Readings: Acts 4:5-11; 1 John 3:16-24
“Here is our hope” we sang again this morning, “in the mystery of suffering is the heartbeat of Love, Love that will not let go.”[1]
In this Easter season, we continue to consider how within our own everyday lives, Love, the Holy Mystery we call God, holds us fast and will not let us go. We remember – for we need reminding again and again – that the resurrection stories (the central focus at the heart of the Christian story) – are not about believing in particular doctrine, creed, or philosophy – but rather “affirmations of unbroken relationships within divine reality”. [2] Love, in all its tenacity and mystery appears to us in the midst of our everyday lives – even in the midst of all our pain, hopelessness and scepticism.
We call it unconditional love[3] – love that will not let go – love that would die for us.
A young father holds his newly born daughter in his arms and out of some vastness he didn’t even know was there deep within him, he says, ‘I’d die for you’. A middle aged couple, for whom love has arrived surprisingly, in the autumn of their lives; without any reserve in their hearts, promise to love in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, loving each other all the days of their lives. A woman holds the hand of her terminally ill friend and says, “You know, I’m here for you, I’m not going away.” Love that will not let go – love that would die for us.
We call it unconditional love. Often it seems a beyond-our-reach ideal –almost frighteningly impossible; and yet, we each have these moments of unconditional love: moments in which we open ourselves unreservedly to another and commit ourselves totally to the other’s well-being. We often reach for ‘laying down our life’ language to express what, at the moment, seems so clear and undeniable to us. Unconditional love means everything – and forever.
Of course, it may be difficult to make good on these passion-filled outbursts of love. In the rough and tumble of day-in day-out living, many conditions arrive. Our absolute statements of ‘all and forever’ begin to be peppered by conditional clauses, “if you don’t … then I won’t .. I can’t, because…. We are a combination of the unconditional and the conditioned. We have preferences, cautions, habits and needs. More often than not, our unconditional ideal is that ‘irresistible force’ meeting the ‘immovable object’ of our conditioned reality. However, even in this less than ideal state, few of us would think that our failure to achieve one hundred percent ‘unconditionality’ refutes or rejects those wonderful visionary moments when we declare our love ‘for all the days of my life’ and ‘till death do us part’. For yes, when we said them – when we made those declarations - there was deep truth in them.
When we look back to those moments, when we have felt that overpowering swell of unconditional love, we notice something rather surprising. This overwhelming love doesn’t appear to be something we have much choice about – it just happens – it just is. It sweeps over us, almost against our bidding – we love unreservedly – without forethought, without logic, without decision – we just love.
Each week, as I take my four-month old grandson on a walk through the university campus, I catch tiny glimpses of this surprising, heart-filled, spontaneous love. The most unlikely people seem to react to babies without reservation. Everywhere we go, we come upon young students and older staff members – men and women – whose faces light up with joy as they smile at this little bundle of new life, whom they do not know and may never encounter again. It’s not a response I get when I walk on my own. But, when I am accompanied by my baby grandson, skateboarders, intent on getting to lectures on time, give way to the buggy and glance with wonder at its tiny occupant; conversations are stilled mid-sentence as I overhear the murmuring of ‘how cute’ ‘what a sweetie’; studious faces, pondering deep thoughts, light up as they catch sight of the little human being in my care. For an infinitesimal moment, nothing else appears to matter – nothing but the spark of love and delight, ignited by this alert, innocent and adorable baby. And as I continue to walk, I find myself pondering this recognition; for, is this not a glimpse of unconditional Love – an identification of the Divine Presence in our midst? And, knowing that these glimpses we have of unconditional love are only that – the briefest of glimpses; and acknowledging that somehow, it’s increasingly more difficult to catch these glimpses as people grow from cute babies to wilful children and opinionated adults; I find myself wondering, how might I – how might we – experience this unconditional love more fully and more often. And, assuming that this might also be your question, I want to suggest these glimpses can be expanded by all of us in making a commitment to living a particular Way, by following a particular spiritual path, by opening ourselves to a story that is bigger than our own individual one.
Stephen Levine suggests that this experience of unconditional love has to do with a way of being. He writes: “You cannot unconditionally love someone. You can only be unconditional love. It is not a dualistic emotion. It is a sense of oneness with all that is. The experience of love arises when we surrender our separateness into the universal. It is a feeling of unity … It is not an emotion, it is a state of being … it is not so much that ‘two are as one’ so much as it is ‘the One [the Holy Mystery that is God] manifested as two.’[4] ...or three, or more...
And that makes sense of those sparks ignited by my grandson. Those students and staff at the university, appeared to catch, for a moment, a sense of oneness with him - and for a brief moment, love was kindled. When the parent, lover or friend says “I’ll die for you” they too have found the oneness of the universe expressed within their relationship. And this is what we see in Jesus – a person who just is unconditional love; whose fundamental being – whose ultimate grounding in Divine Love – makes him a living, ongoing expression of unconditional love: Jesus dwelling in God and God in Jesus – inviting us to participate in this oneness – this unity of love with all around us.
The Johannine community found this to be a profound understanding of who Jesus was. We find it expressed in John’s gospel as Jesus’ I AM statements. With unmistakable overtones of the divine declaration I AM who I AM, Jesus points us to the way of unconditional love: I am the way, the truth, the life; I am the Good Shepherd – the one who would lay down his life for his sheep. I know my own flock – and I lay down my life for them. No one takes my life from me – I lay it down of my own accord.
It is in Jesus that we see more fully than we have seen in anyone else, that expression of unconditional love. This love is not about personal achievements or moral preferences. This is just the way Jesus is – and it is the identity we are called to assume. It is not a love that is boasted about – not of human making – but rather an expression of the way humanity can be, when living fully focussed in the Source of our being, the Goal of our longing, that which we call God. The writer of the Epistle of John reflects on this: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How can God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
My friends, every single time we get in touch with that unconditional loving in our lives – every time our hearts open spontaneously to another, every time we say, from the depths of our being “I’d die for you” we too are living the way of our true identity: dwelling in God-ness, God-ness in us, being the heartbeat of Holy Love that will not let go. May that love increase.
[1] Shirley Murray, “Christ is alive and the universe must celebrate” Alleluia Aotearoa15. New Zealand Hymn Book Trust.
[2] Rebecca Lyman, “Ours the Cross, the Grave, the Skies” in http://www.journeywithjesus.net/ Easter Day 2011
[3] This sermon is an adaptation of, and quotes extensively from, “Loving Unconditionally” by John Shea, in Eating with the Bridegroom Liturgical Press, 2005, p.124-127.
[4] Stephen Levine Who Dies?: An investigation of conscious living and conscious dying, Anchor Press, 1982, p.75. Quoted in Shea, 2005, p.127.
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