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Don't Tell Me You Love Me

Don’t Tell Me You Love Me! [Mother’s Day]

May 11, 2008

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, 13

1 Cor 13:1-8a, 13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends…

13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

NRSV

It happened a year ago, on Mother’s Day.

We’d gone out, had a nice lunch, returned home. Our daughter, who was 6 at the time, did something that got her into a lot of trouble. It was some willful act of disobedience. I can’t remember what it was, but it upset Barb especially. Emma knew she was just about to experience Armageddon and Judgment Day, rolled into one. So, she executes a brilliant maneuver. It was a plan of self-defense that came naturally to her. She didn’t learn it, didn’t think about it—she just did it, and did it to perfection.

Facing the day of reckoning, she goes up to my wife, hugs her leg, looks up at her with large puppy-dog eyes, and says, “Love you, Mommy!”

How ingenious!

How in the world can you ever be angry, or how can you ever punish someone, who looks at you with large eyes and says, “I love you”?

Well, after a while, it’s easy.

Because unless “I love you” is backed up by concrete actions, it’s pretty empty.

That’s exactly what Paul is talking about today.

As I mentioned in the intro to scripture, this is a passage that’s often read at weddings. And I dare say that what most couples hear when the passage is read in their ceremony is the word, “Love.”

“LOVE ….LOVE…LOVE…LOVE.”

They don’t really hear the other words.

LOVE is PATIENT.

LOVE is KIND.

LOVE is NOT JEALOUS, BOASTFUL, RUDE.

LOVE does NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY.

It’s easy to say, “love, love, love, love.” It’s easy to say, “Love you, mommy…” But it’s a lot more difficult to put that love into action.

That’s because the love Paul talks about requires a sacrifice.

Look more closely at what he says.

Love is “patient.” That means you give up demanding something be done on your schedule. That means you give the other person time. Time to work something out maybe. Time to start over. Time to learn and grow.

Love is “kind.” The Greek word translated “kind” is possibly a word Paul made up—it appears only here in the Bible. It means to be courteous when you don’t feel like it. When you want to snap at the person. When you want to tell off the other person. You don’t snap, you don’t tell off. Rather, your words and your actions show kindness, courtesy, respect.

Look at what Paul says love is “not.” Jealous, boastful, rude, insistent on its own way. The common theme? You don’t put yourself first if you love someone—you don’t force your agenda, your goals, your opinions.

Love like Paul is talking about isn’t easy. It requires making quite a sacrifice.

Often, people can’t do it.

A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor’s office. After his checkup, the doctor called the wife into his office alone. He said, “Your husband is suffering from a very severe disease, combined with horrible stress. If you don’t do the following, your husband will surely die:

“Each day fix him three meals that are healthy but also delicious and filling. Don’t burden him with chores around the house, because that contributes to stress. Rather, try to relax him in the evening by giving him plenty of back rubs, and don’t ask for foot rubs in exchange. Just pamper him. Encourage him to watch the Cards on TV each night—you can tivo your shows. See to it that you satisfy his every whim. If you can do this for 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely.”

On the way home the husband asked his wife, “What did the doctor say?”

She replied, “He said you’re gonna die.”

--Hom, 7/8/07

Love isn’t love until it costs you something. Until you’re willing to pay the price in time, pride, vanity, ego.

Children seem to have a knack for showing love this way.

A survey was taken of kids, ages 4-8. They were asked what love is. Here are some of their answers. Note that not one of them is abstract.

What’s love?

1. When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.

2. Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.

3. Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don't yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings.

7. Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.

18. Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken.

21. I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.

Love isn’t love until it costs you something.

So, what is love going to cost you?

Let’s do a little exercise that might help you find out.

Look at the sermon notes. You’ll find a checklist that has four columns. It looks something like this:

Name Need Action Sacrifice

1. (close)

2. (near)

3. (distant)

Sacrifices: time money pride vanity comfort

Write down the names of three persons. Person number one is someone very important to you—say, oh maybe a…mother—seems like a good day for it. The second is an acquaintance, maybe a teacher, colleague, co-worker. The third is someone you barely know—maybe someone who sells you stamps at the post office, or someone you pass on the sidewalk who asks for money.

