The Meaning of Love

In today’s Gospel we have heard Jesus speak what is often called the Summary of the Law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus’ own words, summing up the whole of God’s commandments to us for faithful living.

On Monday night at this month’s vestry meeting we looked at this passage in our Bible study. Several people were struck by how simple it really all is. Jesus’ words give us simple directions. The words may be simple, but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that they are not easy to follow. Simple, perhaps, but not easy. It’s that issue of love. It is often not easy at all to love.

So what did Jesus really mean when he commanded us to love? You may have heard before that as a language, English is particularly impoverished with respect to love. We have only the one word to cover a broad and rich spectrum of meanings of love. Other languages have different words to refer to different kinds of love. Wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what word Jesus used and exactly what he meant?

Jesus spoke Aramaic. “Aramaic is the best-attested and longest-attested member of the NW Semitic subfamily of languages. It was the primary international language of literature and communication throughout the Near East from ca. 600 BCE to ca. 700 CE and was the major spoken language of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia in the formative periods of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Jesus and his disciples, according to the stories in the Gospels, spoke Aramaic” (Anchor Bible Dictionary).

Jesus spoke Aramaic. As far as I know no one in this room speaks Aramaic, and even if we did, we do not know what word Jesus used. It isn’t recorded. We do not know. Matthew is written in Greek. At best (!) when we hear Jesus’ words read in worship, we are hearing a translation of a translation.

This can be frustrating for we who literally hang on Jesus’ every word, who kneel at his feet to receive the words of his teaching. If only we knew his exact words… exactly what he said and what he meant. Yet, as much as we may yearn for that understanding, what Jesus said and what he meant are not nearly so important to us as what Jesus says and what he means. Jesus’ words are not frozen in one particular time or place. What he said and meant then are not nearly as relevant to us as what he says and what he means today.

Our encounter with Jesus’ words, with Holy Scripture, is not a historical exercise; it is a conversation. And if you think about it, conversation, communication, always involves subjectivity and interpretation. I wonder if it wasn’t somehow part of God’s purpose to give us Gospels that must always be read in translation. We have to translate. We have to bring ourselves into the communication process. We have to explore, to interpret, to engage ourselves in the work of understanding what Jesus means and says to us.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today? Certainly one piece, just one piece, of the work of understanding is to look back historically as best we can and consider Matthew’s Greek. Pre-Biblical Greek had three words for love: eros, philia, and agape. Jesus’ words in Matthew use the verb form of agape, agapan. In the usage of the Greek writers before the evangelists, eros was passionate love, desire… not just sexual passion or desire, any consuming desire. The goal of eros is to be totally caught up in the object of your desire. Philia was solicitous love or concern, sometimes friendship. The word agape, for the Greek writers was a “term [with] neither the magic of eros nor the warmth of philia. It has the first weak sense… ‘to honor’…. In the Greek writers the word [agape] is colorless” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Bromiley, ed. Kittell).

So. Just translating the Greek is not enough. God and the Gospel writers changed the meaning of agape. A Greek scholar wouldn’t know that. The meaning of agape for us can only be understood within the context of its usage in the Scriptures and through the study and experience of the Christian community.

God so loved the world that he gave his Son. God set forth a new sort of love that is defined by self-giving. God’s love is defined by God giving the life of his own Son for the world. Agape is giving of yourself. To love is to give.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

To love means to give, to give of yourself. Human beings at our best, even outside the realm of faith, are capable of self-giving love. The love of parent for child is often cited. But think about it: our acts of self-giving love are almost always based upon some “pre-existing condition.” We feel first. We have a relationship first. We feel love or loyalty or care or sympathy… we feel deeply first, and then we are able to give of ourselves. Agape has no pre-existing conditions. No preconditions. It is not preceded by any connection or deeply felt relationship. It just means to give. Give. Give of yourself because Jesus commands us to.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” I think part of what it means to love God with all our heart is to give to God the things that we care about, the things we do have feelings about, the people and things we carry in our hearts. We are to give from ourselves to God, to share with God, all the things and all the relationships we hold dear in our hearts. To love God with all your soul is to offer praise, to give yourself to praise of God. You may think you need some deep faith or personal relationship with Christ before you can offer praise. No. There are no preconditions on the self-giving of agape. Come to worship to pray and sing praise. Offer praise throughout your life to the glory of God. Give praise. To love God with all your mind means to give your mind to study of God and God’s word. Give your time and your effort and your thought to God’s presence in your life.

From a reference book on the meaning of words in Biblical usage: “Agape has become a stock term for God’s work and for Christian piety…. In a world perishing through eros…,” In a world perishing because it is driven by desire… “the church, being itself totally dependent on the merciful love of God, practices a love that does not desire, but gives” (Kittel).

A love that does not desire, but gives. The world needs us. The world needs us to be Christians. To practice a love that does not desire, but gives.

Surely this has always been true, but it is particularly so now. Part of the reason our culture is in the financial mess we are in now is because we are indeed a world perishing through eros, a society driven by our desires. We are all sinfully complicit in that. But we can be a witness to another way. As Christians we can live as people who practice a love that does not desire, but gives. We can stand out in the world as a people that give of ourselves to God. And we can give to our neighbors in need, no matter who they are, where they are, whether or not we have any feelings or prior relationship with them.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. A second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Give to the Lord your God. Give of your heart; give of your soul; and give of your mind. And give to your neighbor.