The Dance of Love

Genesis 3:20-24                                                                      Mother’s Day, May 10, 2012

John 15:9-17                                                                           Russell Eidmann-Hicks

Here’s some definitions of love as told by children aged 4-8:

‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.’

Bobby – age 7

 

‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,’

Nikka – age 6

 

‘Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that.  They look gross when they kiss.’    Emily – age 8

 

‘Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.’   Tommy – age 6

‘During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.’     Cindy – age 8

‘My mommy loves me more than anybody.  You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.’    Clare – age 6

‘Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.’   Elaine-age 5

‘When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.’

Karen – age 7

Good definitions, huh?  We hear Jesus talking about love today in scripture.  He says:  ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ (John 15:8)  His definition goes beyond sentimentality or Hallmark cards or sugary hearts or stars: his is the bottom line – the greatest love is selfless love, the willingness to lay down one’s life for another.  Real love lives in self-giving.

 

Today we are celebrating love in families on this Mother’s Day.  The truth is that a mother’s love, a parent’s love, is essentially this kind of love – a love willing to sacrifice, a love ready to give all of itself for love of another.   We recently heard of a mother who lost both of her legs sheltering her child in a terrible tornado out west.  Parents do that.  Their love is ‘agape’ love, self-giving love.

Willa Cather wrote this about family love in her novel Obscure Destinies:

“Sometimes in the morning, if her feet ached more than usual, Mrs. Harris felt a little low. (Nobody did anything about broken arches in those days, and the common endurance test of old age was to keep going after every step cost something.)  She would hang up her towel with a sigh and go into the kitchen, feeling that it was hard to make a start.  But the moment she heard the children running down the uncarpeted back stairs, she forgot to be low.  Indeed, she ceased to be an individual, an old woman with aching feet; she became part of a group, became a relationship.  She was drunk up into their freshness when they burst in upon her, telling her about their dreams, explaining their troubles with buttons and shoelaces and underwear shrunk too small.  The tired, solitary old woman Grandmother had been at daybreak vanished.  Suddenly, the morning seemed as important to her as it did to the children, and the mornings ahead stretched out sunshiny, important.”

Love can be wearing; it can hurt the feet and the hands and the soul.  But it can also offer us renewal and inspiration and the light of life.

Today we honor how this love binds us together and changes our hearts.  We honor mothers, parents, grandparents, spouses and partners, who love whole-heartedly and who lay down their lives day after day after day.   Love.  We use the word all the time – in fact this love is at the very center of our faith.  Jesus boiled down all of the law and teachings of faith to two laws: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.  Love.  And he did more than talk and teach about it; he lived it, offering his life for each of us on the cross. That’s the whole deal, the complete story.

We speak today of a love – as Jesus did – that unites us as communities and also as marriage partners.  Jesus saw marriage reflecting Eve and Adam – as two persons becoming one flesh – as a kind of unity of heart and soul that transcends differences.  He talks of a love in which two person grow over time into a profound intimacy that allows us to offer our lives for the other, day after day in simple ways.  This is not only found in marriage – it can be found in deep friendships, in communities of faith, in soul-mates who unite in spirit.   I am grateful to our president for standing up to affirm the right of same sex couples to have their committed and loyal relationships sanctioned by society and celebrated publicly by friends and family.    No one should be denied this kind of profound relationship, in which deep love is recognized and celebrated.

How do we cultivate and appreciate this love when we find it?   What makes it work long-term?

Plenty of traits and habits threaten soul unity; lots of toxins erode and undermine committed love.  Our critical minds and judgmental hearts can cause bitterness and resentments to grow.  The beauty of our faith is that it reassures us that love will win out.  Love is eternal.  Love is life. God is love.  The heart of the universe beats with the pulse of this love.  And so our hope and our faith is that love overcomes selfishness and trauma and our own sinful natures.

 

A guy in his late 80’s was driving with his wife out West, and saw a road sign that said: Keys to a great marriage:  (and underneath it said…)

• I love you
• How can I help?
• Let’s go out to eat.
• I’m sorry
• You look great.

