Hilton Head Island, SC – April 8, 2018
The Chapel Without Walls
I Corinthians 12:31-13:7; I Cor. 13:8-13
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. – I Cor. 13:13 (RSV)
There was a man in South Africa who lived from 1950 to 2012. He was known as The Elephant Whisperer. His name was Lawrence Anthony.
Lawrence Anthony became an expert on elephants. He tracked them through the South African plains, forests, and jungles. He got to know them individually, giving them names and observing their habits. Eventually he could walk right up to wild elephants and talk to them. As you might expect, they didn’t say anything in response, but he seemed to be able to communicate with them. Through the years he saved many elephants from poachers. They wanted only the ivory in their tusks, and nothing else – no meat, no hides, no anything: just their tusks. What a natural travesty!
Lawrence Anthony loved the elephants: all of them. He loved them regardless of their personalities and peculiarities. Rogue bulls, domineering matriarchal females, mischievous toddlers, wayward teenagers: he treated them all with respect, because he loved them all. They, in turn, respected him.
The Elephant Whisperer died of cancer six years ago. It was reported that two days after he died, thirty-one elephants of all ages appeared at his doorstep out in the African bush. They came in two separate herds, each led by a matriarch who guided them to his home, neither having been there for many years. They all trekked at least twelve hours to get there. They stayed two days after they arrived. The elephants wanted to show their esteem for the man who had saved the lives of many of them. He had shown them high regard by having done that for them.
That story might make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. How did they know he had died? How did they know where he lived? Whatever may have caused that behavior, what was its origin? None of them had been there for at least fifteen years. We all know that elephants never forget, but even if they remembered where he lived, how could they know he had died?
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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Lawrence Anthony loved all the elephants: the mean ones, the sick ones, the old ones, the ornery ones.
Jesus went on to say, “If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than the others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:43-48).
A certain person has become my primary political adviser as well as biblical text adviser. He recently told me that the word “perfect” in Mt. 5:48 is an incorrect translation. It should be more like what Lk. 6:36 says, where Jesus is quoted as saying, “You must be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.” But even that is incorrect, he said. What the original text in Greek actually means is this: “You must love impartially, as God also loves impartially.” That is, when we love others with agape love, the kind of love that is described in Matthew 5 and in I Corinthians 13, we must show godly love to everyone without any partiality. To love unconditionally, we cannot pick and choose whom to love. We are commanded to love everyone.
Some people love all animals with impartiality, even the mean or sick or ornery ones. Other people love animals much more than people. In like manner, many animals, especially dogs, seem to love unconditionally. Dogs are humanity’s best friend for a reason. As has frequently been pointed out, “Dog” is “God” spelled backwards. Actually, however, not all dogs do love all people impartially. They never forget anyone who has mistreated them, nor will they ever let the mistreaters forget it. As for cats, many if not most cats will rarely deign even to give anybody the time of day. They are too independent and self-absorbed to do that. The best kind of cats, in my totally objective opinion, are those that think they are dogs. They are friendly and forgiving and always chummy, which is how pets are supposed to act, also in my objective opinion.
All of us love many people with partiality: those who love us back in like manner, and those who are cute or cuddly or loveable, particularly small children or babies. That, however, is not the kind of love that Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount or Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 13. Agape love is unconditional love, impartial love, love which never demands anything of anybody. It is offered without the expectation of anything in return.
For this reason Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Thus could Paul say, “Love is patient and kind; it is not arrogant or boastful, it does not insist on its own way. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
If we love as the Bible teaches us to love, we are enabled to do all of those things. That is because agape love is not the same as filial love (philia) or erotic love (eros: sexual love). Agape is the word Paul used throughout I Corinthians 13, the best known chapter in all of his letters, and the word Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount and nearly everywhere else where he referred to “love.” It was unconditional or impartial or un-expectant love, love with no strings attached.
Unconditional love is not a feeling. It is not an emotion. It is an attitude. It means we always attempt to keep from doing harm to anyone. To the degree we are able to do so, we watch out for everyone’s best interests. We treat them with constant respect. God surely does not expect us to like or admire all other people, but He does expect us to love them. In that context, it means to do good to them, to treat them with decency, to respect their humanity at all times.
I read a short article about a psychologist who wanted to do some in-depth research on the subject of altruism. Altruism is the kind of love Jesus and Paul talked about. It is love that expects nothing in return and is given simply because it brings out the best in the humanity of the one who offers it and, it is hoped, the one to whom it is offered.
The psychologist said she was driving on a rainy night across a large six-lane bridge that went over a wide river. As she drove up onto the bridge, a cat ran across the road in front of her. She slammed on her brakes. Her car skidded into the opposite lanes of traffic, headed the wrong way. The suddenness of the stop caused the car to stall. She was so stunned by the experience and the danger she was in that she felt completely unable to move. Within seconds a man loudly knocked on her window and asked if he could help. She quickly moved over into the passenger seat while he started the car. He turned it back into the other lanes with the emergency lights flashing, and quickly returned to his car, with its emergency lights still flashing.
