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Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues
Trying to understand
What is real love?
Context
The continuing war following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 22 February 2022 led historian Timothy Snyder in May 2024 to compare the situation in Europe with that in 1938, thus implying that the world might be on the brink of a third world war, as Vladimir Putin had already suggested.
It was reported in June this year that 92 countries are currently involved in conflicts beyond their borders: the highest number since the second world war. Since June, especially with last week’s escalation of conflict in the Middle East, that number seems likely to have increased.
Support for conflict is sought by political and military leaders through appeals to people’s love of their countries, and implicitly or explicitly to their hatred of countries perceived as enemies. But the idea of love or hatred of a country can serve to disguise the fact that they are really talking about love or hatred of people, rather than of land. War, while it may render land, buildings and infrastructure unusable, has its most devastating effect on human beings, especially children.
The same is true of human relationships. People may be disciplined or punished by the restriction of their access to material resources, including food and water, but it is damage to their minds that has the greatest impact, again especially on children.
Ideas for sermons or interactive talks
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them,” wrote the author of 1 John 4.16b. It’s been wryly suggested (by me, anyway!) that we might have done better if no other part of the Bible had survived the turmoil of the Church’s early Councils on the canon of Scripture, because it can often seem that all the other writings serve only to complicate this statement of the nature of God, and of God’s relationship with human beings. But, of course, there’s more to it than that.
Everything hangs on the definition of that word “love”:
- Wars have been fought and atrocities perpetrated with all sides asserting their love of God as the reason for maiming and slaughtering the perceived enemy. Is this love?
- Vast numbers of Christians have tortured and killed other Christians over disagreements on points of belief: the brutality often justified as “punishing the body to save the soul”. Is this love?
- Corporal punishment has often been accompanied by the words, “It’s for your own good.” Is this love?
Or is real love shown in Job quietly accepting the loss of everything he has, rather than shake anyone else’s faith in God? Or in Jesus and his countless followers who would rather die than harm another person?
Questions for discussion
Discuss some of these quotations:
- “The price of peace is to abandon greed and replace it with giving, so that none will be spiritually injured by having more than they need while others in the world still have less than they need” – Peace Pilgrim.
- “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love” – Mahatma Gandhi.
- “The only alternative to war is peace and the only road to peace is negotiations" – Golda Meir.
- “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way…” – St Paul.
- “The world would have peace if the men of politics would only follow the Gospel” – Bridget of Sweden.
- “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything” - Katherine Hepburn.
- “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people” – Vincent Van Gogh.
- “Love is the great miracle cure” – Louise L Hay.
Robert Beard is an NHS worker and Church of England priest.
Check-in
Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people
In the lectionary this week we are introduced to Job. It is an interesting passage – Job is “blameless and upright” – he is a good person – and yet the Lord and Satan conspire to attack him with painful sores. His wife is surprised at how calm he is in the face of all this – but Job says he will look for the good in this and every situation.
What are we to make of this difficult story? Job is well behaved and surely deserving of good treatment, and yet he is persecuted. It is a reminder of all the sadness and injustice in the world, whether caused by natural disasters or human behaviour.
In the news this week we are reading of the continued effects of Hurricane Helene in the United States where hundreds of people are dead or missing, billions of dollars in damage has been done, and now politicians are arguing over the relief money. Amongst all of this are lives and homes ruined and changed forever.
Why all this has happened to innocent communities and places can be difficult to understand and deal with. However, in God was have trust and we have hope. God is love who, in his Son Jesus Christ, united all things in himself on the Cross.
We won’t always understand. But we know that, for Job, things end well and we can have hope in the one true God who loves us.
Joe Allen was educated all over the country as the son of an Army Chaplain. Following BA and MA Theology study at the University of Exeter, he coordinates the work of a fundraising charity at a major London Cathedral. Within the Church of England he has variously worked as a Pastoral Assistant and Parish Administrator in the Dioceses of Southwark and Norwich. He is a trustee of the charity Action for Stammering Children.
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