A Sermon by Pastor Eun-sang Lee
preached February 16, 2003
Mark 1:40-45
I want to talk about love today.
St. Valentine was martyred for the faith on February 14, 270, at Rome under Emperor Claudius. While imprisoned he ministered to both prisoners and guards, living in and spreading God's love in Christ even in persecution. The connection of the feast day of this saint with a celebration of lovers seems to have roots in the Roman Lupercalia festival, which took place on February 15. St. Valentine's Day has lost most of its religious meaning; however for Christians, it still points to the unconditional love of Christ Jesus and a gracious God who blesses those who love one another.
Two short stories of unconditional love:
One, a group of clergy and laity of our Metropolitan District went to Glide Memorial UMC in San Francisco to learn from its thriving urban ministry in the heart of downtown San Francisco. The program is called Empowerment Journey. What impressed one participant most--more than all the urban ministry programs and the inspiring worship service in which the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor of San Francisco worshiped next to each other that provided a glimpse of God's kingdom--was the three core values of Glide Memorial, which the people of the church constantly lift up. They become the guiding spirit in every decision making. They were: 1) to stand with the marginalized and the most vulnerable of the society; 2) diversity is not a burden to be tolerated but a gift to be appreciated and embraced; and, guess what the third is: "Unconditional love and forgiveness."
Two, last summer I visited my younger sister in Toronto. I had left my home in South Korea when I was still young, in my twenties. She was just finishing up her first year in college then, and I had seen her four or five times during the twenty some years since in my short visits to Korea. My visits are usually spread thin among many family members and friends, and afford little time to connect with her in meaningful ways. She had moved to Canada in December, 2001. So it was really the first time I had quality extended time and conversation with her. I learned a lot about my sister, about her struggles growing up in the same household I grew up in. We got to talk about how, through different journeys, we'd got to where we were, how we'd found healing in God's love. Then she said something I won't forget. She said, it was through her husband's love that she had learned what unconditional love was like. God's love flowed through my brother-in-law and created a sanctuary where my sister safely took on the journey toward healing. What would it look like if I had had that quality, I wondered. And I wonder what would our home, our church, look like if we habitually lived in God's love?
That kind of love is more than the romantic love that we feel a lot in the air around this time, way more, in fact it is a different kind of love. In so many cases if we are not aware, and it is difficult to be conscious of, our hunger for romantic love is rooted in our unfulfilled psychological needs for acceptance and safety.
"We live in a culture that glorifies passionate, romantic love. Just listen to love songs, read love poems, plays and novels. You'll find what advertisers know: that most people consciously and unconsciously want to find love that feels good and lasts,"writes Jamey Collins in her article, "I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you, come rain or come shine."
Let me share with you the insights of Dr. Harville Hendrix, the author of Getting the Love You Want. Below I excerpt from a Jamey Collins' article1 with minimal modification.
Dr. Hedrix says, most people might find it difficult to accept this, that psychological research shows that our quest for a romantic partner is driven by our unconscious attempt to return to a sense of wholeness/oneness that we experienced in infancy and childhood.
We are born feeling whole and connected. We are totally dependent upon our caregivers to meet our changing needs. They can't and don't always get it just right. When they miss, emotional wounds or frustrations occur. These wounds remain in the unconscious and become part of the search for nurturing and healing in adult romantic relationships."
Dr. Hendrix says that the universal language between lovers can be reduced to four sentences. Lovers make these statements, or at least experience the feelings behind them, during romantic love.
The first sounds something like this, "It's strange; I know we just met, but somehow I feel as though I already know you."
On the unconscious level, this familiarity resembles the connection with their original caregivers (often Mom and Dad). There is a sense that they will be taken care of, or never feel alone again.
Second statement: "It's weird, but I feel as if I've always known you." Dr. Hendrix calls this the phenomenon of timelessness. Unconsciously, this awareness merges the present experience with infancy when there was a sense of safety, security and total immersion.
