All You Need is Love--Really!

“All You Need Is Love – Really!”
Ecclesiastes 5: 18-19, I John 3: 23-24 and John 13: 33-35

I grew up with the Beatles and I believe they were and continue to be the most creative and significant force in popular music history. To be sure the early musicians before the Beatles who blended the various music idioms -- gospel, delta blues, jazz, country and others -- to craft rock and roll were creative geniuses and critically important to the development of modern popular music. Muddy Waters, James Lee Hooker, and Carl Perkins -- the list of the founders of modern popular music is long. And equally many of those who have followed the Beatles have been enormously talented, creative and amazingly innovative, transforming the old forms of popular music into new expressions hardily imaginable.

But the Beatles music has remarkable staying power. It is still popular with a uniquely broad range of ages. It has influenced countless musicians. It has stood the test of time. And the Beatles music itself was not static -- it evolved in remarkable ways -- almost always to produce a new sound as popular though different than what had came before it. “I Want to Hold Your Hand -- their first big hit in this country -- bears little resemblance to the haunting melodies and words of Michele or Norwegian Wood or the wonderful silliness of Yellow Submarine.

One of the common threads throughout their music is the focus in the lyrics -- whether written by Lennon, McCartney or Harrison -- on “love”. Indeed, nearly 10% of the songs they wrote have the word “love” in the title. Perhaps, the most famous of these is All You Need Is Love, which we will sing in a few moments.

Wonderful lyrics! Anyone who has ever loved or been loved by another would acknowledge having a special feeling when in love and would acknowledge that love transforms one for the better. Indeed, wouldn’t we all agree -- almost anything seems possible when in love. But, of course, these lyrics aren’t really true –are they?

One of the more poignant moments when I helped out with the Outdoor Church – a ministry to the homeless in the Boston area -- was to encounter two teenage runaways -- a young man and a young woman -- in terrible shape, living on the Cambridge streets with nothing. They professed that all they needed was their love for each other though I could see they were sick and malnourished. We all need food and shelter. There is a lot of love alive and well in Haiti and yet the people there desperately need food, clean water, permanent shelter, medical care, jobs and education. The old adage that you can’t live on love like most clichés contains more than a kernel of truth. So can we dismiss the Beatles’ lyrics as wonderfully romantic but hopelessly naïve? No, there’s more to consider.

Both of our New Testament scripture passages -- one from the gospel of John and one John’s first letter to the early church -- reference the Great Commandment about love:

We have heard the words of the Great Commandment many times, so many times that we lose sight of what they mean. First, the commandment says nothing directly about providing for the necessities of life for oneself or for another. It doesn’t say anything about finding happiness and joy or bringing these to others. There is nothing about insuring freedom and liberty for all. The commandment simply states that the most important thing is to love each other. And what kind of love is this? It certainly isn’t telling us that we must feel towards all others what we feel for those special people in our lives. Quite clearly, the love Jesus commands us to practice – is, as Frederick Buechner says, “not primarily an emotion but an act of will.”[1] This kind of love comes from the head more than from the heart. William Barclay, the Scottish writer and theologian, wrote this about this

To be sure some of our ability to love others comes from our heart. We encounter many people in life who are lovable, particularly our family and friends. But there is more to this commandment than loving those folks. Unfortunately, this commandment doesn’t say that it only applies to others who are polite, kind, friendly or clean -- in other words people like us. Like God’s love of us – the love Jesus refers to includes, loving the leper, the criminal, our enemies, the superior, and the sneering.[3]

From where does such love come? It resides within each of us – the product of our conscious thought and of a sense of our deep connection to God’s amazing and profoundly good creation. We know and feel that what happens in Haiti, what happens in Rwanda, what happens in Chechnya affects all of humanity. But the spur to love our neighbors comes not simply from within but at the same time from beyond ourselves. In and through God’s love of us no matter what -- comes the grace for us to love our neighbors no matter what.

Clearly, we have a choice whether to love our neighbors or not. It is a matter of will and intention. I was reminded this week of the choices we make throughout our life in an e-mail that I got. You know the kind – containing beautiful pictures, pithy statements and the admonition to pass it on. I get a lot of these. I suspect because people believe these messages are meant for clergy – in the same way a fruitcake is a wonderful Christmas gift for one’s minister. But this e-mail hit home more than most. It contained several statements about what we will be asked when we stand at the “Pearly Gates” seeking admission into heaven. Here are several of them

This list prompted me to think about it what it means to love one’s neighbor. To do so doesn’t mean we ignore the necessities of life. In that hypothetical moment at the Pearly Gates, we will not be faulted for having a secure and effective roof over our heads, nutritious food on the table, or adequate savings for education and retirement. We need such basics to live life -- as those two wayward teens were finding out living on the streets of Cambridge. Our faith does not require poverty or ignoring the necessities of life -- it does, however, command love. As that e-mail implies to love others means that our own accumulation of things is not an end in itself but simple the necessary structure that allows us to look beyond ourselves and to help others. And such love is the most powerful force in life because – it brings and preserves life.

Some years ago I encountered a man at my church in DC. Over time he became a pillar in the church -- tirelessly and successfully leading its outreach efforts. Over coffee one day I asked him where he got his zeal and tenacity to help others. He said, “I never knew my biological parents. My earliest memories are of an orphanage run by a catholic order. The nuns were kind and life was OK. And then one day an older couple I had never seen came and took me home. They provide for me, loved me and adopted me as their son.” He said, “They gave me life through their love of one who was a stranger.” And, of course, who can forget the story of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. How an escaped convict is transformed by the generosity and love of the Bishop of Digne. Remember how the Bishop does not turn Valjean in for theft but says when Valjean is apprehended and brought to him by the police, “I’m glad to see you. But I gave you the candlesticks, too … which are silver like the rest … Why didn’t you take them along with the cutlery.” And then he says to the police, “please let him go.”[4] Though this story is fiction the power of love in the real world is no less miraculous.

The power of love, however, is not confined to the recipient of that love. When we love another we too are transformed. To love another makes us more sensitive to the world around us. Our vision no longer rests on ourselves but our eyes and thoughts are drawn up and out to others and to our surroundings. One cannot love another and not become sensitive to what happens to the other. Indeed, at times the beloved‘s well-being becomes more important than our own. We become more vulnerable too. The pain endured by others becomes our pain. The oppression and discrimination that befalls others becomes real to us.

The great commandment tells us to love our neighbor because in doing so both our neighbor and we will be transformed. Long before the Beatles, Emily Dickinson wrote, “love can do all but raise the dead.”[5] The story of Easter suggests that God’s love can even do that. So maybe love isn’t all we need but it makes everything else possible. “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done with love, love.” And nothing is more important than love. I think that‘s what the Beatles meant. And didn’t they get it right! Amen

[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking A Seeker’s ABC ( New York: Harper Collins, 1993) p. 63

[2] William Barclay, More New testament Words (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1958) p. 15

[3] C.S. Lewis quoted in Robert Luccock, On Becoming The Best We Can Be (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1991) p. 141

[4] Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (Boston: Little, Brown) p. 160-161, quoted in Luccock, p. 180.

[5] Quoted in Luccock p.150