Sermon Extra…When Love Hurts
Note: Some thoughts don’t quite make it into the sermon for various reasons. Here’s one thought from this past week I wanted to share as an extra.
What about pain related to Love? Sometimes loving a neighbor is painful. If they are suffering, you suffer with them. If they are angry, it’s easy to want to keep a distance. If they are overly negative, you may need to protect your own hopefulness. What should you do?
A few thoughts: if someone is grieving, mere presence can be a powerful act of love. Often we worry about saying the wrong thing when someone is sad. Many times there’s no right thing to say anyway. Sitting with someone in their grief is often enough to demonstrate your loving care for them. In Judaism, they “sit in shiva” when a loved one dies. Fellow mourners will quietly attend to the daily needs of the grieved.
If someone is angry, that’s often an expression of grief: maybe the loss of trust, safety, innocence, or relationship. How to love an angry person: it’s tough because too much distance abandons an angry person in their grief. But too little distance can feel controlling. There’s no magic formula, but a steady, calm presence can often be a saving grace for the angry one.
Finally, I was thinking of this famous quote from MLK, Jr: “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love”. This feels like the love a parent has for a child who has done wrong. When a child does wrong, the parent’s love can be expressed as disappointment, especially when we know the child can do better. Perhaps, we have a deep and strong belief in the potential of the child. But a moment of selfishness or disdain seems to sully that potential. The parent disappointedly corrects the child. The disappointment is a shadowy element of love in that it recognizes the moment while still believing in the potential. Dr. King applied this logic to his disappointment in the country over the scourge of segregation. Perhaps when “our own” people do wrong, be it family, state or nation, we can remember that this feeling of disappointment is ultimately a signal of the love and belief we have.
So when we love our neighbors, let us not be dissuaded by moments or seasons of difficulty. Love is patient and it is strong. Call on the power of love to guide you through the storms of life…