope says, “Today, the term ‘love’ has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings.”

We will never understand what Jesus means when He commands, “Love one another,” unless we accurately define the word “love.”

In the language of the New Testament, Greek, there are many different words that are translated into English as “love,” including:

Eros – physical attraction, sexual love

Philia – love of friendship

Agape – Divine love, sacrificial love

In our highly sexualized society, when people hear the word love, they often think only of eros (the root of our modern word “erotic”). This is why when Jesus says, “Love one another,” some people actually think they’re being holy when they turn to their girlfriends with a leer and say, “Yeah baby! Jesus wants us to get it on!”

Pope Benedict explains that eros is a physical, earthly love. While agape—the Greek word used in John’s biblical writings—is a spiritual, heavenly love. The initial impulse for eros is self-centered, a desire for personal pleasure. But agape, as Benedict says, “seeks the good of the beloved…it is ready, even willing, for sacrifice.”

Eros love is a good thing, when it is used according to God’s plan—that is, only within the bond of marriage. Eros love can even be transformed into agape love, when a person is truly more concerned about pleasing his spouse rather than himself.

The focus of the two readings this week from John, and the focus of the Pope’s encyclical, is Divine love, sacrificial love, agape love. This love used to be called charity (which is why the Latin word caritas is in the encyclical’s title).

Nowadays the word charity has been reduced to meaning simply handouts for the poor. But it used to have a much broader meaning. (This is why the old King James Version translated 1 Corinthians 13 as “Faith, hope, and charity.” Modern Bible translations now say, “Faith, hope, and love.”) Charity used to mean sacrificial love. It used to mean truly wanting the best for another person—so much so that you would actually do something about it. It used to mean agape.

The reason agape love is called Divine love is because that is exactly how God feels toward us. He truly wants the best for us—so much so that He actually did something about it. In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus says, “No one has greater love (charity, agape) than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

That’s exactly what Jesus did for us. He could not stand to see mankind separated from God for all eternity because of our sinfulness, so He willing lowered Himself to take on human flesh, and sacrificed His life to pay the price for our sins. The event we commemorated last month, the Passion of Jesus Christ on the Cross, was the greatest example of agape love in the history of the Universe.

This is the real meaning of the word love, mentioned 18 times in just two readings this week. It is not the lustful, often self-centered love of eros. It is the humble, selfless, sacrificial love of agape. It is the love that completely ignores the self and focuses totally on the well-being of the other person.

A couple of final comments about agape love. First, with this divine love, it is possible to love someone without necessarily liking him. (Whew, what a relief!) If someone has hurt you, if someone’s behavior is evil, if someone is, well, simply a jerk, you can still love him without liking him. As long as you truly want the best for that person, which usually includes a major attitude adjustment on his part—and occasionally a stint in prison—you are demonstrating agape love.

When God tells us in Scripture to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, it’s not an impossible command. He means that we should pray that our enemies repent, see the error of their ways, and enter into a loving relationship with God and with their fellow man. If we have God’s love in our hearts, we can sincerely want this to happen to other people—even to those we dislike intensely.

Secondly, when John writes “God is love,” some people conclude that the inverse is true: “love is God.” No, it doesn’t work that way. That’s as silly as saying, “The sky is blue, therefore all blue things are the sky.” We cannot say that any kind of feeling of affection or lust is the same thing as God.

God’s love for mankind is so intense that it permeates His whole being. This is why John can write, “God is love.” But God is most definitely a personal being; He is not a mysterious, impersonal force. He is not a feeling.

Making the claim, “God is love, therefore love is God,” is just an excuse for not entering into a personal relationship with the Almighty Creator. It’s just a way for someone to focus on his own feelings—giving his emotions divine statue—and avoid the difficult requirement of dying to self and living for God.

John says in his first epistle: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.” If we truly believe this glorious fact of history, and if we stop thinking about ourselves and just let God’s love fill us and flow from us to those around us, we will finally know what true love is. We will experience a joy and a peace that is beyond words.

©2006