Why would anyone do such a dangerous and life-threatening thing? That was what intrigued the psychologist. She decided it was because of altruism. Altruism is the sort of love that potentially risks everything, anticipating nothing in return. The stranger did what he did from impartial love, a consciously chosen inner attitude; he did it because of love for all of humanity.
Most of the time when we love particular people, we do so because we really like them, and they really like us. We can and should thank God for that. But that isn’t what biblical love, unconditional love, is all about. If we love someone because we like someone, do not even scam artists and psychopaths do that? Why should there be any commendation for such love? But if we love everyone, if we love impartially, we are doing what God does for everyone, and what He also encourages everyone to do.
I have been asked numerous times during wedding ceremonies to read I Corinthians 13. If asked, I always do it. Depending on the couple, however, and the perceived background of the guests who attend the wedding, I may very briefly explain that the love to which Paul referred was not essentially marital love but the universal love of humanity. Nevertheless, I tell the couple and their friends and relatives, Paul’s words still have relevance for marital love as well.
Love is patient and kind. It doesn’t require anything from the one who is loved, nor should it. It does not get bent out of joint if love is not offered in return. Biblical love is not arrogant or rude. It never lords itself over anyone else in order for it to be extended, nor does it speak ill of anyone who does not know how to reciprocate love. Love doesn’t insist on its own way. It has no agenda. Impartial love is shown to everybody precisely because it is impartial, because it does not pick and choose those to whom it is given, because it is unsullied altruism turned into action. Impartial love is like saving the life of a very badly shaken lady on a rainy bridge at night facing the wrong way in traffic when the one who does it risks his life in the doing thereof.
The Broadway musical Camelot is a romanticized depiction of a little-documented period of English history about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. There are numerous factors in its plot, but one of the main ones is the affair between Queen Guinevere, Arthur’s wife, and Sir Lancelot. The dashing French knight, unintended by either of them, fell in love with the queen, and won her heart. The affair ultimately sends the kingdom into a moral shambles. Arthur and Guinevere are left alone with one another and a very uncertain future. Musing to himself, the king reflects on a conversation he had had with Merlin, the court sorcerer. Arthur plaintively sings, “How to handle a woman?/ ‘There’s a way’/ said the wise old man/ ‘A way known to every woman/ Since the whole rigamarole began.’/ ‘Do I flatter her, I beg thee/ Give answer/ Should I threaten, or cajole, or plead/ Should I brood, or play the gay romancer?’/ Said he, smiling, ‘No indeed. How to handle a woman? Mark thee well/ I will tell you, sir:/ The way to handle a woman/ Is to love her,/ simply love her,/ merely love her,/ love her, love her.’”
This beautiful song seems to refer to erotic love, the love of a man for his wife. But now, because of all the pain, shame, and chaos that has ensued, if Arthur is to continue to love Guinevere, he must do so with unconditional, impartial, altruistic love. Before he loved her with the love of a husband for his wife. But he didn’t love her because she was a fellow human; he loved her because she was his wife. Now, he realizes he must love her with impartiality, especially because she had become his unfaithful wife.
Agape love, unconditional love, the kind of love God has for everyone and that He wants us also to have for everyone, is love that is displayed impartially toward everyone, especially to those we do not like. It’s the love Jesus had for Caiaphas and Herod Agrippa and Pontius Pilate and the crowd who shouted that Jesus must be crucified. It’s the kind of love which does not seek the injury of the other, but rather the best for the other.
Biblical love is the kind of love we are commanded to give to those who want all undocumented immigrants gone and we want to give immigrants an opportunity in the land of opportunity. It’s the kind of love we are to show to people we think are wrong exactly because we think they’re wrong. It is what Jesus and Paul say our attitude should be toward those who have hurt us or wronged us or have treated us badly. We are to give them the best we can give, rather than the worst. It is the kind of love in which we know God will never let us go and which we are to show to everyone else because we try to do as God would have us do.
God’s unconditional love, His impartial love for everyone simply because He loves everyone regardless of their behavior or attitude or feelings, is intended to lead us into eternal salvation. It does that because that is what God wants for all of us. That’s what Easter is all about.
Our impartial, unconditional love does not issue in eternal salvation for us or anyone else. But it does illustrate divinely altered lives (ours) and maybe the lives of all those we deliberately choose to love.
Agape love never ends. As for prophecy, tongues, knowledge, and all the other spiritual gifts, they will all pass away. Love will not --- ever. Now we see things as though we’re looking in a smoky mirror. At some future time beyond time, we shall see with the clarity provided by eternal salvation. Now we know a little; then we shall know much, much more.
So faith, hope, and love live on --- these three. But the greatest of these is unconditional, impartial, altruistic love.