The Many Faces of Love

Towards each and every person we must make love our highest priority if for no other reason than to open the eyes of the world to see the face of God when it might otherwise feel absent.

Photograph by Kerry Rosenthal can be purchased at kerrirosenthal.com

In his book, Love is the Way the Presiding Bishop Michael Curry tells the story of Ms. Robbins, a woman his father brought in to help with the kids after his mom had died.

He wrote, “In my life, love has had so many, many faces, but among the boldest is the face of Josie Robbins.”

As you might imagine, Ms. Robbins was faced with a big task. In his memory of her Curry said she met all her responsibilities with love. And has he put it, "she made God feel close in a house that was still grieving in pain and sorrow."

Love has many faces. The first time I saw my wife, I fell instantly in love. Over the years, our love has evolved from proving our feelings towards each other to simply practicing love with one another. This daily habit has made love grow, adapt, and flourish all around us.

As we continue to draw from John’s first epistle, it’s hard not to read it as a love letter of sorts. Written to a church that was suffering many pains and sorrows, John comforts the heart of the reader by making God’s love visible and tangible.

​The Apostle doesn’t stop there. This letter is also encourages and instructs the church of the task at hand. Which is to be the many faces of God. And the reason behind that is this:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
                                                                                                                               (1 John 4:7-21)

It’s safe to say John doesn’t mince words. With elegant concision, he tells the church what God is so we know what God is not.

Despite what many have come to believe in our world today God is love, not hate. God is peace, not war. God is for us, not against us. God is something to be in awe of, not afraid of. God is love. Like I said last week, this isn’t an emotional feeling John is talking about, but a redemptive action that God takes for us and all of creation (c.f. 1 John 3:18).
 
John is also very purposeful in describing God’s love, using a particular word repeatedly. He doesn’t use the Greek word “eros” which is a kind of physical love. Nor does he use “philos” which is like friendship or fellowship kind of love. Instead, John chose to use an old colorless, rarely used Greek word called “agape” which the young church grabbed hold of and gave it a rich meaning.
 
Agape is a self-sacrificing love that gives without expecting anything in return. It’s an unconditional, infinite kind of love that resides in the very heart of God’s grace. Agape perfectly encapsulates redemptive love  like that which was made manifest in Jesus whom God sent to us “so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9b)
 
God is agape. Jesus died for us as an act of agape. So if this is the action God took out of great love for us, what does that say about the way we are called to live?
 
God is love. And calls us to be the same. For the only way we will truly know God in the most authentic sense is by allowing divine love to flow through us. This is how God becomes visible and tangible and meaningful in the world.

​Love begins with God and continues through Christ, who passes it along to us to share with everyone around us. If we say we love God, then love must be the action we take. For those who abide in God must also abide in God’s love (c.f. 1 John 4:12-16)

Love has many faces. You, me, and everyone in the space between.

Just as Jesus was the visible presence of agape, we can be the same through acts of compassion, mercy, kindness, and grace.

​Whenever we sit with someone who is going through a hard time, we become the face of God’s love. The same is true whenever we open our heart or hands to someone in need. Or stand up to injustices, or forgive someone. When we lift a person up who people have put down or offer help and healing to those the world has hurt and harmed, God is revealed through us.
 
John said it like this, “No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12)  

To know the God of love, then, is to live agape like Jesus did when he gave himself away freely and liberally to everyone he met. As Brennan Manning argued in his wonderful book The Ragamuffin Gospel, “God is love. Jesus is God. If Jesus stopped loving, he would stop being God.”
 
So let me say it again, love has many faces. Some are black, some are white. Some wear red hats, others blue ties. Some live across the street, others in a country you’d struggle to find on a map.

But towards each person we must make love our highest priority if for no other reason than to open the eyes of the world to see the face of God when it might otherwise feel absent.
 
Like we learned last week, we can’t make that happen with words and speech. Only in truth and action which is agape, the unconditional, all-inclusive love of God. This is the single most important message the church is called to proclaim. We are the Body of Christ. Or so we are supposed to be.
 
Because here’s the thing: we can’t love God and hate our neighbor at the same time. Love and hate do not mix. It’s that simple. John couldn’t have been any more clear in his letter when he writes, “those who do not love their brother and sister whom they can see, cannot love God who they cannot see.”
 
Or to say it differently, we can’t call ourselves Christians and continue to promote wars that kill people and destroy communities. We can’t allow injustice and poverty to hamper anyone from thriving. As Christ showed with his own life, God was willing to risk it all for agape. But are we willing to do the same?
 
Love has many faces, but it also has many challenges.

It is a risky endeavor. One that asks us to become visible and vulnerable. Many of us have been hurt by love in the past. We’ve had our hearts broken or taken advantage of. The wounds cut deep, I get that. I’ve been there.

But like John writes, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18a).
 
If God is love, then anyone made in God’s image can embrace, share, and thrive in agape. Through Christ Jesus, God’s love came to us in the flesh to show us what that means.

With the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, agape flows through us so we can fearlessly and faithfully embrace our call: to love God, love others, and serve both.
 
To quote Curry one last time, “The way of love will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is our moral and spiritual grounding – and a place of rest – amid the chaos that is often part of life. It’s how we stay decent in indecent times.”
 
Agape doesn’t require us to be perfect or worthy. Just willing. As God’s love was made perfect in Jesus, so too has Jesus made you perfect, completely worthy in spite of your flaws. God loves you as you are, not as you should be. 
 
Jesus showed the world how God loves beyond fidelity and infidelity, beyond worthiness and unworthiness, in our state of grace and in our state of disgrace.

​Whatever you have done or left undone, it’s impossible for God not to love you!  God is love. And you are loved…no matter what.
 
The world is starving for this good news. There are too many broken hearts and darkened souls among us. They have allowed hatred and fear to dictate the conversation. Violence and greed have become acceptable norms.
 
Jesus calls out into the world to share the gospel by being the very face of it. He sends us to bring the good news to life in all the ways we live into our belovedness. So why are we still sitting here?

From love we were made in the image of God. And for love we are sent to be the face of God in this sacred space we call Anamesa.
 
Love is the way. Love is the reason. Love is our purpose.  Our highest priority.

Love has many faces. But is one of them yours?
 

 
 
 
Work Cited
Bartlett, David L. And Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word Year B, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008).
Curry, Michael. Love is the Way. (New York: Penguin, 2020).
Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel. (New York: Random House, 1990).