Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis February 5, 2006

Colossians 3:12-17

The Love of Our Lives: 1. “Taking Down the Walls”

Today we’re starting a sermon series on “The Love of Our Lives.” One of you asked this week, “Are you going to define love...? When somebody's saying, "He gets drunk and kicks me down the stairs every Saturday night, but I looove him!" I really wonder what love means to them.”

Good point! That’s an unhealthy form of erotic love. The New Testament uses two different words for love–philial love and agape love. Philial love is the uniting energy inside us that connects us as individual people into families and friendships and churches. This church is a great conduit of this kind of love. And the more we share it, the more of it there is.

But what Barb and I want to focus on this month is how to more fully love the people that are closest to us–close enough for us to see every flaw, and for them to know all our vulnerabilities.

Listen to how Ann Lamott opens one of her chapters in her book Plan B.:

I need to put in a quick disclaimer so that when I say what I’m about to say, you will know that the truest thing in the world is that I love my son more than life itself. I would rather be with him, talk to him, and watch him grow than do anything else on earth. Okay?

So: I woke up one morning not long ago and lay in bed trying to remember whether; the night before, I had actually threatened to have his pets put to sleep, or whether I had only insinuated that I would no longer intercede to keep them alive when, because of his neglect, they began starving to death.

I’m pretty sure I only threatened not to intercede. But there have been other nights when I’ve made worse threats, thrown toys off the deck into the street, and slammed the door to his room so hard that things fell off his bookshelf. I have screamed at him with such rage for ignoring me that you would have thought he’d tried to set my bed on fire.

Now we’re where the rubber really meets the road, aren’t we? How do we love people who are so close to us that their humanness and our humanness sometimes collide, and people get hurt?

It is said that in any situation, we have the choice of two basic responses: fear or love. Let’s look at fear. Fear comes up in us when we perceive that we are powerless, deprived, alone, or being attacked or rejected. Fear triggers powerful chemicals in our body to mobilize a response. In animals, fright usually leads to fight or flight. But we humans are more civilized and sophisticated. So we might fight back with a biting remark, like “You’re one to talk, aren’t you?” Or we might take flight into sullen silence designed to punish the other person while we lick our wounds. And so our behavior is likely to trigger fear and anger in the other person.

Most of us have accumulated enough wounds to carry fear inside us. We might anticipate rejection and see it when it isn’t there. Or we might get jealous and possessive in an attempt to hold onto love. Or we might get controlling and demanding so we don’t feel so vulnerable. Or we might keep our feelings and needs hidden inside us so we don’t feel exposed and vulnerable. How much of our “niceness” is really a mask for fear? Each of these strategies builds a wall between ourselves and the people in our lives, and blocks love from flowing between us, and leaves us feeling more alone, separate and afraid.

Now notice that the things that block and sabotage the flow of love in our relationships are barriers that we create ourselves through our fears. I have seen and experienced in myself over and over again that when we release the fear in us, and all the resentments that fear attaches to itself like velcro, our spirits just naturally open up and blossom in their capacity to give and receive love.

You always have within you the capacity for loving fully and perfectly. That’s how your spirit was made. You don’t have to become a saint or a spiritual athlete or even a more patient person. All you have to become is yourself! And that means releasing all that’s not yourself.

So let me suggest some steps that can help you get love flowing again when it’s gotten blocked up by fear in any of its forms. This sermon can be of real practical help to you today if you think of a specific situation in your life recently where the love has gotten blocked.

The first step to is to release the fear that you’re a bad person for having a hard time loving people when they push your buttons and drive you nuts. You’re not a bad person. You’re just a human person. I recently received a piece written by a veterinarian who had to put a family’s beloved dog to sleep. The parents thought it was important for their four-year-old boy to be present, and the vet wondered if such a young boy would be able to understand and deal with it. But as the doctor was getting ready to give Sparky the lethal injection, the boy said, “I think I know why dogs don’t live as long as people. If we’re here to learn how to be kind and loving, dogs learn real fast, but people have to live a lot longer before they learn it.”

So the question isn’t, Why haven’t you already learned to be as loving as a dog? Our lives are more complicated, so it takes us longer. The important question is, Are you learning from your experiences as you go along? Self blame only adds to the wall of fear. Awareness allows you to work with it.

So the next thing you can do is to be aware of when the walls go up, and then work on naming the fear that blocked the love. Maybe you catch your kid taking something that belongs to someone else. The fear alarms go off: “What kind of parent will people think I am if my kid’s stealing stuff?” Or maybe it triggers the feelings you had when you got caught by your parents and whupped or shamed for it. Or if your spouse refuses your request for affection or speaks to you sharply, it might set off fears that you’re being rejected and unloved.

With practice, you can learn to catch your internal fear reaction in your awareness before you lash out or shut down. Then you really gain the power to manage the dynamics of your relationship. Learning to love is not about the other person learning to be perfect so you can love them! It’s about you learning how to love them even when they’re not perfect. And awareness of your fears is where the learning begins.

Once we are aware of our fears and see them for what they are, we can release them to God. There are different ways you can do this. You can turn them over to God as you name them one by one. You can meditate, and let your fears go breath by breath. You can listen to music or go out for a walk or play racket ball to work the fears out of your body. Releasing your fears opens you to a truth that’s deeper then any of them--you are loved fully and totally, now and for eternity. And as you ground yourself in that love, you have the power to bring love into any situation.

I recently read about a married couple that set aside time to go out to a movie and dinner together. Jim noticed that Kathy was being quiet and maybe a little unsettled. “Is there anything wrong?” he asked as he drove. “No. Everything’s okay. I’m fine.”

When they got to the mall where the theater was, they we early. He said, “Shall we go?”

“If you don’t mind, Jim, I think I just need a little time to myself. I don’t know what it is, but I think I’d feel better if I could just have a few minutes alone. Could we meet in front of the theater at 5:45?”

“Fine.” He got out and closed the door. “What’s with her?” he wondered. “Here we’ve set aside time to be together. If she doesn’t really want to be with me, I could be working on my cabinets in the basement. And why doesn’t she want to be with me? I can’t think of anything I did that would annoy her. Why does she have to be so moody? I just can’t figure her out.”

After a few minutes of this self talk as he wandered around the mall, he was able to step out of his wounded ego and explore the bigger picture. “If I did do something that bothered her, I know I’m mature enough to own up to it and work it out with Kathy. I try to be a good husband to her, and I know she knows that. Our relationship is certainly stronger than her moods. I know I need time to myself sometimes, like working on projects in the basement. She’s probably feeling a little bad that she had to ask for time for herself when we were going out together.”

He realized he had passed a flower shop. He went back in and got a single stem rose and put its stem in his back pocket as he walked toward the theater. She smiled when she saw him coming, and gave him a hug when he came up to her. “Thanks for understanding, Honey. I just needed a few minutes to catch up to myself.”

Jim pulled the rose from out of his back pocked and presented to her. “I love you,” he said. She was obviously touched, and they walked into the theater with their arms around each other.

Jim had felt a small barrier coming up between them. Instead of reinforcing it, he removed it, by moving from fear to love.

Love grows in our lives, not by winning at the game of getting love from the people we want to love us, but by tapping into the mystery that there is always and forever enough love for us, and for everyone, through the power of the One who loves us all. Love flows into us only when we allow it to flow through us to others.

So now maybe we’re ready to hear these words from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, not as flowery, idealized words of scripture, but as practical guidance for the love of our lives (read Colossians 3:12-17).

May the spirit and power of this love connect us deeply with everyone we share our lives with.