Whoever put up that sign was doing a great public service.  In fact that sign should go up all around the country, don’t you think?   (Some of us should have these words tattooed onto our arms to be able to read them out when needed.)

We need these words because so often we get into trouble in our relationships and in our families by not paying attention, by being selfish, by taking the other for granted, by not listening.  Living in families and in committed relationships is tough.  We live ‘east of Eden’ and are no longer in the Garden, where everything we do or say is OK.   We have to struggle to survive, in our daily work, but also in our loving and domestic living.   On this Mother’s Day, we celebrate the love that a love that is strong enough to give us the patience and the dedication not to do damage to each other.   It is good for us to consider what it is that keeps love alive.

Harville Hendrix, a marriage counselor, has some great advice to offer to couples and families, who are locked in resentments or conflicts.   In fact, he says most couples get stuck in power struggles, striving to meet innermost desires and dreams.  Unless we can find ways out of these conflicts and toxic battles, our relationships can be undermined.   Here is some of his advice:

Stop trying to control each other. Conflict isn’t necessarily bad and it doesn’t mean the two of you shouldn’t be together or lack some basic skill that happier couples have. Rather, it’s a sign that the psyche is trying to survive and break through its defenses. In fact, Hendrix believes that those who claim they never fight have simply given up on the relationship and tuned out. “Instead of sharing their lives, they begin to lead parallel lives,” he explains. But there is a right and a wrong way to fight. Hang up the boxing gloves and stop being judgmental. Your goal should be zero negativity, because any time you put your partner down, you create an unequal relationship that leads to anxiety and anger. Instead, ask yourself: Do you want to be right — or do you want to be happily married? Let go of the toxins polluting your marriage: the grudges, the eye rolls and name-calling, the sarcasm or pettiness, the globalizing (you always this, you never that) that might have slipped into your conversations.

Learn to listen deeply and empathically. Many couples who’ve been together a long time assume that they know what the other is thinking or feeling — and they’re often dead wrong. Or they believe that if a partner really loved them, really cared about their welfare, they’d just know what was upsetting them. Wrong again.  Banish the mind-reader syndrome by carving out time for a heart-to-heart talk (a personal state of the union address).

Compliment each other. When was the last time you told her how sexy she looks in those jeans? Did you let him know that you admire the way he handled a dicey work situation?  At the start of your marriage, you probably showered one another with praise and affection. Maybe you think that since you’ve said those things before, there’s no reason to repeat them. There is: Praising and admiring each other can keep your marital engine humming. Forget to exchange regular compliments and you risk chipping away at the foundation of respect and love that supports your marriage.

Remember that you can’t change each other but you can change yourself. Sometimes, no matter how many times you ask, cajole (OK, berate) your partner for always being late or sloppy or (fill in the blank), nothing changes. You could continue to fume about it, or you could find ways to flip his annoying behavior into a win for you.  If he’s paying too much attention to the TV, use the “free” time to do something for yourself. Pull out your iPad and read a few chapters in your book. Catch up on emails. This way, you dial down your stress level so you can both enjoy the evening.   Keep in mind that any change will be incremental, not revolutionary. The guy who has always raced through the airport at the last minute will not suddenly become the one who checks in a leisurely two hours before takeoff. The more we accept our spouses for who they really are, the more they become the person we want them to be.

All good advice.   And you know our faith tradition has some good advice as well.  St. Paul has some fantastic advice that he wrote not so much about families and marriage, but about living in community with each other.   His advice includes simple instructions about not holding grudges, forgiving, having patience, staying positive and more.  Living in families, being in relationships is also about living in community; and so these words are read at many weddings for that reason.   Certain basic rules apply when it comes to love:

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.” (I Cor 13:4-6)

This is what we celebrate on Mother’s Day.  We celebrate the self-giving love of Mothers; their courageous willingness to get out and care for their kids, no matter what.  We celebrate love in families, where we are accepted for who we are and the door is open when we need shelter.   We celebrate love in community life, where we can find family, even when our own families of origin have been sources of trauma or neglect.

Love is what makes life worthwhile. It lifts our spirits and brightens the day.  Our work, our homes, our church, our moments are filled with meaning when they are filled with love.

Let’s celebrate love! Amen.