"Love And The Two-Way-Street
Myth" Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler
– December 8, 2013 Centenary United
Psalm 72:1-7; Isaiah 11:1-10 One of the familiar sayings of modern-day living is that
love is a two-way-street.
Is this true?
This two-way street
business is more like a transaction.
For example, we might give a bag of canned or dry goods for
Transactional love is an
arrangement where we want to receive
a return on our
investment.
A lot of what we call love is
more like a business transaction.
Our true motivation to love is often shrouded by unrecognized
values that are mixed among the thoughtful activities in which we
engage. For example, during the Christmas season a husband might ask his
wife, “Should we continue to send a card to the Outerbridges?
We haven’t gotten a Christmas greeting from them in years.”
Or, the wife might say, “I think we ought to revise our list of
invitations to the Open House.
We have been doing this for five years and have any of these
people ever invited us into their home?” We easily get the point.
Can we think of a time when we did something wonderful in secret?
Can we remember the last time we selflessly gave of ourselves and
we were not expecting to receive a “thank you”?
What happens to us when we have given someone
the world and there is no
acknowledgement? Is there a
twinge of hurt? If we have
experienced this, we can more readily empathize with God because God
literally has given us the world.
How many people on our planet are lined up to say, “Thank you” or
treat this gift with the utmost respect?
Fortunately, God’s love
is a one-way street.
God needs absolutely nothing from human beings. The Gospel writer Luke knew this about God’s nature when he
wrote:
God, who made the
world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not
live in temples made by human hands.
Nor does God need
anything that we can supply by working for him since it is God who
freely gives life, breath and everything else to everyone.”
(Acts 17:25) There are a number
of examples in human experience, however, where human love mirrors the
one-way street that Divine
love represents. Back in the 1970s, When she entered the theatre where the babies were being fed, she
beheld the most germ and virus free environment possible.
The staff had positioned sterilized glass bottles of pumped
breast milk in stainless steel holders.
Babies were positioned with blankets and pillows so that their
mouths connected with the nipples on those bottles during feeding time.
There was no risk of contamination because there was no human contact.
The guest doctor recommended to the staff that they bring the
mothers into the area during feeding time so they could hold their
babies as they were feeding them.
She speculated that the infants were dying because their
environmental change was too traumatic.
The sound of the mother’s heart beat was gone along with the
warmth and security of the mother’s womb.
The infants awakened to sterile surroundings with no one to hold
them and love them. Once
the mothers were brought back to feed their babies, the mortality rate
dropped dramatically. The
energy of a mother’s love is a
one-way street. Even though we may live in adult bodies, all of us are children
that need love from
one-way-givers. People
around us may be exhibiting calls
for love, but those calls can easily go unrecognized.
What happens to those people among us who are starved for
recognition, validation and approval?
Just like infants and
children, adults need to know that they matter.
Letting others know this requires very little effort on our part.
Why withhold it? This morning we have
lighted the Second Advent Candle of Love.
The coming of Jesus into
our world gave us a clear window through which to view
one-way love.
What prevents people from
experiencing love? One of
the issues that used to haunt me as a child was why the religious
authorities refused to see the loving spirit of Jesus.
What he was saying and doing during his ministry was so obvious
even to other students in my Sunday school class.
Why would a man who taught
The Golden Rule be
killed? However, just because
the message of love was not received by some people, does not mean that
it was unworthy of being sent.
Did the execution of Jesus cover the light that was allowing love
to stream into our world?
Absolutely not!
Today,
instead of having one light that
was radiating love to those living in an obscure part of the world
centuries ago, there are now hundreds of millions of sources of divine
love in every populated area.
Jesus could not stop
loving people even when he realized that few were coming to hear his
messages. He knew they were
coming to experience or witness his healing touch.
How could ten individuals be cleansed of their leprosy and yet
only one came back to say, “Thank you”?
We may remember Bartimaeus who received his sight when he had
been born blind. Religious
leaders questioned this man repeatedly about how the healing happened.
After he told them, he said, “Maybe if you became one of his
disciples, you will understand how I was healed.” They threw Bartimaeus
out of the synagogue. (John
9:13-34)
How can human beings be so blind
to the presence of love? Is it any wonder that Jesus said, “ During the years when I was surrounded with junior and senior high teenagers, I did a series of lessons on expressing one-way love. It did not surprise me that few of the teenagers had ever told their parents how much they loved them. During the years of adolescence, teenagers are into asserting their autonomy. These are the years that are dominated by issues focused on self-interest. Often expressing love is a developmental task that is among the last that teenagers engage in. For example, a teenager stopped by the office one afternoon and started complaining about how controlling her parents were. She said, “They monitor and find fault with everything I do!” She told me that her mother would not allow her to wear short skirts when all the other girls were wearing them. She said, “My mom is a prude.” Further, she told me that her
mother would not allow her to apply lipstick, blush, eye-shadow and
mascara the way she wanted.
Her father joined the exchange between his wife and daughter by saying,
“Karen, female cosmetics are like spices.
They enhance the flavor of food without drawing attention to
themselves. You are wearing
war-paint that makes you look
like a two-bit hooker.” Her father had a rather intriguing way with
words. Since Karen and I had a good relationship, I sent her a note of
encouragement after our meeting and enclosed a column written by Abigail
Van Buren. In one of her weekly columns of
Dear Abby, she provided the
following quote, “Attention all Teenagers! Are you sick and tired
of being hassled by your stupid parents? Move out. Get a
job. Pay your own bills. Act now while you still know everything.”
Karen got my point. I asked my youth groups to write notes to their parents that told
them how much they appreciated all that their parents were doing for
them and to tell them how much they loved them.
This exercise was like pulling teeth with this bunch of kids.
They kept saying, “I can’t do this!” However, like most of the
experiential lessons I gave them, failure to follow through was not an
option. They were to slip
these notes into their father’s briefcase or among the pillow cases
where their moms would find them.
The second week they were mysteriously to begin doing chores
around the house. They were
to run the vacuum, meticulously clean their rooms, wash the car, and
generally be helpful around the house even when they did not feel like
it. After this behavior was
introduced into their homes, I began to get calls from a good number of
parents that wanted to know if their kids were in trouble.
The change in the behavior and attitudes of their children was so
dramatic the parents became suspicious that something was up.
This was not normal.
Once the kids learned that their parents were freaking out by their new
behavior and attitudes, they really ratcheted up their activity and
began complimenting how physically attractive their parents looked and
how delicious their meals were.
Two of the girls started to sort their fathers’ socks.
The meetings on Sunday nights were enthusiastic and dramatically
spirited. The kids could not
stop talking about what was happening to their parents.
One mother asked her daughter if she were pregnant.
As many of them shared stories of their parents’ responses, they
laughed uncontrollably.
One-way love really impacted them.
They were learning about the
power of an unseen, unrecognized energy-pattern that produces instant
results in most environments. This was the power that Jesus revealed during his ministry. This
is why we lighted the candle of love this morning.
God created the material
world for all people -- Noble Prize winners and terrorists alike.
(Matthew 5:45)
This gift allows each individual
to choose who they want to become.
Jesus’ message to all of us is that
one-way love is the same love
that God gives away. When
we give our love away as God does, we can change our world.
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