Dr. John Young 2/15/09

Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville

Love Is Different from Lust, Gluttony, Greed or Possession

            We have just celebrated the marriages of many of our members. Every one of us knows quite a bit about love, and no one knows nearly all there is to know about love. Most of us have wounds and heart-aches, disappointments and continued quandaries about love to match our joys and fulfillments in love.

            Since August, I have been considering the traditional Western virtues and sins, both the ancient Greco-Roman and the traditional Christian versions. Aristotle and other Greek philosophers spoke of love in terms of eros [romantic and sexual love], filia [friendship and collegial, neighborly love], and agape [undemanding, spiritual love]. Christians elevated agape as their universal standard for love, which has tended to secularize friendly love and to animalize erotic love, which I believe have been substantial errors for both truth and practicality in Western culture.

            Apostle Paul provided the classic Christian standards for love, in 1^st Corinthians 13, repeated at least in outline often in weddings:

“Though I speak with the tongues of people even angels, if I do have not love I am only sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, understand mysteries and all knowledge; even have faith to move mountains, without love I am nothing. Though I give my possessions to the poor, sacrifice my body, without love there is no reward. Love suffers long, is kind, envies not, does not boast, is not proud. Love is not selfish or easily provoked, does not think of evil. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Prophecies fail, words cease, knowledge vanishes. Faith, hope, and love, these three endure, and love is the greatest of the three.”

            Love is the climactic virtue for Christians. UUCJ begins our Spoken Affirmation at the end of each service with “love is the doctrine of this church.” It must be of central importance what love means and does not mean. How will we love effectively in our lives?

President Obama included verse 11, which I left out of the above as it is often left out in wedding ceremonies: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, understood as a child, thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things.”

            If we are going to love effectively we do need to act as responsible adults. That is hard to do, perhaps particularly difficult to persist in doing in our most intimate relationships, our love relationships. Yet, people are less or more than human if we do not often lust after our romantic partners, sometimes have greedy, gluttonous desires of our partner, and are possessive with our children and grandchildren, friends and sometimes with colleagues or favored UUCJ companions. In the midst of trying to love it is so tempting, so easy to fall over into excess because central to the flow and rhythm of love is an ecstatic, wild, joyful abandon. Love hardly seems to be love without periods of childish excess, and some reversions to a childish or adolescent consciousness and playfulness.

            We need to retain some attitudes of a child or adolescent in our love relationships in order to keep the juice going, to retain the flow and rhythm of animal and romantic love. Simultaneously, we nee to work diligently at being as mature and adult as we can be in our love relationships. I am arguing for disciplined lust without falling over into greed, moments of romantic gluttony or excess with those we love in bouts of play and sheer joy even wild moments, without giving in to a belief that your love objects are your possessions or that you have any right to control them.

            It is useful to remember the most popular Jewish or Old Testament term for love, hesed, which means loving-kindness. Hesed occurs 245 times in the Old Testament. And also to use the Golden Rule as a minimum standard for our behavior in love relationships: if you want respect, affirmation, benevolence, admiration, cooperation in shared interests, and an equitable division of power from your loving partners; then, you need to consistently give them the loving kindness of expecting these virtues of yourself.

Since Creation made us life-long lustful beings, I do not think lust in itself is unnatural or sinful, but it is easy to allow lust to objectify some objects of our lust, and then, we are treating them as things and not people. I think we need to discipline this tendency to objectify carefully. Objectification is harmless, to those objectified and to us when we objectify others.

            Romance is fulfilling and a delightful set of emotions. Enduring love relationships deserve some continuing sense of romance. No one wants their partner to feel that they are interchangeable with others or continually desires the harshest honesty or realism from their partner. However, we need to continue remember that romance is imaginary. In a healthy love relationship, lust and romance are seasonings of their union while honesty and realism, reliability and trust, accountability and responsibility are the muscles and blood of the relationship.

            Enduring love is built upon a foundation of loving kindness, mutual respect, and the sharing of power so that lust can have its moments and so romance never disappears. The bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom for most of us. Many of us do end up living portions of our lives alone, and that too certainly has its satisfactions and rewards, but all of us deserve and most of us discover that we can negotiate fulfilling love relationships that endure, and most of us for most of our lives strive to have or hope to find such relationships.

            If we would work a bit harder to maximize the proportion of our love that was an agape consciousness not only would the world be a much better place, but all of us would be happier and more fulfilled people. Our congregations are organized training grounds for agape consciousness, not just to understand and talk about love but to learn how to effectively practice loving relationships in our daily lives.

            If we would also continue to liberate ourselves from the prevalent Western religious mistakes that the erotic and filial forms are love are sinful, we would be happier and better people. I think that the way to keep lust, gluttony, greed, and romance under control are to test them each time by the standards of the Golden Rule: how do you want to be treated, how do you think this other person wants to be treated, and do so, and by the Old Testament’s favorite word for love, hesed, loving-kindness. If you think you are getting too possessive, perhaps objectifying the object of your affections, test your feelings and deeds by the standards of loving-kindness. Are your acts of love, your daily practices of love and affection, acts of loving-kindness? If not, perhaps you are allowing your love to become too immature and selfish. You may be turning your beloved, even your friend or colleague into an object instead of a person. You may be trying to possess what can only properly be embraced, celebrated, and admired.