Love’s Cost
18 June 2011
Wedding of Dale Guy Kreisher and Man Ka Wing
St. John’s Cathedral Hong Kong
Gen 2:4-9, 15-24; 1 Cor 13:1-13; Mark 10:6-9, 13-16
Imagine that I can speak in many human and angelic languages, but that I am a person who does not love anyone. What I am I then? Simply a noisy and annoying gong or cymbal, nothing more. And what if I were a prophet who knew every bit of God’s plan, and every item of knowledge there was to know, and even had such complete faith that I could move mountains at will. If I weren’t a loving person—what would I be? Nothing, that’s what. If I gave away everything I own—and if I gave over even my body—a praiseworthy thing, to be sure—and yet if I did not have love, it wouldn’t do me any good. What is love? When you love someone, you are patient and kind with that person. You are not jealous of those you love, and you don’t try to show them up. You don’t talk down to them, or act rudely toward them. You don’t try ot have your own way at their expense, nor do you get annoyed or resentful at them. You don’t get pleasure at any injustice done to them or by them, but rather you rejoice when truth prevails. When you love someone, you put up with whatever they do, you trust whatever they say, you hold every hope for them, and you are willing to endure anything for them. When you love, you never stop loving. Not so with prophecies, languages, or knowledge—these will all cease one day. For our knowledge and our prophecy are partial only. And when wholeness arrives, partial things will come to an end. When I was a child, I used to talk, think, and reason as a child does. When I became an adult, I put aside a child’s way of doing things. At present, we see things indistinctly, as if through a clouded mirror. But then it will be face to face. At present, I know things only in part, but then, I shall have a knowledge of others just as I also am fully known. But as matters stand now, only these three things really last—faith, hope, and love. And of these, the greatest is love. (1 Cor 13:1-13)
God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen
In Chinese, when we talk about someone who is a soul-mate, a true friend—we say we share yuanfen. The idea is that we have a link that goes back to some kind of previous life, back to a whole set of good deeds we may have done one another from before we remember. In Western romantic literature, this idea is expressed by the phrase, finding your “one and only” true love. It certainly describes the kind of love my parents had—they met in second grade, were best friends, and fell in love as soon as they were in high school. They secretly married when they were seventeen years old, much to the chagrin of their parents. But they remained faithful and true to each other for sixty-some years, until they died.
I never saw them argue, though I often saw them work out differences between themselves.
I once asked my father how it was that you could tell if you had found your one true love, your “one and only.” He looked pained at the question, as if I had missed the point. He said, “it doesn’t really matter if you think you have found your one and only. Many people think they have their one true love, only to discover as they age and change that it was a short-lived emotion, a passing attraction. And their marriages didn’t last. So you shouldn’t ask whether you have found your one and only. You should ask what you need to do today to make the one you love your one and only. Because you don’t find a true soul-mate—you make one through actions each day.”
I thought my father was being terribly un-romantic. But I knew he was deeply and hopelessly in love with my mother. And that, after nearly fifty years.
I have come to realize that he was describing the only kind of romance that lasts-- one that is strengthened and renewed each day, through thick and thin, by the actions that show and built mutual respect, love, and passion.
The reading from Corinthians that we just heard is often misunderstood. Because it is often read at weddings, people think that Paul is talking about romantic love. But Paul is talking about love itself of any kind. He says that love is not just an emotion that is felt and experienced, but a condition of the will. He knows that love as emotion, like any passion, can be fleeting or unpredictable.
“When you love someone, you are patient and kind with that person. … are not jealous of them… you don’t try to show them up. You don’t talk down to them, or act rudely toward them. You don’t try to have your own way at their expense, nor do you get annoyed or resentful at them. … When you love someone, you put up with whatever they do, you trust whatever they say, you hold every hope for them, and you are willing to endure anything for them. When you love, you never stop loving.”
Love here is not just a feeling we experience or suffer. It is an active way we behave, the way we treat the beloved.
Love in this sense is a type of sacrifice, a limitation on our freedom and our will.
In another part of this same letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that in marriage, we no longer own ourselves, but have given ourselves over to our spouse. “The husband should give his wife what she needs, and likewise the wife should give her husband what he needs. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.” (1 Cor 7:2-5).
For Paul, love by definition places constraints on our freedom. That’s why he says at one point, “In love, be like slaves to one another”(Gal. 5:13). Paul knows that love is risk, and that love is costly. It involves constraints, though these are not reducible to mere rules.
Francoise Sagan, the French novelist, was brutally honest about how love limits freedom in an interview she gave to Le Monde. She said she was satisfied with the way she had lived her life and had no regrets. The interviewer said, “ Then you have had the freedom you wanted.” Sagan replied: “Yes… I was obviously less free when I was in love with someone . . . But one’s not in love all the time. Apart from that, … I’m free.”
Love is always a risk. We often are afraid of trusting our fragile hearts to someone else, especially if our heart has been bruised or broken. But love is a gift from God, and refusing love, not loving, is an option that we take only at the peril of our souls.
C. S. Lewis writes: “Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation.”
Today Dale and Ice you are making each other important promises in the presence of God, the saints and angels, family, friends, and colleagues. The vow which you are taking is to love, comfort, honour, and protect each other, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to each other as long as you both live.
May God bless you to keep and honor these promises. Be sure to take time each day to listen to each other. Be sure to allow each other space. Be sure to be honest with each other. Both of you are very demanding people, hardest probably most of all on yourself. Be kind to each other, and help each other be easier on yourselves.
Like love, this vow is not reducible to a mere set of rules. Like Love, this vow demands all, demands perfection. And no one of us is perfect. So I also pray, that when your imperfections hurt the other, as they are bound to, May God bless you to seek forgiveness from each other, and to forgive each other. That, after all, is what love is.
May your love be a source for you to share God's gifts with others. Be hospitable, and continue enjoying your friendships. I hope that God blesses you with children, because I know that both of you desire this, and believe that the two of you will be fabulous parents. That is part of love as well.
May the vows you take today make your love firmer, and more alive. May your marriage last as you both live, and your love and relationship become part of the great eternal dance of light that surrounds the throne of God.
In the name of God, Amen.
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