Now, after you come up with three names, write down a need that person has. Maybe you remember something they said, or maybe you observed a look on their face. Doing this makes you have to look at life through their eyes, and start feeling what they’re feeling.

After you do this, then imagine something you can do to help address that need. A good deed, a good word, a gift, whatever.

Finally, look at what you’ve committed to do, and write down what you’re giving up in order to do it. What’s your sacrifice? If you haven’t sacrificed, then what you’ve written down really isn’t love, is it?

I’ll make it personal. Here’s how I filled out person number one.

1. Barbara time for self at night do before bed chores watching Cards

For example, Barb usually has the “things that must be done before bed” chore for at least one, often both, of our kids. Check homework, get tomorrow’s clothes out, fix lunch, bath and bed for Emma, things like that. This takes time. She needs to have some time to herself. So, for a week, I’ll be in charge of the before-bed chores for both kids. The sacrifice? Watching the Cardinals—they might not do as well without me watching, but we do make sacrifices, right?

So, if you want to love as Paul loved, go through this exercise. If you can’t put anything in that last column, ask if it’s really love that you’re giving.

And if you’re brave enough to do this, by all means,

WRITE THIS DOWN!

It will make it more real.

You don’t get a marriage license by simply saying to the person in the courthouse, “We want to get married.” You have to sign your name on a document. It shows the whole world that you’re serious, and that you’re willing to do whatever is necessary for a committed, married relationship.

Similarly, you don’t just say, “I love you!” You write down how you’re going to express that love in honest, sacrificial terms. It’s real this way.

But you know the most difficult part on this form?

If you’re like me—the most difficult part is what I write in after #3.

That’s the person you don’t know too well—or maybe not at all.

That’s the person who’s probably quite different from you. The person who loves Hillary and you support McCain. The person who has a PhD and you have a GED. The person who’s gay, and you’re straight. The person who’s homeless, and you live in a gated community.

Imagine such a person. Write down the name and the need.

NOW—how will you show love to her/him?

Makes Paul’s words a little more potent, doesn’t it?

“Love is NOT arrogant or boastful or rude. DOES NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY.” Does not demand that the other person change their ways, conform to your standards, before you show an act of love.

One pastor tells of taking a team from his church in Ohio to work on homes of low-income families in an impoverished part of eastern Kentucky. While they were fixing one home, a minister who pastored a nearby church stopped by and thanked the Ohio team for the work they were doing in his community. Then, in private conversation with the pastor, he mentioned that some members of his own church also wanted to participate in work camps to help others, but he’d found that he had to take them somewhere other than their home area. “Around here,” he said, “everybody knows everybody else. When I propose fixing up the homes of some of our neighbors, people are reluctant, saying that that person doesn’t deserve it or doesn’t really need the help. But if I take them where they don’t know anybody, my folks will pitch right in and work hard.”

And what was it Paul said?

Love is NOT arrogant, or boastful, or rude, or insistent.

Your ability to fill in the third line is your ability to love as Paul wrote, and as Jesus lived. Love doesn’t become distinctively Christian until you write in something behind #3.

Love isn’t love until it costs you something.

A childless child psychologist had quite a few ideas about how to raise well-rounded children. He didn’t hesitate sharing them. Whenever he saw a neighbor scolding his children for some wrongdoing, he would say, “You should love your boys, not punish them.”

One hot summer afternoon the psychologist was doing some repair work on his driveway. After a few hours he took a break, laid down the trowel, and walked toward his house. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mischievous little boy putting his foot into the fresh cement.

He chased after the boy, angrily yelling at him.

A neighbor leaned from a window and said, “Watch it! Don’t you remember? You must ‘love’ the child!”

At this, he yelled back furiously, “I do love him in the abstract — but not in the concrete!”

We know the concrete. 1. 2. and, especially, 3.

Let’s love in it, shall we?