Bethany Davey
We’re going to begin with something that may feel a bit uncomfortable: I’m going to begin singing a song, and I invite you to sing along with me—loudly, please—once you recognize the song. After a bit of singing together, I’ll give you a conductor’s “wrap it up” signal, and then I will begin another song for you to sing along with once you recognize it. The point is not to sing perfectly, or even well, but to sing with heart. I apologize preemptively to anyone with perfect or relative pitch, as I will be randomly selecting our starting notes.
Ready? Here goes.
“L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
[Chorus]
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it, take my heart and please don’t break it
Love was made for me and you”
-Nat King Cole
“I love you a bushel and a peck,
A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck
Hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap
Barrel and a heap and I’m talkin’ in my sleep”
-Adelaide, Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser
“Stop! In the name of love
Before you break my heart
Stop! In the name of love
Before you break my heart
Think it over
Think it over”
-The Supremes
“What is love?
Oh, baby, don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me, no more
Oh, baby, don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me, no more”
-Haddaway, popularized by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan in SNL and A Night at the Roxbury
It’s a great question: what is love? Do we find it in Nat King Cole’s spelled-out romantic expression? In Guys & Dolls’ large, but measurable amount? In The Supremes’ reminder to think before we act? In Haddaway’s plea for an end to the hurt, popularized by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan’s head-bobbing nights at the Roxbury?
Love can be all these things: romantic, large and measurable, a reason to stop and think, a reason to stop harm. But love isn’t only these things.
In the English language, this one word—love—has many meanings, so we have to examine the situation and the words surrounding this one word to figure out which kind of love we might mean. In one conversation, we may say that we love our families, love our favorite restaurant and—sarcastically—love the humid summer weather. How can one word be used in so many different situations, and mean so many different things?
The section of the Bible we call the New Testament was originally recorded primarily in Greek. In Greek, there are different words to describe different kinds of love: eros for the heat of sexual desire…philia for the steadfast love of friendship…ludus for the joy of playful silliness…agape for an empathic love for all…the modern Greek pragma for the practical love of long-time partnerships…or, philautia, for self-love that can distort into self-obsession or fan outward into an expanded love beyond the self (1).
How helpful to know from the Greek word itself precisely the sort of love being described. We lose this clarity in our English translations, which resort to “love” and leave the clarifying for communities like ours, as we read and study the text.
It is important to consider the communities with whom the authors of biblical texts would have been speaking or writing. Colossians is thought to have been authored by Paul, or more likely by a disciple of his after Paul’s execution. Scholars think this letter was written to a relatively new church in Colossae or Laodicea, regarding the community’s relatively new iteration of Judaism that we now call Christianity. When we consider this context, it makes sense that so much of the letter is dedicated to ethical and behavioral instruction. The newly formed community wrestled with questions common to our communities today: how do we differ from other groups? In which ways are we similar? How poignant to consider a communal directive to “put on,” or, “clothe yourselves in love” in the midst.
Galatians, thought to be a letter from Paul to the church in Galatia, addresses similar questions of group identity and practice. Paul’s letter warns the group against behaviors that will harm the communal good and the fledgling faith, while steering the Galatians toward behaviors that will nourish, uplift and sustain: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23).
Love. Once again, we encounter a “fruit” whose meaning is more complex than it may at first seem. A “fruit” that is not simply a character trait, but a practice. Not merely an emotion, but a communal ideal to be nurtured.
As we planned for this summer worship series, we chose to save love for the final week because it felt like a bit of a bummer to end the series with self-control. Though, after last Sunday, I now believe that with Alma’s guidance we actually could have heartily and beautifully concluded the series there.
We saved love for the series’ conclusion so that these weeks would begin with joy and end with love, both of which offer sustaining energies that resist Empire and injustice.
We also saved love for the series’ conclusion because although it falls elsewhere in the Galatians’ list, love is the thread woven through each “fruit” of the Spirit: love is the soil that allows roots to form, love is the firm foundation that allows the building to remain, love is the blood that channels life through the body. Love is present in the practice of each fruit of the Spirit: in love itself and in joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. Love is expressed through the practice of each and all of these.
Love is the filling holding the whole thing together.
Consider the Fig Newton: the fig holds it all together. Without its filling, the Fig Newton is dry as can be, quite boring, and would utterly fall to pieces without its figgy insides binding it together. I eat Fig Newtons for the delightful texture and the tastiness that comes from combining the Fig Newton’s outsides with its sweet, sticky insides.
Love is the fruit filling of the Fig Newton, holding the entire thing together.
“Above all, [put on], clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14).
Love is the fruit filling holding all of us together in times like these.
Love is the Divine binding, holding us together, making the difficult—even the impossible—bearable, tolerable, occasionally sweet.
As we cry out for an end to genocide in Gaza,
love is the binding that holds us, and all, together.
As ICE disappears our families, our friends, our neighbors,
love is the binding that holds us, and all, together.
As those in power target the very humanity of our trans and queer selves and siblings,
love is the binding that holds us, and all, together.
Love is the binding that holds us and all together, the core that moves us to peacefully counter and creatively resist injustice together.
In death, in illness, in heartache, in suffering, in longing, in release, in celebration, in renewal, in fear, in trepidation, in uncertainty,
love is the binding that holds us and all together.
Love can be romantic expression…or the slow simmering of life-long friendship…or the long-term commitments we demonstrate with our families, partners, children, parents, friends, pets, neighbors, vocations, communities. Love can be—and often is—all of these things and then some.
And: love is more a practice than a feeling.
I have loved this past year. As a pastoral intern, and as interim pastoral staff during Joel’s sabbatical, I have felt surrounded and upheld by the love of this community. Joel returns to work on Tuesday, and as I conclude this season of my interning and interim pastoral journey, I am filled with gratitude for the experiences of the past year. This formative time will live within me as one bound by practices of love: in joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Love is present in each of these, and expressed through all of them.
Love is the committed presence and practice that “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14), the fruit filling that makes everything a bit more delicious. Love, at the very least—or perhaps the very most—keeps us together.
1) Roman Krznaric, “The Ancient Greeks’ 6 Words for Love (And Why Knowing Them Can Change Your Life),” Yes! Magazine, December 28, 2013, https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2013/12/28/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life.
