The Art of Love

Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:27-28 ; 1 Corinthians 13

There is an art to navigating our interrelationships. It takes skill to manage emotions, affect, and effect as we engage with one another. It takes effort to manage the nuances of communication, negotiation, and sharing that form the bedrock of our human connections. Love is messy. Love is exhausting. Practiced well, though, love is the deepest expression of being the Image of God any human being can ever experience.

There are times—and this is one of those occasions—when God makes an ultimate demand. In the area of love, God commands exclusivity. It won’t work if we keep playing our options. If we doubt that ultimacy, simply look at Jesus’ simple reworking of this commandment in the Sermon on the Mount. As with doing no harm, Jesus takes the basic dictum and ratchets it up exponentially. Desire itself comes under his withering gaze—something that is completely human—we are born with desires, there is nothing wrong with them, they are utterly natural—but Jesus fixes all of us as we are under his microscopic call to reexamine every facet of our being as we seek to draw closer to God. Love is the only means by which to survive this survey intact.

Let me explain.

First, Jesus’ intent is not to out-Pharisee the Pharisees in the fundamentalist obedience to the words written in the Torah. What Jesus is after is that we comprehend what those words are built upon—the love that flows from God through all creation in every essence of its existence. God loves what God makes totally, without exception, and without withholding anything of God from its care and nurture. Therefore, if we are to align ourselves with this astounding grace of God, then we, too, need to seek to practice love in a reflective self-emptying manner. To do that, mind must be engaged with heart. We must love with full awareness and awakening to what it is we are seeking to practice. We cannot work blind obedience and hope to get anywhere—that leaves an ox in the ditch, and, worse, a man with a withered hand still broken because to intervene would violate the words of the Torah (cf. Mk. 3:1-5). 

Second, as we apply this insight to our most intimate relationships, we come to see what it is that truly twines souls together. It takes love that completely counters every human definition of that love. To understand that love, we need to look to St. Paul and his famous paragraphs from his letter to Corinth. Sometime, read the letters to Corinth in their entirety. It will reveal why Paul felt the need to fully define, fully delimit, and fully delve into the essence of love as revealed in Christ. This sophisticated congregation had a terrible time being able to make love a praxis in their communal life. In some ways, they were simply too acculturated to their time. They drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak, of 1st Century Roman popular wisdom. They were hip, cool, and fully literate in the trends, likes, and kicks of the time. Would they walk among us, they would be the folks with all the latest toys from Apple, could list the top ten TV shows, speak eloquently on the latest celebrity scandals, and tell you what Milan dictated for spring fashion for 2015! But they had no idea whatsoever of how to love as Christ loved. So Paul enters with one of the most profound explications of anything found in his epistles—here is how to love—love empties itself; love focuses first on the beloved; love waits; yes, love hurts; and on through the revelation that love as God defines it runs extremely deep. But, should the effort be made, souls will indeed twine together in such a way that they can endure anything the world, life, or simple being throw at us. We can become saints of God, not through our innate holiness, but through the deep indwelling of God himself. To practice the art of love as God reveals it invites the Spirit of God to breathe through us. If God breathes through us, then there is hope in all things, all things become possible, and we human beings can exist on a transcendent plane we never imagined.

Which leaves us with the question of how to get started—where do we begin?

First, reawaken to your own circle of beloveds—your sacred partner, your children and relatives, your friends, your colleagues, and on through the list of all of various connections to others. Awaken to their full reality as human beings. Accept them on their terms rather than your own. Look to what you can offer them, instead of what they might offer you. Let that be your guiding principle as the walk with them continues. 

Second, communicate. I cannot tell you how many times in two and a half decades of pastoral ministry I met with couples or friends suddenly at odds with each other simply because somewhere along the way, they forgot how to talk to each other. Love requires a sharing of who we are. Love requires voicing needs. Love requires speaking the things that are in the way or difficult to overcome. No, this does not negate the first call to selflessness, but rather it manifests it in a deeper way—I want to be fully with you, here is how I can do so and be so. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, give God the primary space in any and all of your relationships. Some of the most difficult passages in the Gospels are those in which Jesus rather pointedly and bluntly demands that we set aside even our obligation to parents and siblings if we are to follow him. That sets us off because we immediately hear a denunciation of the loves that make us real and full. But Jesus has something else in mind—to make those relationships work, God needs to be at their center. God at center gifts us with the love that is God; and if we have access to the love that is God, then our own loves promise to be more acutely what they need to be. We allow God to direct us. We allow God to navigate the rapids. We allow God to lay the foundation. That is a source of strength beyond anything we can imagine, and it ensures our ability to live by the commandments of God, for God himself will make it so.

So, love is an art. Love following God is its deepest manifestation. Go forth and enjoy the practice. All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.