God is Love not Love is God

 Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B

Love must certainly be the most used, and yet most misunderstood and abused word in our vocabulary. The word 'love' is so sentimentalised in pop culture and flippantly used to apply to a myriad of things from the most trivial (like “I love ice cream”) to the most profound (“I love God”), that it has devolved into something that sounds bland or fuzzy. It doesn’t help when we attempt to unpack the word in the context of today’s readings. It would almost be like teaching a foreign language to explain what Saint John meant in his gospel and epistle. And this is precisely what we must do.

The word that Saint John uses is the Greek 'agapè': a word that has never been anglicised and from which no English word is derived. In Latin, it has been translated as “caritas” which has created its own set of problems, especially when we attempt to translate that into English - “charity” - a word which in common parlance suggests acts of mercy towards the poor. Although our English word “love” seems to encapsulate the concept of “agape,” it fails to distinguish the nuanced differences conveyed by other Greek words which could similarly be translated as “love” - eros (erotic love), philia (friendship) and storge (affection).

As much as you would have heard it explained from the pulpit that “agape” refers to the lofty selfless and sacrificial love of God, in the secular Greek of the day, the verb “agape” was used in a quite unimpressive and banal fashion: it simply meant 'to like'; almost like the clicks you get on your social media postings. The New Testament writers, Saint Paul as well as Saint John, seem to have deliberately adopted this rather neutral word. It is used, as they presumably knew, in the Greek version of the Old Testament, for the kind of love which cares for others, to the extent of being ready to make sacrifices for their sake. Paul and John take the word up to designate the new way of loving which our Lord inaugurated.

How do we make this impossible leap? How can we connect the act of liking something so banal as ice cream to loving others as God has loved us? Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus caritas est, beautifully helps us to see the link between the natural loves which mark our daily human experiences and the unique self-less love which our Lord speaks of. The Pope warns that we should not be setting the different kinds of love (towards family, a lover, things, God etc) against each other. 'Were this antithesis to be taken to extremes', the Pope writes, 'the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life'. In other words, such detachment could make Christian love untenable and impossible, our Christian way of life would be totally cut off from everything which makes us human. The Pope insists that there is an 'intrinsic link' between 'the reality of human love' and 'the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to us'.

The Pope invites us to take a more positive view of human love, even erotic love. He acknowledges that though there is nothing intrinsically wrong about erotic love or friendship, they are susceptible to distortions. And so, the only way in which these human expressions of love can be perfected and purified is to unite these human experiences of love with the higher calling, to love as our Lord did. And how did He love us - by laying down His life for us. In the words of our Lord, “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” We see how our Lord marries two very different concepts of love - the love between friends with the selfless love of one who is willing to sacrifice everything, including one’s life, for the other.

In other words, in obeying our Lord’s commandments to remain in His love and to take up the new standard of loving as He did, we do not need to abandon all other forms of loving - whether it be affection for another, or love between spouses and lovers, or that of friendship. A Christian does not cease to love his or her family, lover, friends, pets, and even hobbies because he chooses to love as Christ did. To love my spouse, my children, my parents, my friend or even my pet, need not be something which is in opposition to loving God, unless loving any of these persons and objects detracts from the latter. Likewise loving God would not prevent us or lessen our ability to love our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends but in fact, purifies our love and brings it to perfection. In fact, the goal of all these different expressions of human love is to find their perfection in the standard which our Lord sets: “love one another, as I have loved you.” Christ’s new standard of love does not extinguish all other forms of love, but perfects them.

Saint John not only has our Lord set out a new standard of love in the gospel, he also provides love with a new definition: “God is Love.” But it is important that we do not confuse two axioms: “God is love” and “love is God.” They are not identical nor interchangeable. To claim that “love is God” is to reduce God to some impersonal principle and in fact, sees no need for God. People who say that “love is God,” are saying that as long as I am loving, caring and compassionate to others, there is no need for God, no need for a religion, because my personal love suffices. But this is precisely what St John rejects in the second reading: “God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” God is not measured by our love. It is the reverse; our love is to be measured by God. God’s love is the gold standard for loving, “love one another, as I have loved you.” He loved us to the end. He loved us to the extent of laying down His life for us. He loved us to the point of pouring out His entire life for us and for our salvation, holding nothing back.

The phrase “God is love” is used one more time in 1 John 4. It puts to rest the false notion that God loves no one because He is only an impersonal concept but is the love in everyone. But Saint John asserts: “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment….” (vv. 16–17). Modern folks tend to use the empty slogan “love wins” to argue that their inclusive, non-judgmental ways are superior to the moral standards of traditional religion. But the truth is that, love can never win when that love seeks to exclude God, seeks to exclude His commandments, seeks to exclude His standards, because the moment we choose to exclude God, we exclude love because God is Love. A Godless life ultimately descends into a loveless life.