At some point, lovers in some form express, "Being with you has filled my emptiness. I no longer feel alone--you complete me." Dr. Hendrix calls this the phenomenon of reunification. The unconscious information in this statement is that lovers have rediscovered a part of themselves that was lost or cut off in childhood as a result of emotional wounds.
Finally, lovers utter in some fashion to one another, "I love you so much. I need you with me and can't imagine life without you." Dr. Hendrix calls this the phenomenon of necessity. However subtle, these statements reflect how lovers unconsciously transfer responsibility for their survival and well-being from their parents or early caregivers to each other. They believe that, without the partner, they will lose their wholeness and revert to an incomplete self.
There's nothing wrong with romantic love. It's part of our human experience and a beginning stage of many successful, lasting love relationships. The secret is to understand why relationships built on romantic love need to progress into deeper levels of awareness. When we can see our relationship agenda consciously, we can make better choices and ask more directly for our needs to be met.
There is a healthy place for romance in mature love relationships. Giving in special ways to the one you love continues to enliven and renew excitement and interest in the relationship. Loving and caring behaviors and gift-giving help to create a sense of safety. They can help support the idea of real people loving each other in spite of flaws and imperfections.
In other words, romantic love has to be perfected in God's unconditional love. It let's us see where our unmet needs lie and what our relationship agenda is.
To differing degrees, we all bear the mark of the broken-ness of human family and human society.
In Henry Nouwen's words: "To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dream world. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness.
In us has to be created the "gentle fearless place"where we expose our deepest selves to the grace of God, where we can "be patient toward all that is unsolved in [our] heart,"and find all over again that we need God, we are children of God, that we are embraced, loved, and experience that there is real healing toward wholeness in that embrace.
New and mature relationship emerge from there.
From there we can make the move toward our fellow humans.
Healthy, life enhancing relationship comes from healthy self. Using Erich Fromm's language from his book, Art of Loving, love is not a feeling but a state of being. It is not the feeling of infatuation, but the ability to truly care for the well being of the other. If one truly knows how to love one person, the nature of love is such that one has no choice but to see that love expend to all others. Unhealthy self solicits unhealthy relationship. But we've got to remember one thing: the health, the wholeness and holiness, in Christian spirituality's sense, is not perfection. As one poet put it, it is the transparency to the grace of God. Only in love we are perfected.
In today's gospel story, the man approaches Jesus for the cure of the terrible skin disease but through Jesus' touch he receives much more. The story helps us to see that we are not fully in control of our own healing. Like the man, we come asking for one thing, but through God's love, we receive so much more.
I came across an amazing statement in the latest issue of Time magazine's special report on DNA. Since the unlocking of the basic structure of human DNA fifty years ago, so much has been known and the future possibilities so vast, the reporter wrote, "The speed of discovery leaves even our imaginations behind,"as if our human imagination will ever catch up with the mystery of the Creator of all that was, is, and is to come.
And I can testify, that all the words in the Bible can be summed up in one simple sentence, that God is love, but the realm of God's love is so vast, so infinite, it leaves our human imagination so inadequate.
My sister said it was the unconditional love shown through her husband that has taken her to the journey toward healing. That one person is the whole world to me, and I believe to God, also. What you can touch with your love is so vast, the whole universe! Imagine that!
1Jamey Collins, LCSW, e-mail distribution "New article on 'Romance'" 13 February 2003, with the permission to "share with others". Also published in Out Front Colorado (Feb. 12, 2003), entitled, "I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you, come rain or come shine."
Jamey Collins, LCSW, has a private psychotherapy practice with offices in Denver and Boulder. He has specialized in work with the GLBT community and its families for over 15 years. Jamey is a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, Certified Spiritual Counselor, and a nationally recognized writer and workshop presenter. He is available for psychotherapy, consultation, lectures and workshops. Contact Jamey by e-mail.