How Do We Love?

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by Rev. Terry Davis

Delivered to Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation on August 25, 2013

Every morning, as the sun rises, we are aware of a fight going on in our neighbor. Just outside our back door, as we’re getting our cereal and coffee, we can hear and see our neighbors jockeying for position and getting very annoyed with one another. Some are more vocal than others and some are more physical. Some of the neighbors hang in there when the fighting starts and stake their claim. Others get tired of the chaos and eventually take off.

What am I talking about? Well, it seems that our well-intentioned decision to hang two very large birdfeeders in our yard has gone completely haywire. Instead of creating a bucolic setting of feathered friends flocking to feast on fine food . . .  it instead has turned into a feeding frenzy.

Pretty red Cardinals, Blue Jays, Purple Finches and bright yellow American Goldfinches are all part of the battle. So are small Carolina Wrens and House Sparrows and large, fat Mourning Doves. And, just yesterday, an enormous and iridescent Common Grackle joined the crowd.

It seems that the aggressive natures of our neighborhood birds come out in full force over thistle and sunflower seeds. Survival of the fittest . . . feast or famine . . . fight or flight . . . take your pick on which primal instinct may be at work here. The bottom line is that the quiet little critter community that was once our backyard is no more. We are seeing fierce competition in full color back there, and it isn’t a pretty picture.

In fact, I asked Gail the other day if we could take down the feeders. I find it disturbing to witness all that fussing and fighting every single morning.

This “Battle of the Backyard” is a reminder that even the best-guided efforts to form a cohesive community often don’t have the intended results. It perhaps is also a reminder that if we are living and breathing, it’s likely that our competitive natures are alive and well within . . . and that those natures can take center stage when something we value feels threatened.

These lessons are ones that I believe connect to the topic I would like for us to consider this morning, which is “How Do We Love?” In thinking about this question, I believe that our ability to love one another – to love patiently and with kindness, without pride or resentment, and with great joy and hope – depends upon our ability to appreciate our differences. Love depends upon our ability to listen rather than to hear, and to let go of the need to be right.

In examining the question of “How Do We Love?”, I have chosen this morning to explore the oft-quoted scripture written by the Christian Apostle Paul that I imagine is familiar to some of you.

Like any human being, Paul was a product of his culture and place in history. Consequently, some of his teachings reflect norms Unitarian Universalists find not only archaic but oppressive, such as his views about women and gay relationships. On the other hand, Paul’s description of the characteristics of love is timeless. It captures qualities that continue to speak the truth almost 2,000 years later.

As many of you may know, Paul was a Jewish man and Roman citizen, alive in during the 1^st century in Palestine. Scholars believe Paul began his ministry about 30 years after the death of Jesus, and that people living in the city of Corinth comprised one of his first congregations. Corinth was located south of Athens on a narrow strip of land with water on both sides, making it a popular place for trade.

According to J. Paul Sampley, a professor of Christian Scriptures and Origins at Boston University, Corinth eventually developed a reputation for possessing wealth without culture and for abusing its poor.[1] Paul’s congregation at Corinth is said to have reflected these mores, as it was a cross section of the socio-economic and religious makeup of the city. A few wealthy people sat at the top of the social pyramid, most were poor, and there was no middle class as we know it.[2]

In Paul’s first letter to the congregation at Corinth, he admonishes his members for the ways he sees their class distinctions creating unkindness and divisions among them. For example, Paul learned that there was much chaos in his congregation around the practice of celebrating Jesus’s last supper.

Some persons would arrive early and eat first, not waiting for or caring about the others who showed up later and hungry. Others only wanted to eat with their rich friends and avoided the rest of the community. Still others would get drunk. Tempers would flare. Fights would break out . . . well, this is sounding a lot like my backyard bird battle.

Paul wasn’t happy about these reports from the field one bit. He was particularly distressed that these were the behaviors of a faith community founded on Jesus’s message of radical love and unity. So, in his letter, Paul reminds the Corinthians that while they may be diverse, they’re essentially all in this spiritual journey together.

He writes, “For in the one Spirit we were baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. If one member [of the body] suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”[3]

Paul also acknowledges that his congregants bring a variety of gifts to their faith community – some are good teachers, some are prophetic, some speak in tongues, some are healers, and so on.

A variety of spiritual gifts are well and good, writes Paul, but he insists that they stop bickering about whose gifts are the most important. Rather, he encourages his congregants to look beyond their individual talents and seek greater gifts together, especially love . . . because without love they have nothing.

He writes:

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.

And if I have prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains,

but do not have love, I am nothing.

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.

He continues:

Love is patient; love is kind;

Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its on way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing,

but rejoices in the truth.

Love never ends.[4]

It seems that, with these words, Paul was inviting his congregation to move from self-interests to common interests. He seems to be saying that a spiritual community needs compassion and empathy more than it needs awesome talents or deeds. It needs loving kindness as its foundation.

In thinking about these timeless words and our own spiritual community, how might we answer the question “How Do We Love?” at Northwest? What do we do well here? What could we do better?

Paul says that love is patience, kindness, humility and courtesy. Certainly another characteristic of love Paul didn’t mention – but perhaps exists between the lines – is listening. Listening to someone, unlike hearing them, involves giving them our complete attention. It means intentionally putting away distractions and putting aside our own need for airtime.

In fact, says Brown University Neuroscientist Seth Horowitz, when we really pay attention to someone – versus just hearing what he or she is saying – a completely different pathway in our brain takes over. Signals are conveyed through a dorsal pathway in the cortex, the part of our brains that does more computation, which enables us to actively focus on what the other person is saying and tunes out sights and sounds that aren’t as immediately important.[5]

A lack of attentive listening is almost always at the root of disagreements in my own home life. For my part, an argument ensues when I am so focused on getting my own point across that I fail to appreciate that my partner Gail is working just as hard to get hers across . . . and that her point of view is every bit as meaningful to her as mine is to me.

Early in our 18-year relationship, we struggled frequently with who was on the right side of verbal battle until a wise couples’ counselor once told us – and I have Gail’s permission to share this with you – “You can either be right, or you can be together. But you can’t be both.”

That piece of advice – and our willingness to follow it – marked a turning point in our relationship. It has been the wisdom we return to often to defuse tense conversations and get us back on track. And, today I’m convinced that a persistent need to be right, whether it be in romantic relationships or relationships in community, the need to be right will eventually destroy any chance of building loving unity.

Which brings me to Laura’s key point about love: that is, love is a choice. No matter what another person thinks or does, I can still choose to respond with love. I can still choose compassion. I can still choose to bring my full attention to a conversation or situation and put my need to be right to the side.

This does not mean, as Laura suggests, that I should be a doormat . . . that I should accept abuse or someone else’s constant domination. Loving relationships in community, it seems, are about give and take. They are about finding a way to remain whole and honor the wholeness of another as we each speak our truths.

Along these lines, if I were to extend Paul’s list of what love is and isn’t, I might add that:

Love is courageous.

Love is speaking up against injustice and oppression

without using unkind words and oppressive tactics.

Love is sometimes saying no,

Because saying yes would mean a type of self-sacrifice that would crush one’s heart and spirit.

Love is about compassion and kindness,

and it is also about self-respect.

As we go from here, may we know that how we love one another is at the root of building healthy relationships and a healthy community.

May patience, listening, and courage be ours as we attempt to understand and bridge our differences . . . so that we can continue to build the beloved community here and in our wider world.

May it be so. Amen.