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28th
June 2015 - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon for Sunday 28th June 2015 - Trinity 4
Proper 8
Jeremiah
11.1-14
Romans 13.1-10
In a week when we have – yet again, - seen what damage is
done and hearts broken when people act out of the emotion of
hate, it is good to be reminded that at the heart of our faith
lies Love. “Love is the fulfilling of the law”. And
– whether you approve of it or not, the law – at least
the civil law concerning love and marriage is changing rapidly.
And with the recent ruling of America’s Supreme Court, that
change is probably irrevocable. Psychiatrists will tell you that
all anyone ever wants at heart is to be loved. And I think we
all know and understand the intrinsic truth of that statement?
And I think that is why we in Europe and North America have seen
such a change in social attitudes towards those who love –
whether that love is based on conventional opposite, or same
sex attraction. When it comes to relationships, most of us like
to know where we stand.
We don’t feel comfortable not knowing whether others like
us or don’t like us. We feel better if we have some clear
evidence, some way to measure, where we stand with others. Maybe
that is why we find ourselves more comfortable with the law being
the fulfilment of love, than love being the fulfilment of the
law. The statement, “love is the fulfilment of the law,”
does not mean the same thing as the statement, “the law
is the fulfilment of love.” But that is not what Paul is
saying. He is saying that love fulfils the law. A person can
keep the law without loving. But one cannot love without the
law being fulfilled in them. The law gives instruction in the
ways that one who loves will live. But the difference between
the law and love is that love works from the inside and the law
works from the outside.
A person motivated by love does not need to be told to behave
in a loving way; a person motivated by law does. Maybe that is
why we tend to get uncomfortable with the idea that faith in
Christ has superseded the law. We fear that unless there is an
outside agent, the law, compelling us to behave rightly, we probably
won’t. We know our love is weak, so we don’t trust
ourselves to behave with love without a threat of unpleasant
consequences as motivation.
he problem with that is obvious: Love cannot be compelled, forced,
coerced or threatened into being. Love is freely given and freely
received, or it isn’t anything at all. Love is unconditional;
anything short of unconditional is something other than love.
It might be acceptance, it might be approval, it might be pleasure,
it might be happiness, but it is not love, because love has no
conditions. That is why our “love” is so easily strained
when the people we love fall short of our expectations and demands—as
they invariably do. We fall short of theirs, too. But we usually
expect them to overlook and understand the ways we fall short
of their expectations. In either case, what we call love is often
stretched thin by the failure of either party to measure up to
what the other feels is the right way to behave. When we allow
the demands and expectations of the people we love, however unreasonable
they may be, to dictate our lives, we are not free, but imprisoned.
Likewise, if we withhold our love from others, making it conditional
upon whether they are at any given moment pleasing us or doing
what we want them to do, then we are being manipulative, not
loving. When we love others, we love them for who they are, not
for what we want them to be. More precisely, as Christians, we
love others for who God has made them to be in Christ, not for
who we want them to be for us. It is only when we drop the selfish
habit of withholding love from others until they adequately please
us, that we can also free ourselves from the
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